smsmith@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Steve Smith) (10/22/90)
I had a conversation/argument with a guy last night who claimed he
had fried a monitor and several hard disks when he was trying to
bypass the copy protection on floppy disks at various times.
According to him, software companies PURPOSEFULLY WRITE code into
their copy protection which, if tampered with, would make your hard
drive attempt to read non-existent sectors or send abnormal frequencies
to your monitor in order to fry/lock them up. I've certainly HUNG
a computer many times while tinkering, but it has always been my fault.
Has anybody heard of such a thing? And IS there even a way to write
codes which could do either of these destructive things? (And could
one accidentally destroy hardware by tinkering with programs--even
when it's their own fault?) It sure sounds bizarre to me.
S. "Stevie" Smith \ + /
<smsmith@hpuxa. \+++++/ " #*&<-[89s]*(k#$@-_=//a2$]'+=.(2_&*%>,,@
ircc.ohio-state. \ + / {7%*@,..":27g)-=,#*:.#,/6&1*.4-,l@#9:-) "
edu> \ + /
BTW, WYSInaWYG \ + / --witty.saying.ARCcs161fhn@sdcc10.ucsd.edu (Dennis Lou) (10/22/90)
In article <5946@nisca.ircc.ohio-state.edu> smsmith@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Steve Smith) writes: >I had a conversation/argument with a guy last night who claimed he >had fried a monitor and several hard disks when he was trying to >bypass the copy protection on floppy disks at various times. ... >Has anybody heard of such a thing? And IS there even a way to write >codes which could do either of these destructive things? (And could >one accidentally destroy hardware by tinkering with programs--even >when it's their own fault?) It sure sounds bizarre to me. Yes, you can fry a certian monitors by sending odd frequencies to it. The solution, of course is to use a multisync monitor. Monochrome monitors are the ones that susceptible, but damage is usually not instantaneous (speaking from personal experience). As for disk drives, yes you could conceivably misalign the heads by moving the stepping the head positioner beyond range. The hard disk is supposed to not let you go beyond its preset maximum number of cylinders (on the dip switches or in CMOS (for AT's and above)), but floppies can step up track numbers infinitely. The following peice of code will move the head beyond range indefinitely, thus causing a theoretical misalignment of the heads. It will probably take a while to misalign though; I wouldn't expect instantaneous results... from the c:\ prompt, run debug, then type: a xor ax,ax mov bx,ax int 13 push ds pop es mov ah,02 mov al,01 mov ch,ff mov cl,01 xor dx,dx int 13 jmp 100 ntrshdriv.com rcx 100 w trshdriv and there, your drives should be trashed after a while, but it will probably be a long while (I'm NOT speaking from experience; your mileage may vary). Any serious hacker/cracker would catch attempts to damage equipment like this before any serious damage would occur (either that or I've been very lucky in the past...) -- Dennis Lou | "But Yossarian, what if everyone thought that way?" dlou@ucsd.edu | "Then I'd be crazy to think any other way!" [backbone]!ucsd!dlou +---------------------------------------------------- dlou@ucsd.BITNET cs161fhn@sdcc10.ucsd.edu
ekalenda@cup.portal.com (Edward John Kalenda) (10/22/90)
S. "Stevie" Smith writes: > I had a conversation/argument with a guy last night who claimed he > had fried a monitor and several hard disks when he was trying to > bypass the copy protection on floppy disks at various times. then asks if software can destroy hardware. Yes, some monitors CAN be ruined by misprogramming the Video Control chip on the video adaptor. All the technical references on the 6845 that I have indicate that the control registers MUST be setup properly in as little time as possible or you risk overloading the beam control circuitry in the monitor. I've spoken with monitor designers about this now and then and they say it can happen, not all monitors are suceptible but the cheaper they are the less overload protection they have designed into them. The main consideration seems to be the sync timing. Get it off too far and the deflection circuits saturate, leading to possible overload of the high voltage transformer. I'm not an analog engineer so this is second hand from guys who are. The gist is there, but the details may be a bit off. Ed ekalenda@cup.portal.com
jones@quagmire.cs.pitt.edu (Randy Jones) (10/24/90)
In article <5946@nisca.ircc.ohio-state.edu> smsmith@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Steve Smith) writes: |I had a conversation/argument with a guy last night who claimed he |had fried a monitor and several hard disks when he was trying to |bypass the copy protection on floppy disks at various times. |According to him, software companies PURPOSEFULLY WRITE code into |their copy protection which, if tampered with, would make your hard |drive attempt to read non-existent sectors or send abnormal frequencies |to your monitor in order to fry/lock them up. I've certainly HUNG |a computer many times while tinkering, but it has always been my fault. |Has anybody heard of such a thing? And IS there even a way to write |codes which could do either of these destructive things? (And could |one accidentally destroy hardware by tinkering with programs--even |when it's their own fault?) It sure sounds bizarre to me. I've never heard of anything like this in PCs, but when my brother worked on some Wang computers (many years ago) he claimed that they had part of their copy protection scheme built in to their hardward. If you attempted to defeat it, I believe it would erase the hard disk.
