Does any one have this pc Mac adress protection?

[adamszabo]

BTW The most annoying protection I have ever seen, was the screen contrast/brightness changes very subtly. If you were disassembling the code, it is so subtle you will most likely miss it until you can't see the application any longer. Poof in the end, it is invisible!! Good luck with cracking that or using the app any longer!!

Interesting, would you elaborate on this a bit more? I am not sure I understand how that works.

[pshannon]

BTW The most annoying protection I have ever seen, was the screen contrast/brightness changes very subtly. If you were disassembling the code, it is so subtle you will most likely miss it until you can't see the application any longer. Poof in the end, it is invisible!! Good luck with cracking that or using the app any longer!!

Interesting, would you elaborate on this a bit more? I am not sure I understand how that works.

If you are asking me how this is done, that would be in a longer response. However, if the application starts to slowly over time after the license expired fade to the background color, I would be surprised if you could still use the app because either it would be so faint or you won't be able to see it at all. This would include the buttons, text boxes, menu or any other interactive part of the application. I would give up and either buy it or scrap it.

Before anyone tries to bash me talking about cracking. There are times you might be using an application that either the company has gone out of business or just stops supporting it all together. However, you must still use this version of the program. The system this was running on dies/crashes and you must rebuild only to learn that you can't validate the license now. What do you do? You are asked to crack it.

[Spogg]

FlowStone has the option to create a demo plugin. This puts out a short burst of noise every minute. Now I know nothing about cracking, but wouldn’t this be easy to get around? Because, as I understand it, it’s easy for a hacker to stop something happening but impossible to make something happen that’s not there?

For example, there must be a bit of code that calls the noise generation routine, and a timer to control the calling. So a hacker would just stop that with a NOP or something. Or am I off the mark?

Cheers

Spogg

[tulamide]

When something after a while stops working (be it noise starts emitting or demo time is over, etc.), hacker groups refer to it as "timebomb". There is a rather good chance of outsmarting a timebomb, after all it gets timing information from the system.

Imagine it like this: Your wife wants a nice present for your tenth wedding day. Unfortunately you totally forgot about the day. But you trick your wife by setting the calendar a day back, which gives you enough time to buy a present. If you need a second day, you just set the calendar back once more.

That would be one (very simple, and probably only working on 20 yr old software) of many methods to deal with timebombs.

[pshannon]

When something after a while stops working (be it noise starts emitting or demo time is over, etc.), hacker groups refer to it as "timebomb". There is a rather good chance of outsmarting a timebomb, after all it gets timing information from the system.

Imagine it like this: Your wife wants a nice present for your tenth wedding day. Unfortunately you totally forgot about the day. But you trick your wife by setting the calendar a day back, which gives you enough time to buy a present. If you need a second day, you just set the calendar back once more.

That would be one (very simple, and probably only working on 20 yr old software) of many methods to deal with timebombs.

In the security world, a "Timebomb" Is technically malware/trojan horses that will execute on a certain date. I mean if you want to bomb the computer if they a using an unlicensed "Martin super Filter" , that is a different issue.

Yes, you are correct, there are plenty of protections that can be cracked with that method. You can’t do this with a Microsoft product. They still use the full functional 30-day method for everything. It has been cracked before, but it is not easy and once updated, it could stop working. I agree It is a simple way of cracking it with system time stamps, but there are ways to get the "timer/usage" started by using an outside NTP and force internet connections etc. With that method, it does not matter what your system is set to. If it does not match the NTP time it should stop working period. However, that can be spoofed too. The goal is to make it more difficult for people who are spreading this to everyone. If the crack is a nightmare to implement, people will most likely move on in many cases. If the price is right unlike some of the VST keyboards I have seen out there, people will most likely say $20 is fair and $500 is not. Not my call.
Keep in mind as I said, every software is crackable if the code is there. We have two different issues, demo vs full licensed copy. How would you prevent the full license from being given to a friend or torrent?
You can build lots random checks during regular usage. Not in the same place and or at the same time interval. Don’t make it predictable and place it in many places within your code. It should not take cycles away from your system. I have not actually tried to reverse engineer any VST in my time or FS products. I am curious now on what would ruby look like inside FS once fully compiled. It might go against the license, so I won’t try. I still stand by my comment earlier, if you can figure out a way for the unlicensed software to start randomly blending the interface of the product into the background or make pop noises at random, it might be a deterrent to the user or cracker. Anyways, I have never made a protection myself, I was giving ideas. Talk to a programmer that specializes in this, it looks like my idea is not getting through via text and people might disagree. I know it is easier to have a stopping point to work with in ASM to figure out what triggered the stopping point. If it is just running and the color gets subtly darker, try figuring that out without a decompiler for a $20 VST software.

[tulamide]

When something after a while stops working (be it noise starts emitting or demo time is over, etc.), hacker groups refer to it as "timebomb". There is a rather good chance of outsmarting a timebomb, after all it gets timing information from the system.

Imagine it like this: Your wife wants a nice present for your tenth wedding day. Unfortunately you totally forgot about the day. But you trick your wife by setting the calendar a day back, which gives you enough time to buy a present. If you need a second day, you just set the calendar back once more.

That would be one (very simple, and probably only working on 20 yr old software) of many methods to deal with timebombs.

In the security world, a "Timebomb" Is technically malware/trojan horses that will execute on a certain date. I mean if you want to bomb the computer if they a using an unlicensed "Martin super Filter" , that is a different issue

OOOOPS. Thanks for correcting that. At least it proves that I'm not a "bad boy" I suppose?

[Spogg]

When someone buys a full version they could then “share” it if there’s no protection. But do hackers and other folk actually do this?

One way forward is to make the initial purchase very cheap (or even free) and then sell “expansions” which may be preset banks and/or folders of wavs. The free Kontakt Player is one example.

For some reason that completely eludes me, there are lots of iPad apps which sell for very little money, which for a PC would cost many times more. Is it the price that makes the difference to avoid hacking, or do they have a much better security system?

Cheers

Spogg

[wlangfor@uoguelph.ca]

Yes, the replies had been regarding the lack of trusted security algorithms built in like like sha1 or sha512 but the problem is they're not built into ruby, so My answer was a unique one.

Albeit though, what else is there. But, in the other post I had found a way to block the resource hacking of a particular ruby file which should be helpful. It's a start in the right direction.

[thisisfc]

For some reason that completely eludes me, there are lots of iPad apps which sell for very little money, which for a PC would cost many times more. Is it the price that makes the difference to avoid hacking, or do they have a much better security system?

Cheers

Spogg

I would say it's the price, but also how intrusive the protection is and how tempting is for the crackers to remove the protection.