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Defeating a 40-year-old copy protection dongle

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

#91

Post by lazide »

truekonrads wrote: post #89
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…

The problem seems the sales model rather than the dongle: 1) a hardware and software solution implies that hardware will stop working at some point. Customers should understand it 2) you could sell them a new dongle every time support contract ends which is what I’ve experienced with Xways as an example. Even if you’re air gapped once a year usage data upload and new dongle seems fine. 3) why should users receive fre…

The model you are referring to works fine when the industry is expanding and/or legal entities turn over eventually.

Which is not uncommon.

It’s also one that is typically pretty good for customers that like to do an investment and then continue to reap benefits from it. The capitalization model.

The ‘lease’ model (SaaS) is good for customers with highly variable licensing/software needs or that expect extremely high turnover, and prefer to see these costs as, essentially ‘cost of production’. The cash flow model. It does require a lot of trust, however, that when the lease comes up for renewal the fees won’t be usurious.

Neither is necessarily wrong. A whole lot of folks are starting to realize the downsides of expenses coming out of cashflow though! And losing a lot of trust.

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

#92

Post by lazide »

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…

Just charge for support, or if that is too harsh. If that is too harsh, charge for upgrades (but give point/minor bug fixes for the version they have for free).

No support contract? Pound sand.

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

#93

Post by lazide »

ryandrake wrote: post #53
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…

Seriously, I have a house full of appliances, tools, clothing, and so on, that I get "ongoing value" from and whose manufacturers don't have the gall to try to charge me monthly for. Totally unacceptable business model.

As long as no one expects updates and ongoing support beyond some pre-agreed time.

The issue is a mismatch of incentives - customers wanting things for free - even if they aren’t actually customers. Vs businesses need/want for ongoing revenue (ideally for free too!).

Both sides are never going to be perfectly happy, but there are reasonable compromises. There are also extractive abusive psychos, of course.

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

#94

Post by weinzierl »

These dongles used to be ubiquitous and they broke all the time.

As a young intern, I arrived early one morning to find the PCB layout software (PADS PowerPCB) on our "design PC" wasn’t working. (I use quotes because it was just the beefiest machine we had, naturally our boss’s PC, which he kindly shared)

Obviously the dongle. I tried unplugging and replugging it, with and without the printer daisy-chained. Nothing.

So I begrudgingly asked my colleague who’d just arrived. He looked at the dongle, looked at me, looked at the dongle again, and started laughing.

Turns out our Boss had stayed late the previous night processing customer complaints. One customer had sent back a "broken" dongle for the product we were selling. Boss tested it on his PC, found it worked fine, and mailed it back on his way home.

Except he didn’t send our dongle back. He had sent my PowerPCB dongle. More fun was had when the rest of the team and finally our boss arrived. Luckily he took it with good humor.

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

#95

Post by hcs »

sowbug wrote: post #86
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 still exist in the form of Nintendo Switch cartridges, though they're an extreme form that contains all the app logic, rather than just 7606h.

On Switch 2 there are also pure license dongles in the form of the Game-Key Card. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Game_Card#Game-Key_Ca...

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

#96

Post by userbinator »

For some reason, Reko was not able to decompile this code into a C representation

That's likely because it's one of those (of which many existed) which attempt to dumbly pattern-match against what a typical C compiler of the time (with equally dumb and extremely inefficient code generation) would do, but that routine clearly looks like handwritten Asm. I've never seen a C compiler from that era generate a LOOP instruction, for example, and of course "cli" nor the I/O instructions are not expressable except perhaps as intrinsics. Ghidra might be a bit better at this, as it's a generalised decompiler.

In fact, when the compiler (RPGC.EXE) compiles some RPG source code, it seems to copy the parallel port routine from itself into the compiled program.

This reminds me of the classic Ken Thompson attack.

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

#97

Post by userbinator »

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.

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

#98

Post by userbinator »

jojobas wrote: post #45
Joe_Cool wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

It might be possible to use the rest of that RAM above the 4GB barrier as a ridiculously fast RAM disk, with an XMS driver like this one:

https://github.com/Baron-von-Riedesel/HimemSX

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

#99

Post by bruce511 »

lazide wrote: post #92
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…

Just charge for support, or if that is too harsh. If that is too harsh, charge for upgrades (but give point/minor bug fixes for the version they have for free). No support contract? Pound sand.

This sounds good, but in the real world it leads to massively upset customers.

The problem exists from both sides of the coin. Firstly the bulk of customers don't purchase a support contract. So there is very little income to pay staff. So the "support" department has very few people. They're also not very good because low wages means staff turnover.

Then Betty phones with a problem. Significant time is spent explaining to Betty that we can't help her because she (or more accurately her company) doesn't have a contract. She's fighting back because an annual contract seems a lot for this piddly question. Plus to procure the contract will take days (or weeks or months) on her side. And it's not I any budget, making things harder. Betty is very unhappy.

The junior tech doesn't want to be an arsehole and it's a trivial question, and is stuck in the middle.

We switched to a SaaS model in 2011. Users fell over themselves thanking us. They don't have to justify it to procurement. The amount can be budgeted for. No sudden upgrade or support fees. Users get support when they need it. The support department is funded and pays well, resulting in low staff turnover, and consequently better service.

Plus, new sales can stop tomorrow and service continues. Funding for support remains even if sales saturate the market.

Consumers may dislike SaaS, but for business, it absolutely matches their model, provides predictability, and allows for great service, which results in happy Users.

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