tjohnson@ecst.csuchico.edu (Thomas G. Johnson) (10/28/90)
>In article <5946@nisca.ircc.ohio-state.edu> smsmith@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Steve Smith) writes: >I had a conversation/argument with a guy last night who claimed he >had fried a monitor and several hard disks when he was trying to >bypass the copy protection on floppy disks at various times. >According to him, software companies PURPOSEFULLY WRITE code into >their copy protection which, if tampered with, would make your hard >drive attempt to read non-existent sectors or send abnormal frequencies >to your monitor in order to fry/lock them up. ..... I'm not an expert, but I know enough about electronics and TV/monitor theory to know that the worst thing that will happen to a monitor if you send it the wrong frequency is that it will not lock on the picture. The sync circuits are oscillators that have their frequency controlled by receiving sync signals from the computer. If the signal is not within the frequency range of the oscillator, the oscillator will run free, and the picture will be garbage, but no damage to the circuits will occur. ____ _____ ____ | | | _ | | | tjohnson, a.k.a. Thomas G. Johnson | | | | |_| | | CSU, Chico |____| |_| |____|
wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (David Lesher) (10/28/90)
>I'm not an expert, but I know enough about electronics and TV/monitor theory >to know that the worst thing that will happen to a monitor if you send it >the wrong frequency is that it will not lock on the picture. The sync >circuits are oscillators that have their frequency controlled by receiving >sync signals from the computer. If the signal is not within the frequency >range of the oscillator, the oscillator will run free, and the picture will >be garbage, but no damage to the circuits will occur. I've heard lots of wild claims about how some secret c.p. scheme will blow up {your hard disk, computer, house, the free world} and I give them the due that other urban legends get. Most are spread by employees such a serviceman trying to preserve a monopoly. They may or may not have been told these stories as fact by their supervisors. But there is ONE that is true. It was NOT a copy protection scheme, though. The original IBEAM mono monitor was NOT built for the PeeCee. It was lifted from the old Displaywriter, an ugly box if there ever was one. That is also why the TTL mono scan rate was 50 hz, different from the 60 hz CGA. The only problem was, the horizontal sweep oscillator won't! In the absence of sync pulses, it stalls. When it stops, the flyback smokes, as virtually any TV set will. Now on a Displaywriter, this is no problem. The monitor is hardwired to the main box, and everything is controlled via one power switch. But on a PeeCee, you could turn off the CPU, and the monitor (plugged into another outlet) would keep on running, for a few seconds...... Now, you or I might have just fixed the stupid horizontal oscillator so it did what it was supposed to, but not IBEAM. Instead, they put an IEC switched outlet on the back, and fitted the monitor with a matching plug, so no one could plug it into an outlet. Presto, it went on and off with the PeeCee. There were, of course, several problems with this hack fix. First, if you wanted the CPU on the floor, the cord was too short. Second, if for some reason, the video card in the PeeCee stopped sending out horz. sync. pulses, the monitor smoked anyhow. Also, the color monitor IBEAM sold drew too much current to run off that outlet, so it HAD to come with a normal plug.... So yes, if you had an IBEAM MDA monitor, and screwed around with the display driver code for your wizz-bang-boom X-657 video card, you could smoke it. Yet another present from the folks that brought you EBCDIC, DB-25's used as Centronics ports, DB-9's used as serial ports and other such standardbreakers...... -- A host is a host from coast to coast.....wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu & no one will talk to a host that's close............(305) 255-RTFM Unless the host (that isn't close)......................pob 570-335 is busy, hung or dead....................................33257-0335
scott@blueeyes.kines.uiuc.edu (scott) (10/29/90)
