When I just read the thread on apps that detect when they've been cracked/pirated and then call home for tracking those illegal copies, I was wondering of how one could actually get this message from the computer into the 'net without being noticed.
I have a few ideas and wonder if others can confirm them: 1. One part would be to detect whether there's an internet connection available at all. A careful cracker would disconnect his Mac from the network while doing the work. So, the app should not alert the cracker in that case by trying to phone home. I wonder how the connection could be detected without actually making connection attempt to the outside? Maybe one could read this state from some of the unix apps, e.g. see if the dns resolver or similar automatic network services have an outside connection? 2. To avoid alerting the user through outgoing "firewalls" such as Little Snitch, I wonder if one can use any of the protocols that are enabled by default? E.g, use the ntp tool to access your own server, thus "pinging" it with minimum information? Any ideas there? Or maybe this is better not discussed in the open, i.e. here on this list. I welcome some personal mails on this, too, and will keep them confidential then. -- Thomas Tempelmann, http://www.tempel.org/
