Makes me think of those novice lockpickers who buy a bunch of cheap locks from some dollar-store, only to find these surprisingly difficult to pick because of poor machining tolerances.
Chaff Bugs: Deterring Attackers by Making Software Buggier (2018)
11–16 of 16 posts
Re: Chaff Bugs: Deterring Attackers by Making Software Buggier (2018)
#12Back when I had to secure software using hardware dongles, I came up with my most evil idea. For those who don't know, dongles are hardware tokens that represent your license to use the software, and the dongle had to be attached to the computer so the software could check for its presence. Using dongles required you to either add code to your program to test for the presence of the dongle, or you could encrypt the e…
Many moons ago I came across an anti-theft device for a car that was designed on similar lines. The idea was that car alarms are easily defeated and are generally ignored anyway if they go off.
When armed, the circuit would cause the car to run but stall frequently, blow the horn and lights and misbehave in other ways. Eventually the thief would assume the car was in serious disrepair and abandon it.
Re: Chaff Bugs: Deterring Attackers by Making Software Buggier (2018)
#13Back when I had to secure software using hardware dongles, I came up with my most evil idea. For those who don't know, dongles are hardware tokens that represent your license to use the software, and the dongle had to be attached to the computer so the software could check for its presence. Using dongles required you to either add code to your program to test for the presence of the dongle, or you could encrypt the e…
It reminds me of some audio software, when there's no license registered, it injects a burst of noise every 30 seconds.
Re: Chaff Bugs: Deterring Attackers by Making Software Buggier (2018)
#14Back when I had to secure software using hardware dongles, I came up with my most evil idea. For those who don't know, dongles are hardware tokens that represent your license to use the software, and the dongle had to be attached to the computer so the software could check for its presence. Using dongles required you to either add code to your program to test for the presence of the dongle, or you could encrypt the e…
Many moons ago I came across an anti-theft device for a car that was designed on similar lines. The idea was that car alarms are easily defeated and are generally ignored anyway if they go off. When armed, the circuit would cause the car to run but stall frequently, blow the horn and lights and misbehave in other ways. Eventually the thief would assume the car was in serious disrepair and abandon it.
I kinda like this idea, although I suspect that some may be willing to put up with the annoyance if they're aware its just a ruse?
Re: Chaff Bugs: Deterring Attackers by Making Software Buggier (2018)
#15Back when I had to secure software using hardware dongles, I came up with my most evil idea. For those who don't know, dongles are hardware tokens that represent your license to use the software, and the dongle had to be attached to the computer so the software could check for its presence. Using dongles required you to either add code to your program to test for the presence of the dongle, or you could encrypt the e…
Or make them alpha testers
Re: Chaff Bugs: Deterring Attackers by Making Software Buggier (2018)
#16Back when I had to secure software using hardware dongles, I came up with my most evil idea. For those who don't know, dongles are hardware tokens that represent your license to use the software, and the dongle had to be attached to the computer so the software could check for its presence. Using dongles required you to either add code to your program to test for the presence of the dongle, or you could encrypt the e…
> I would introduce subtle errors into the data manipulated by the program
I no longer remember the games, but in the 80s copy protected games, I remember some where if the game detected it was a cracked copy it would still run fine but the game would be missing critical items so it became impossible to progress. Unless you knew this, you could go crazy trying to find the items that didn't exist.