mndaily@ux.acs.umn.edu (Linda Seebach) (05/11/91)
In article <1991May07.103100.12997@cs.ruu.nl> ptavoly@cs.ruu.nl (Peter Tavoly) writes: >Sigh.. Utter Spectum Tauri (tm)! You still don't get the point do you? Who >do you think those 'people fed up with entering words' are? They don't have >the manual, that is why they are 'fed up'! Those who actually bought the >game did so because they valued it worthwhile, in contrast to those, who >just copied it because they could get it for free. If you play it, buy it! Bullshit. I bought the game. I still have my reciept. And I *LOATHE* entering words from a manual. Right now my computer is over at a friend's house doing some ray-tracing, and transfering files through it's serial port. I could have played any of three or four chess games, or SimCity, except that I didn't bring the manuals for all of them. It would be reasonable if the questions were at least about things you could reasonably learn. For instance: The Animation Studio (Disney) has manual lookup that tells you how many letters, and gives you enough context, that if you have a *lot* of experience with the program, you don't need the manual to enter a word. Although I could, in theory, memorize all umpteen (40 or so?) complete games from the back of the CM2100 manual, I think it's ludicrous to expect me to do so... >PS.: Manual protection schemes *cannot* be removed by commercial programs > like Project D etc. since they are embedded in the program code itself, > sometimes they are encoded as well (uhh.. from my 64 days :). Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. Back in the days before I knew either assembly (for any machine) or C, I could take a binary and break a protection scheme. It's embedded in the program itself. Oh, gee, really? I thought it was a shell script embedded in the startup-sequence. What you do, see, is you find the manual protection scheme (easy enough) and then you read through it. Somewhere, it will have two possible branches (most likely) - one back into the routine (the Failed case) and one into the rest of the program (success case). Replace the beginning of the routine with a branch to the rest of the program, and leave the rest of the routine there - it's harmless. A decent hacker can do this in about half an hour, at most. (Admittedly, I don't know if I still could - high-level languages have made me lazy.) It is most certainly *NOT* impossible. > -ThomasT. --SeebS-- (And I'm never *going* to be Linda Seebach) -- mndaily is the Minnesota Daily, and does not speak for the U of M. Linda Seebach does not speak for the Daily. --SeebS-- does not speak for Linda. Marcel Marceau speaks for no one.
ptavoly@cs.ruu.nl (Peter Tavoly) (05/13/91)
In <3901@ux.acs.umn.edu> mndaily@ux.acs.umn.edu (Linda Seebach) writes: > >>PS.: Manual protection schemes *cannot* be removed by commercial programs >> like Project D etc. since they are embedded in the program code itself, >> sometimes they are encoded as well (uhh.. from my 64 days :). > >Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. Back in the days before I knew >either assembly (for any machine) or C, I could take a binary and break >a protection scheme. It's embedded in the program itself. Oh, gee, really? >I thought it was a shell script embedded in the startup-sequence. Really? Hmm.. I thought it was Santa Claus! Such a nice man, isn't he? >What you do, see, is you find the manual protection scheme (easy enough) >and then you read through it. Somewhere, it will have two possible >branches (most likely) - one back into the routine (the Failed case) and >one into the rest of the program (success case). Replace the beginning >of the routine with a branch to the rest of the program, and leave the >rest of the routine there - it's harmless. A decent hacker can do this A decent hacker can do it with his eyes closed, while drinking hot coco. >in about half an hour, at most. (Admittedly, I don't know if I still >could - high-level languages have made me lazy.) It is most certainly >*NOT* impossible. I did not say impossible, I said that a commercial program that does not know *on beforehand* where the manual protection lies will most likely not find it, unless the programmer has put a message in his code a la: "Here I am, your friendly neighbourhood manual protection! Just change these two pointers, and I'll be gone in a huff, never to bother you again!" > >> -ThomasT. > >--SeebS-- >(And I'm never *going* to be Linda Seebach) -ThomasT. (And I am never going to be Peter either, as someone quoted me in this thread) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ____ Thomas Tavoly, Commercial Computer Science - HEAO Utrecht, NL. / / / "Whoever talks too much, has no time to think." - Peter Tavoly. AMIGA / Favourite quote: "The Mac OS is amazingly complex, ____ / / / .sig v3.0e given how little it does." - Peter da Silva \ \ \/ / / ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>> ptavoly@praxis.cs.ruu.nl <<~~~~~~~~~ \_\_\/_/