Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sdd.hp.com!think.com!mintaka!mole.gnu.ai.mit.edu!gfm
From: gfm@mole.gnu.ai.mit.edu (George)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games
Subject: Re: Chessamster 2100 patch
Message-ID: <1991May7.185944.118@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Date: 7 May 91 18:59:44 GMT
References: <1991May06.155345.17107@cs.ruu.nl> <1991May7.002909.17186@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> <1991May07.103100.12997@cs.ruu.nl>
Sender: news@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 78

In article <1991May07.103100.12997@cs.ruu.nl> ptavoly@cs.ruu.nl (Peter Tavoly) writes:
>In <1991May7.002909.17186@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> gfm@mole.gnu.ai.mit.edu (George) writes:
>
>>
>>Utter bullsh*t, the patch itself is in no way illegal, and the author (I'd assume) is only making it available so that it might help people who are fed up 
>>with entering words from a manual...it does get tedious...If the patch is used
>>for illegal purposes, it is not the fault of the author....Although the 
>>'morality' of releasing such a patch is debtable, there is no way that the 
>>patch itself is illegal, For example: There are MANY commercial programs that
>>strip both Disk Based Protection AND Manual based protection (For 'Archival
>>Purposes' only, of course) these include: Maverick, Nib, Project D, RawCopy and others, and these have exsisted for many years, and are not illegal at all.
>>
>
>Sigh.. Utter Spectum Tauri (tm)! You still don't get the point do you? Who
>do you think those 'people fed up with entering words' are? They don't have
>the manual, that is why they are 'fed up'! Those who actually bought the
>game did so because they valued it worthwhile, in contrast to those, who
>just copied it because they could get it for free. If you play it, buy it!
>
>Such a patch is simply not a good idea, because you never know whether the
>next guy who gets it has or has not purchased the game. Even if some do,
>you can bet your life on it that 80% or more of the recipients are using
>pirated copies (disclaimer: 96.7% of statistics are made up :^), because
>they CAN'T play it WITHOUT. Sure I am annoyed by such a protection scheme,
>but unfortunately it is necessary in the case of games. (Of course, larger
>applications should definitely not have it, since they are already protected
>by their sheer complexity.)
>
>On those 'protection removal packages': Do you think the software houses are
>happy with them? Sure they are not illegal, but you could say that of machine
>guns used in armed robberies too. POINT: The tool is not the issue, but the
>purpose, and such a tool only encourages the *wrong* purpose. (Why do you
>think Adam and Eve were cast out of paradise? They had the *opportunity* ;^)
>

	Sorry for all this post to people not concerned, however, please do not
address any of this stuff to me, I quite clearly said the morality of such
a patch is debatable...(See my post)....But the first poster, whom I responded
to said it was illegal, to which I said it wasnt..


>Just my 2 Forints worth..
>
>PS.: Manual protection schemes *cannot* be removed by commercial programs
>     like Project D etc. since they are embedded in the program code itself,
>     sometimes they are encoded as well (uhh.. from my 64 days :).
>
	Wrong, many commericial programs can and do take out the protection 
schemes, all it requires in most cases is a couple of changes of bits on the 
disk itself (Instead of modifying the program, they will look at the original
disk, find on the disk where the manual routine is, and find away to 
just jump over it by altering some raw disk data)..Go out and buy
or just look at ads/reviews for the better amiga copiers, you will see that
it can be done...Also I am a former C64 user, and KJ (Kracker Jax) did have
some programs with parameters that would do this...Of course it wont always
work 100% because the software companines can always just rerelease a new
version of the software where the manual protect lies in a different part of 
the disk...But they hardly ever do this (at least to my experiences)
	Persoanlly I find software protection annoying, they cannot protect
a game 100% at all, no matter what they do some pirate will be able to undo it...

PS. About the 'security through complexity' this is no longer security either
1) Its relativly cheap to get a text scanner that can scan in long manuals
2) alot of pirates will spend loads of time typing in paper docs just to
   get thier name on it
3) Lots of BBSes carry these docs, in fact ive been on more than a few BBSes
that advertise as PD but have a large section of DOC files to commercial games
(Chet Solaces board used to have this...it may still..I havent called it in
ages)

> -ThomasT.
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~          ____
>Thomas Tavoly, Commercial Computer Science - HEAO Utrecht, NL.           / / /
>"Whoever talks too much, has no time to think." - Peter Tavoly.       AMIGA /
>Favourite quote: "The Mac OS is amazingly complex,               ____  / / /
> .sig v3.0e       given how little it does." - Peter da Silva    \ \ \/ / /
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>> ptavoly@praxis.cs.ruu.nl <<~~~~~~~~~  \_\_\/_/