[extropy-chat] FWD (SK) RFC: copy protection report

[Acy Stapp]

Dave, I can't reach your server (DNS won't resolve) but here are my
thoughts on copy protection as a game developer:

It does not work. Never. Every available copy protection scheme has
been cracked at least once, and that crack is made available to those
who want to crack other software. People will crack your copy
protection *for fun*.

USB dongles are a pain to use. When we buy software that requires one,
we find a crack so that we don't have to use it. Otherwise some of our
developers would have three or four dongles hanging off of their
machine.

At some point in your code you are going to have a function to check
the copy protection and a cracker will find this function and change
the machine code to return true.

Really your only hope is to be so obscure that noone wants your
product and no crackers want to break it.

Acy

On 11/30/05, Terry W. Colvin <fortean1 at mindspring.com> wrote:
> My boss (who is new to the company) has gotten it into his head that we
>
> absolutely MUST have copy protection on our next software product. We make
> extremely specialized test tools for development and QA engineers, not
> games or graphics apps. In the entire history of our company, we have never
> used copy protection, we've never seen any use for it.
>
> Nonetheless, the new boss is not dissuaded. To that end, I've been ordered
> to produce a report on all the available copy protection schemes and make a
> recommendation on which one we should use.
>
> I have written this
>
> http://www.magicdave.com/private/browse/CopyProtection.pdf
>
> and I invite any and all to critique/comment on it. I think I've reached a
> correct conclusion, but I'd really like this to be bulletproof, my ass may
> be riding on it. Feel free to pass it around. I have to present it next
> Tuesday.
>
> Dave Palmer
>
>
> --
> "Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice
>
>
> Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
>      Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
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