Re: How secure are dongles for copy-protection?

From: Daniel Roethlisberger (danielat_private)
Date: Wed Jun 06 2001 - 08:11:11 PDT

  • Next message: Maximiliano Caceres: "Re: How secure are dongles for copy-protection?"

    Ryan Permeh <ryanat_private> wrote:
    > 1. Take a key issued by vendor. This is the "liscence" key
    >    offered in most scenarios.
    > 2. Pipe this key to the dongle.
    > 3. perform cryptographic transformation on the issued "liscence
    >    key". this cryptographic transform could be a
    >    hash/crypt/decrypt depending on situation. Potentially this
    >    could be multiple transformation. The closer to hardware
    >    configured the better.
    > 4. return the value of the transformation(s) from the dongle to
    >    the program.
    > 5. use this as a key to uncrypt the codesegment of the
    >    executeable(the .text segment of the pe or whatever format
    >    you need).
    
    This is still vulnerable to the replay attack. You just look at
    the output of the dongle and replay that to the software; it
    requires no attack on the dongle itself. I come to the conclusion
    that dongle based protection systems cannot be perfect. Either you
    can replay the dongle output; or you can attack the part of the
    software that does the same operation as the dongle in order to
    verify the result.
    
    Cheers,
    Dan
    
    
    -- 
       Daniel Roethlisberger <danielat_private>
       PGP Key ID 0x8DE543ED with fingerprint
       6C10 83D7 2BB8 D908 10AE  7FA3 0779 0355 8DE5 43ED
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Wed Jun 06 2001 - 12:03:43 PDT