OpenEuphoria

Re: Copy Protection

• Posted by euman at bellsouth.net Nov 20, 2001
• 702 views

> Euman,
>
> Well, that's just it. From everything I've read, this CAN'T be done just
> with software.
>
> >From what I know, programs are available on the internet that allow you
> to copy any disk. It doesn't matter if there are are checksum errors,
> hidden data, etc.--every bit written to the original disk is copied to
> the new, without any regard for what it means.
>
> As I said, I'm no hardware guru. I get the impression that devising a
> new disk format would only the disk from being read by conventional
> movements of the disk drive's read/write head. If so, this might work...
> although you're now saddled with the need for special software to read
> the disk.
>
> Plus, I think committed hackers would be able to unravel the new format
> (not that they couldn't also crack the punched-hole disk problem; no
> solution is TOTALLY foolproof short of a one-time-pad-encrypted disk
> with the key given in person to the appropriate user. And even that only
> stops the data from being read, not from being copied.)
>
> Rod Jackson

I agree with what your saying here. No method is full-proof.

   We have a product that is only usefull to the particular business that
ordered the product
in the first place. What we want to do is make it hard enough so the company
would
1. either loose money because they spent an enormous amount of time trying
to figure
out how to duplicate the software which would be more than the actual
product update
would cost or, 2. simply give us the cash for the updated product.

It's a keep ourselves in business sort of scheme that will work because most
of the clients
do not have the means with which to tackle the cracks that would be
involved.

I am currently reading up on supposed proprietary disk formats from a well
know hackers site
and should by what I see at this point duplicate or render my own format..

I thought about marking the floppy disk and the hard disk on the initial
install of our wares
and gather the HD info and transfer this back to the floppy in an encrypted
form using Blow-fish
or some type of scheme but I dont know very much the legal side of
encryption to do this.
Does anyone know if Blow-fish is now legal to use in/or export from the USA?
Maybe a HASH routine would be better because it's not technically an
encryption...

There are many questions and probabilities to security and there has to be a
combination of these
to make a cracker go insane trying to figure it all out...If there is I
certainly would like to do it...
"make a cracker insane, that is!"  hehehe  

Thanks Rod,

Euman
euman at bellsouth.net