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Defeating a 40-year-old copy protection dongle

dmitrybrant.com

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Re: Defeating a 40-year-old copy protection dongle

#101

Post by direwolf20 »

charcircuit wrote: post #43
SecretDreams wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which, from a business point of view, is especially important in a field where regulations do not change very fast, because users have little incentive to upgrade This take is diametrically opposite to what end users need. In a world where "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is perfectly fine for the end user, buying a one off license for a software seems much more sane then SaaS. SaaS is like a plague for end users.…

If a user gets ongoing value from software it makes sense for them to be willing to pay ongoing for that value. What users need is that the value they get from a product is more than the money they are trading for it. A one off license would be the result of a race to the bottom due to competition.

Because I ate food each day between 1 July 2013 – 31 July 2013, I didn't starve and die. I am receiving ongoing benefit from not being dead. Should I continue paying for all that food?

Re: Defeating a 40-year-old copy protection dongle

#103

Post by gnabgib »

userbinator wrote: post #97
aizk wrote: post #14

Very cool to read an article about windows 95 still being used in production - a nice contrast to the infinite AI hype cycle over everything. Tech may move fast in flashy areas but not in the more "boring" parts of the industry.

There are subtantial amounts of large industrial processes still in operation using equipment from the late 19th century.

Do you mean 20th? Even current looms, steam engines, stills aren't from the 18 hundreds

Re: Defeating a 40-year-old copy protection dongle

#105

Post by chongli »

charcircuit wrote: post #70
SecretDreams wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I get ongoing value from my fully paid off car, should I keep paying the OEM? How about my house or my bike or my shoes? My toilet (huge ROI on this one)? My fridge?? Why do we feel that software gets to impose this ridiculous SaaS model? The only real answer is "because they can", not because it's helping anyone. Reality is that many modern software developments have plenty in common with designing a toilet. You…

I think it would be fair to keep paying for a car, house, bike, shoes, toilet, and fridge. If I'm still using such great products, why not reward the creators of them. But as a consumer I am also price conscious so if a competitor can offer an equivalent product for cheaper I will go with them.

There are arrangements where you continue to pay for cars and houses without owning them. They're called leases and rental agreements. They typically cost a lot less for the consumer than outright purchases and at the conclusion of the lease/rental term the consumer is free to return the car/house to its owner without compensation for depreciation or wear & tear (though car leases usually impose mileage restrictions and routine maintenance requirements).

Re: Defeating a 40-year-old copy protection dongle

#106

Post by eduction »

b1temy wrote: post #81
nsoonhui wrote: post #27

I write civil engineering software [0] and am familiar with this kind of dongle. Yes, even today there are users who want this kind of dongle instead of, say, cloud-based validation. They feel secure only if they have something tangible in hand. Since we sold (and still sell) perpetual licenses, it becomes a problem when a dongle breaks and replacement parts are no longer available. Not all users want to upgrade. Als…

> You might think cracking dongles is fun and copy protection is evil, but without protection, our livelihood is affected. I understand you might feel this way, but it seems to me customers are mostly business clients, who would are more inclined to spare the expense of purchasing said licenses, since they're not personally buying it themselves, and would want to have support and liability (i.e: Someone to hold liabl…

You’re using “spare” incorrectly. It means to avoid. “Spare the expense” means to avoid having to pay for the license. Which seems to be the opposite of what you are saying.

“Spare the money” is probably what you mean. That is to part with the money, to avoid having it, for example by spending it. Or by giving it away - As in “can you spare a dime.” The is the inverse of sparing the expense, just as an expense is the inverse of money.

Re: Defeating a 40-year-old copy protection dongle

#107

Post by p1mrx »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #50
antonvs wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many a crack back in the day was even more simple still, we'd just find and alter the right JE or JNE into a JMP and we're off to the races. I did that with dBASE III, which used ProLok "laser protection" from Vault Corporation - a signature burned onto the diskette with a laser. Back then, I found it amazing that Ashton-Tate actually spent money to contract with a copy protection company for something that could b…

I remember doing something similar with Lemmings 3D. You could simply NOP over the JMP into the copy-protection subroutine. It was surprisingly easy. Made me feel like such a badass hacker at 15 years old.

When I was 10 or so, I "cracked" Slam! Air Hockey for Windows 3.1 by opening the exe in EDIT.COM and replacing some random binary garbage with spaces. After a few attempts, I managed to bypass the shareware dialog but also introduced some weird bugs that I don't recall the details of.

Re: Defeating a 40-year-old copy protection dongle

#108

Post by sedatk »

Of course it used to be simple in the earlier days. It got way better and fast with HASP and alike in the mid 90’s. I specifically remember software that kept a portion of its data in the dongle memory with good anti-debugging techniques too. But even the hardest protection would take a week to break at most.

Re: Defeating a 40-year-old copy protection dongle

#109

Post by mrandish »

Sophira wrote: post #75

The fact that the software and hardware is evidently still in use at some companies gives me pause about whether releasing it in a cracked form publicly after having published it on a personal website would be a good idea. Software companies love to milk enterprises for all their worth, because they're the entities who will pay the most amount of money if it means that the software they use can still work - and a big…

Another poster found grabs of the company's website on archive.org. The last date it existed to be grabbed was in 2001. I think the OP is fine on this one.

Other than that, there's virtually no mention of the company or software anywhere online. Just to put that in context, I'm in the vintage computer / software community where thousands of amateur historians and archivists scour obscure corners looking for old, unknown software apps to preserve. Software sold for Windows 98 up to 2001 (so recent as to barely be considered 'vintage') with so little online footprint means it must have been incredibly obscure. No ads or reviews from magazines or even newsletters means there's a good chance it was a one or two person part-time, home-based business and the product had hundreds or maybe even just dozens of users.

1998-2001 was the hottest time ever for PC software. I worked in marketing Windows software during this period. To have any commercial Windows software product actively available for sale in the late 90s with no surviving footprint would almost require intentional effort to stay unknown. No press releases mailed. No review copies sent. No shows or conferences attended (exhibitor listings are searchable online now). There were much older niche vertical software programs for much more obscure platforms which we know sold less than a hundred copies ever, yet still have a larger online footprint than this program. The OP de-protecting and archiving this previously unknown commercial program represents quite a notable find in the preservation community.

Re: Defeating a 40-year-old copy protection dongle

#110

Post by b1temy »

eduction wrote: post #106
b1temy wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You might think cracking dongles is fun and copy protection is evil, but without protection, our livelihood is affected. I understand you might feel this way, but it seems to me customers are mostly business clients, who would are more inclined to spare the expense of purchasing said licenses, since they're not personally buying it themselves, and would want to have support and liability (i.e: Someone to hold liabl…

You’re using “spare” incorrectly. It means to avoid. “Spare the expense” means to avoid having to pay for the license. Which seems to be the opposite of what you are saying. “Spare the money” is probably what you mean. That is to part with the money, to avoid having it, for example by spending it. Or by giving it away - As in “can you spare a dime.” The is the inverse of sparing the expense, just as an expense is the…

Yes, I meant to say "spare no expense" (though it isn't a drop in replacement, the sentence would need to be restructured slightly).
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