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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

#41

Post by Joe_Cool »

bri3d wrote: post #10
catlikesshrimp wrote: post #9

Why wasn't (isn't) this more widely used? It was clearly more effective than a cdkey. I know there is cost associated with the hardware, but surely the costumer can cough 15 more dollars. The only reason I can think of is wanting as wide adoption before max revenue as possible. But then, this has never been too popular, not even for games!

Dongles were extremely widely used in the 1990s and early 2000s; for anything more advanced than consumer software you'd almost expect them? Almost every DAW, video editor, high-end compiler, engineering/CAD package, or 3D suite used them, certainly. I think sometime in the late 1990s FlexLM switched from dongles to "hardware identifiers" that were easily spoofed; honestly I don't think this was a terrible idea since…

P-CAD even had a dongle-caddy where you could plug in I think about 7 of them into to unlock different modules.

I will check if I can find an image of it.

EDIT: here is an old listing of it: https://www.ebay.com/itm/187748130737

Sadly the lid isn't open so you can't see what modules are installed.

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

#42

Post by byb »

accrual wrote: post #21

Fun journey! It would be fascinating to see what's inside the dongle. I wonder if it's programmable or just a simple circuit.

Yes, a neat follow-up would be to clone the copy protection device with a cheap microcontroller. A lot of these devices were filled with epoxy, but it would be funny to find out these were all just 1Kbit EEPROMs. Such an article could give some background on parallel port communication, EEPROMs, and how regular printer data was passed through.

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

#43

Post by charcircuit »

SecretDreams wrote: post #32
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…

> 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.

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

#44

Post by bonzog »

chrisldgk wrote: post #26
jandrese wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem is that they often couldn't be daisy chained, the connector on the back was only useful for an actual printer. So if everybody started doing it you would have to swap them constantly which is a headache. So they're mostly used for software where it's going to be the only thing running on the box. I find it interesting that they didn't make it into the USB era where you could easily have something that doe…

They did carry over into the USB era! I specifically remember my stepdads copy of Cubase (music production software) requiring a USB dongle to open.

Ditto - and there's also the "iLok" dongle used by loads of virtual instrument & effects plugins for DAWs.

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

#45

Post by jojobas »

Joe_Cool wrote: post #39
jojobas wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Win95 is only 30 years old and runs natively on some modern hardware. Apparently there is important stuff still running in emulated PDP-11s, almost double the age.

It needs quite a few fixes to even run in a VM. But it can be done: https://github.com/JHRobotics/patcher9x

This post doesn't go to to great detail, but seems to run natively:

https://www.reddit.com/r/windows/comments/1n1no1k/august_202...

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

#46

Post by SecretDreams »

nsoonhui wrote: post #38
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.…

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 features meaningful enough to encourage people to upgrade and outline support periods for existing software sales after they buy a one-time license. There's gotta be a better way. For everyone (except big tech CEOs).

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

#47

Post by nsoonhui »

dataflow wrote: post #35
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…

> 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. Why should users upgrade or keep paying you when they already bought what they need and don't need anything else?

Because

1. Physical dongle tends to break, and when it does, they expect us to give them replacing parts

2. They do expect bug fixes-- especially calculation bug fixes-- as the bugs are discovered. It's hard to leave their production critical apps broken like that once you know that the bugs can cause monetary or even life loss.

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

#48

Post by SecretDreams »

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.

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 spend time identifying the problem statement, how you can differentiate yourself, prototype it, work out the bugs, ship the final product, and let sales teams move the product. The difference is the toilet can't be turned into a SaaS (yet) and, if it ever could, that would break functionality because you're supposed to poop in it, not have it poop on you.

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

#49

Post by foresto »

antonvs wrote: post #36
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 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 was able to replicate that protection mechanism just by scratching a diskette with a pin.

How did you figure out where to scratch it? Was the laser mark visible on the original disk, or did you have to read the code and orient based on the diskette's index hole?

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

#50

Post by Aaargh20318 »

antonvs wrote: post #36
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 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.

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