And now, a slight tangent: In article <1990Oct28.141112.23619@mthvax.cs.miami.edu> wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (David Lesher) writes: >-- >A host is a host from coast to coast.....wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu >& no one will talk to a host that's close............(305) 255-RTFM >Unless the host (that isn't close)......................pob 570-335 >is busy, hung or dead....................................33257-0335 So, how do you like your Spencer gym bag? ;-) ;-) ;-) -- Scott Coleman tmkk@uiuc.edu University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign "Quoth the raven: 'Eat My Shorts!'" - Raven Bart, Simpson's Halloween Special
dhesi%cirrusl@oliveb.ATC.olivetti.com (Rahul Dhesi) (10/31/90)
Back in the early days of the PC, it was a well-known fact that some free screen-blanking programs, when operated on some machines, caused something in the monitor to burn out. I'm sure today's monitors are designed to be more resistant to this sort of thing. -- Rahul Dhesi <dhesi%cirrusl@oliveb.ATC.olivetti.com> UUCP: oliveb!cirrusl!dhesi A pointer is not an address. It is a way of finding an address. -- me
6600kjp@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (Kevin Phillips) (11/02/90)
In article <2637@cirrusl.UUCP> dhesi%cirrusl@oliveb.ATC.olivetti.com (Rahul Dhesi) writes: >Back in the early days of the PC, it was a well-known fact that some >free screen-blanking programs, when operated on some machines, caused >something in the monitor to burn out. I'm sure today's monitors are >designed to be more resistant to this sort of thing. Today's monitors may be more resistant to burnout, but it can still happen (it did to me). I made the mistake of having my Hercules card in graphics mode when I went to go answer the phone. A few minutes later, the monitor turned itself off, and never came back on again. This was app. 4 months ago. Moral of the story: Graphics modes and screensavers don't always mix. Kevin Phillips 6600kjp@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu kjp@cs.ucsb.edu
bcw@rti.rti.org (Bruce Wright) (11/04/90)
In article <5946@nisca.ircc.ohio-state.edu>, smsmith@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Steve Smith) writes: > According to him, software companies PURPOSEFULLY WRITE code into > their copy protection which, if tampered with, would make your hard > drive attempt to read non-existent sectors or send abnormal frequencies > to your monitor in order to fry/lock them up. I've certainly HUNG > a computer many times while tinkering, but it has always been my fault. > Has anybody heard of such a thing? And IS there even a way to write > codes which could do either of these destructive things? (And could > one accidentally destroy hardware by tinkering with programs--even > when it's their own fault?) It sure sounds bizarre to me. It's certainly possible on some machines for software to damage the video card/monitor or the hard disk by doing this sort of thing (as one other poster noted, it's not uncommon with video cards - especially Hercules cards, where you are often having to reprogram the video hardware yourself since the BIOS provides no support for the Hercules graphics modes). It can also happen with some combinations of hard disk controllers/drives. But I find it difficult to believe that any reasonable company would risk doing this _intentionally_ as a way to provide "punishment" for violating the copy protection. It's a good way to invite a lawsuit, and most companies tend to view copy protection (if they use it at all) as a way to stop the peons from copying the software, and to slow down the knowledgeable tinkerers. Maybe the copy protection will make it not worth the tinkerer's time, though of course some will always take that sort of thing as a challange. It is however quite _easy_ for unintelligent tinkering to fry the hardware if the software is doing things like twiddling the video hardware or disk drive (possibly to use the Hercules graphics modes, for example, or to write a copy-protect marker on the hard disk drive), and if the hardware happens to be susceptible to that sort of thing. I suspect that that's what happened to your friend ... Bruce C. Wright