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Software Copy Protection Questions

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f0dder:
About the only thing you can do is get a list of the tools they would be using, and try to detect them and shut down the game if any are detected running. (and don't forget to detect if the game is running on an OS in something like VMware)
-app103
--- End quote ---
Badbadbadbadbadbadbad idea. Users really don't like this, and there's a lot of room for messing things up. And why not allow running on vmware? that's plain lame. And it is not something that will stop crackers, or even slow them down.

Ehtyar:
About the only thing you can do is get a list of the tools they would be using, and try to detect them and shut down the game if any are detected running. (and don't forget to detect if the game is running on an OS in something like VMware)
-app103
--- End quote ---
Badbadbadbadbadbadbad idea. Users really don't like this, and there's a lot of room for messing things up. And why not allow running on vmware? that's plain lame. And it is not something that will stop crackers, or even slow them down.
-f0dder (October 02, 2007, 03:40 AM)
--- End quote ---
Now to be honest here, this is the BEST way imaginable to have some reverse-engineering-savvy user to unpack/reverse your app just to get rid of these checks, then crack the game while he/she is at it just 'coz you made him waste his time disassembling it in the first place. As f0dder said, BAAAAAAAD idea.

Ehtyar.

app103:
Like I said originally, how much time & energy do you want to devote to making a free puzzle game for crackers.


Tinjaw's question was a 2 part one:

1. How to protect his app from crackers that will try to beat the licensing of his game.
2. How to protect the images in the game.

To both of them, it's futile. You can do all kinds of things and waste a lot of time, money, and energy..and still it won't be enough.

So far most of the responses to tinjaw's post have been related to #1 and not really addressing the issue of #2. My answer was for #2 and not really addressing #1.

Honest people don't use cracks, they pay for games.

And those that use cracks will not buy your game any way, so no money is lost there.

And those that crack the games do it for fun. You provide them with a free puzzle game no matter what you do. And they will be going after beating the licensing...not likely trying to extract the images.

And my comment about detecting tools was referring to tools ordinary users would use to make screen captures of the game in order to get the images...not to crackers cracking the game itself to bypass licensing. I am sorry if I didn't make that clear enough.

Why detect if the game is running in vmware? Well the screen capture tools might not be installed on the virtual machine, but still exist and are running outside the vm.

But you know what? You still can't stop the screen shots even if you do that. What about a user simply using the print screen key and pasting into paint? Are you going to disable that key while the game is running? What about if a user remaps the key to another? Are you going to disable all keys on the keyboard to prevent that too?

What you need to do is keep the comic book company happy with the amount of protection you use and not annoy honest people while preventing them from doing stupid things.

Forget about crackers...they aren't the real issue. They will crack your game no matter what and you can't stop them.

If shutting down the game when a screen capture utility is detected to keep ordinary users from getting the images is going too far, then you don't do that.

But remember what I said when the comic book company starts screaming about their images all over the web. You would do better to go with some reasonable protection and spend the extra time preparing a speech to give the comic book company when they get upset that the protection of their images has failed.

Veign:
Here's a pretty good article on protecting software:

HOW TO PROTECT BETTER:
http://www.searchlores.org/protec/protec.htm

--plus--

Defending Shareware Against Cracks
http://www.crypto-central.com/slock/Sense%20of%20Security%20-%20Defending%20Shareware%20Against%20Cracks.htm

hollowlife1987:
tinjaw you might want to take a look at Themida it seems to have the best features for any executable protector
http://www.oreans.com/themida_features.php

If someone wants the data bad enough they will get it. Bottom line.

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