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From: ugthomas@sunybcs.UUCP (Timothy Thomas)
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: Re: Copy Protection - a case study
Message-ID: <2649@sunybcs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 21-Dec-85 21:45:44 EST
Article-I.D.: sunybcs.2649
Posted: Sat Dec 21 21:45:44 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 23-Dec-85 04:19:03 EST
References: <3624@think.UUCP> <131300002@ima.UUCP>
Reply-To: ugthomas@gort.UUCP (Timothy Thomas)
Organization: SUNY/Buffalo Computer Science
Lines: 24
Summary: 


>>					It's no real problem to take out the
>>"serial number," as anyone who's ever seen a pirated copy of an Infocom 
>>game knows. 

> Put it in several different places in the code, encrypted so it's hard to find

Even if you did this, you could get two copies of the program, and compare
them byte by byte.   The areas in which they differ are obviously those
which contain information specific to that disk, namely the serial number.
It would be a simple matter of substitutine 0's or nulls in place of those
differences.  
There will never be an answer to the software problem, except good software
at reasonable prices, like Borland.
-- 

____________   ____/--\____ 
\______  ___) (   _    ____)     "Damn it Jim!,
     __| |____/  / `--'            I'm a programmer not a Doctor!"   
     )           `|=(-
     \------------'
   Timothy D. Thomas                 SUNY/Buffalo Computer Science
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