Edenyard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I'd dearly love to find someone who could tell me how to bypass
> this wretched dongle, just so that I can be sure of running the
> programme reliably when I want to. I haven't the slightest
> intention of making copies of the programme (who'd want it,
> anyway?).
Sometimes, it isn't THAT difficult, sometimes, it is.
IIRC, the dongles that I have seen all used a .bat file (run from
the autoexec) which in turn called DEBUG, then ran a debug script,
usually with the CONsole set to the NULL device, so that you
wouldn't see the debug commands.
(Looking at it, it wouldn't make much sense to the "average"
computer user.)
There were three ways they forced the use of the dongle:
- The simplest just wrote a string of bytes to the printer port.
The dongle was made "active" by the specific string, returning a
second "code string" backwards through the parallel port, whenever
it was queried by the program - and "passing data through" to the
printer when it was not preceeded by the key string. By piping the
two-way LPT1 communications into a binary file (thus recording the
exchange), one could then write a TSR driver which intercepted
the program key - and return the dongle key. Otherwise, feed through
to LPT1. Of course, you'd have to be familiar with both DEBUG (the
most dangerous program ever written - at least in the hands of a
neophyte) and assembler to use this method.
- a more difficult dongle keyer was called by the program itself
during initialization. (And sometimes via a DEBUG script file, as
above.) This type had a critical part of the program code contained
in the dongle, and immediately written to a particular memory
location, offset from the start of the program. Once the program
was running, the dongle could be removed.
- the more advanced ones used some really nasty techniques: requiring
an "OK" signal from the dongle every few seconds, or the absolute
worst: returning a constantly-changing "crypto" key from the dongle
on every new query. (These seemed to be some form of math
manipulation on the previous string sent to the dongle - sometimes
as simple as XORing the high bit in each byte with a "one".)
Dongles were usually reliable - but depended upon a good, strong
high-current parallel port that worked bidirectionally. Many of
the newer ports (especially those built into a modern motherboard)
use low-current CMOS or low-power TTL. You might find that the best
way to make your existing dongle setup more reliable is to pick up an
*old* card containing a parallel port, and disable your present LPT1
port.
- John T.
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