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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

#131

Post by izacus »

throw101010 wrote: post #37
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…

> 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. In my experience this continues to this day due to people who require drawing on air-gapped computers, because the drawings/simulations they work on are highly sensitive (nuclear, military, and other sensitive infrastructure). But I'm sure there are als…

What's old fashioned about not having your business ability dependant on the vendors crappy cloud license check?

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

#134

Post by alfiedotwtf »

ruleryak wrote: post #7

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. As the author found, the tough part is just finding and interpreting where and how the protection was implemented. If throwing the exe in a hex editor gave you access to String Data References (not always the case, but more common than not) then you'd just fail the check you wer…

Cracking is so fun because we have Slides!

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

#135

Post by IshKebab »

Plasmoid wrote: post #87
samplatt wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 liable for problems in said software.) This is a nice idea but the reality is that there's MANY corporate customers who are happy to get away with casual piracy. Sometimes it's a holdover from when the com…

Even at a simple level, if it's between spending weeks going through purchasing or not asking too many questions and getting on with it. I can see a lot of people choosing option B.

Yeah case in point - how many people actually pay for Visual Studio? You're supposed to if you're using it for commercial purposes but I don't think I've ever seen a commercial license used (though I don't do a lot of Windows work tbf).

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

#136

Post by j16sdiz »

SecretDreams wrote: post #46
nsoonhui wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a perfect world, I would have agreed with you, even if it's diametrically opposite to my interest as a software developer cum business owner. But in an imperfect world whereby our dependencies ( software components that we use) and platforms that we need to build/rely on ( like Civil 3D) do charge us on annual basis, and that some of users expect perpetual bug fixes from us, with or without a support contract of s…

There's gotta be better middle ground. Release something polished and only fix major bugs/vulnerabilities for free (because that's a liability). Minor bugs are accepted for a one off cost (I'm still using Microsoft 2016, e.g.). We've all got to push back against these bloated saas models that don't bring tangible benefits to end users and serve only to pad company valuations. Make new versions of your software with f…

> Release something polished..

That's why software keep adding bloat fancy buttons and change color scheme every few years. This is anti-productive.

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

#137

Post by markh1967 »

ruleryak wrote: post #7

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. As the author found, the tough part is just finding and interpreting where and how the protection was implemented. If throwing the exe in a hex editor gave you access to String Data References (not always the case, but more common than not) then you'd just fail the check you wer…

Many years ago I was a technician supporting a few custom programs on thousands of PCs. The developer of one of these programs had added a date check to his code so the program would refuse to run after a set date and each new release would increase this date by a few months so it would stop working after a few weeks if he ever stopped creating new releases. His contract ended and a few weeks later his software, now relied upon by hundreds of sites, stopped working. The contract for the software development was thoroughly checked and legal action against the developer was started but I asked to see if I could resolve the problem in the meantime.

It only took ten minutes with a dissassembler to find the JGT (Jump if greater than) and convert it to a JLT so the software would stop running if the date was before a certain date rather than after. I created a patching tool that simply flipped one bit that was sent out to all the sites and everything was good again. I don't think I'll ever beat the elegance of a single bit flip hack.

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

#138

Post by ale42 »

ruleryak wrote: post #7

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. As the author found, the tough part is just finding and interpreting where and how the protection was implemented. If throwing the exe in a hex editor gave you access to String Data References (not always the case, but more common than not) then you'd just fail the check you wer…

I remember an icon editor (or something similar) for Windows 3.1, it was a shareware where you could enter a code to remove the nag screen. No crack was necessary, I basically managed to enter valid registration codes by just typing random numbers. In the end I had enough valid numbers that I could figure out the logic, it was something about the sums of digit groups.

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

#139

Post by direwolf20 »

charcircuit wrote: post #116
direwolf20 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No, since that food no longer exists. There's nothing the food creator can do. They can't cause it to spoil after you ate it. The massive benefit of not dying allows the price ceiling of food to be very high. But within society there is a lot of competition for nutrients which prevents food from reaching such heights.

So when I buy a CD, I can install the software, and then grind the CD into powder, and since what I bought no longer exists, I can stop paying?

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

#140

Post by anyfoo »

antonvs wrote: post #65
anyfoo wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was ist ever confirmed that it was in fact a laser? I wanted to make a trivia question out of this ProLok protection, because “lasers for copy protection” sounds just weird enough to potentially be a nonsense answer without context, but I couldn’t confirm that the holes were indeed made with lasers, and not with other means.

Good question. I don't know the answer, but I'm quite certain that it didn't really matter what mechanism was used to mark a diskette. Any damage would be equally strong as a way to detect copying.

Yeah, it matters only in “interestingness” or “coolness”.
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