Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!voder!pyramid!ctnews!risky!pase70!scottl From: scott@convergent.com (Scott Lurndal) Newsgroups: comp.unix.internals Subject: Re: Preventing date rollback Message-ID: <2091@risky.Convergent.COM> Date: 13 Dec 90 22:05:28 GMT References: <1959@necisa.ho.necisa.oz> <1990Dec11.125711.1468@scuzzy.in-berlin.de> Sender: root@risky.Convergent.COM Reply-To: scott@convergent.com (Scott Lurndal) Distribution: comp Organization: UNISYS Computer Systems Products Group, San Jose Ca. Lines: 47 In article <1990Dec11.125711.1468@scuzzy.in-berlin.de>, src@scuzzy.in-berlin.de (Heiko Blume) writes: |> boyd@necisa.ho.necisa.oz (Boyd Roberts) writes: |> |> >In article rcosj@chudich.co.rmit.oz (John Simmons) writes: |> >> |> >>Couldn't you get your program to check the date fairly regularly when it is |> >>run and write it away somewhere, keeping track of the latest date reached so |> >>far, then refuse to run at any time/date earlier than the latest one stored. |> |> >No. |> |> >How are you going to stop the place where it's written from being re-witten? |> |> seems like you never looked into what copy-protection has come up |> with to hide something (data) from you. i recommend to get an |> apple ][* and one of the later games from electronic arts. |> then try to find out what's where on the floppy. remember, |> there are only 143KB on these disks ! |> Hey, unix systems are not apple II's - generally applications do not have the wherewithal to access tracks on the disk directly to muck about with parity/ecc et. al. as traditional copy protection schemes do. |> i'll call you for results in a year or so :-) |> |> seriously, in the time of 600KB executables it should be |> absolutely no problem to hide a little date in there |> somewhere. If I load an executable, it would be loaded under uid/gid bin with read only access. Therefore the program cannot be altering itself. If it tries, too bad, I don't need any software package that badly. If it is going around mucking about in any file not supplied as part of the software package, no self-respecting system administrator will want it installed on his system. |> -- |> Heiko Blume <-+-> src@scuzzy.in-berlin.de <-+-> (+49 30) 691 88 93 |> public source archive [HST V.42bis]: |> scuzzy Any ACU,f 38400 6919520 gin:--gin: nuucp sword: nuucp |> uucp scuzzy!/src/README /your/home Scott Lurndal UNISYS