There is not a single piece of worthwhile software out there that hasn't been cracked. Don't waste your time on trying to make the perfect protection as there is none - everything can be reverse engineered!
I also suggest you protect your software in a way that doesn't crash/impair computers (hardware checks can sometimes be tricky, hidden files still need to work with locked down computer accounts, activation over internet needs to work with proxies and offline too, etc). Most importantly try not to anger your paying customers. Locking it down to harddisk-serial number makes your customers go crazy if they change hardware regularly and granting things like a company wide-license is almost impossible ... and you will waste more time on customer support. Making sure that the license is only used on one computer is a tricky thing and i suggest you think really hard about it if you really need such a restriction. The goal of the protection is to keep the normal computer user out and give them an incentive to buy a license. A simple license key-code calculated with a registration user name and stored in the registry is usually all that is needed. Kind Regards, Stefan -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Phil Scadden Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 12:24 PM To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Offtopic List Subject: Re: [DUG-Offtopic] Software copy protection > 2 - Restrict a program to run at a certain site by requiring a licence > file. The file can include for instance some site details encrypted > (Have heard of using the hard disk name hashed). The licence file > checking code has some behind the scenes check to make sure its at the > right site or computer. Same for locking it to a particular computer - make a hash from a variety of computer components and use that to create a licence key. Before writing code to use it though, find (on a virtual machine that you trash immediately afterwards) blackhat tutorials on using things like Softice to crack programs. Its pretty impossible to stop a really determined attack but you look at basic attack strategies, you can code to make those approaches a great deal more time consuming. If there is commonly used commercial software for program protection, then you can bet there will be tutorials on cracking it too. Avoid anything used by computer games. -- Phil Scadden, Senior Scientist GNS Science Ltd 764 Cumberland St, Private Bag 1930, Dunedin, New Zealand Ph +64 3 4799663, fax +64 3 477 5232 Notice: This email and any attachments are confidential. If received in error please destroy and immediately notify us. Do not copy or disclose the contents. _______________________________________________ NZ Borland Developers Group Offtopic mailing list Post: [email protected] Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/offtopic Unsubscribe: send an email to [email protected] with Subject: unsubscribe _______________________________________________ NZ Borland Developers Group Offtopic mailing list Post: [email protected] Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/offtopic Unsubscribe: send an email to [email protected] with Subject: unsubscribe
