On Mon, 4 Jun 2001, Harold Thimm wrote: > I'm looking for any information on incorporating dongles into a software > package for copy protection. In particular, I'm looking for information > on the Rainbow Technologies Sentinel, but advice on dongle-based copy > protection in general is appreciated. > > How easy/difficult is it to break this kind of copy-protection? Are there > any known weaknesses in the dongle-type systems themselves (as opposed to > implementation weaknesses?) Dongle protected applications are (at least were) always fairly easy targets. One can typically just set breakpoints on serial/parallel IO events and follow the code back to the application/dongle API level. At that point it doesn't matter that your protection scheme has a 'hardware' element to it. If you are planning on just using a 'IsDongleHere()' -- you typically only need to change one byte to turn a conditional jump into an unconditional one to break the protection. More complex schemes, that store data on the key itself -- only raise the bar slightly, since it's usually pretty easy to see what needs to be force-fed back to the application to make it happy. Reading the time off the dongle (for time-limited protection schemes) are equally hackable due to it being so easy to set breakpoints on serial/parrallel IO events. Without knowing more details about what you are trying to accomplish -- I'd suggest using some form of proven cryptography system as your method of implementation. Look at http://www.searchlores.org/protec/protec.htm . . . and STFW for old fravia.org essays on reversing dongled applications. > > Are there any dongle-based protection schemes that have been cracked, and > if so, how? (A pointer to a URL would be appreciated, if you have it.) I haven't yet heard of one that _hasn't_ been cracked. The best way to learn how to protect your software is to learn how to reverse software yourself. > > Thanks in advance. > > HAL > > ________________________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com > > >
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Jun 05 2001 - 10:03:37 PDT