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From: rick@mips.UUCP (Rick Frazier)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga
Subject: Re: Copy protect methods & paranoia
Message-ID: <584@mips.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 28-Jul-86 11:12:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: mips.584
Posted: Mon Jul 28 11:12:40 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 29-Jul-86 01:55:16 EDT
References: <236@neoucom.UUCP> <169@hao.UUCP>
Organization: MIPS ... where RISC is a way of life
Lines: 36

> In article <236@neoucom.UUCP>, wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew) writes:
>
> So you propose a scheme that wants to write on a write protected disk.
>
> ***PaRaNoIa On***
> However, I ^have^ wondered when some Micro maker was going to get around
> to rigging things so that there was a secret way his "in" SDC's could
> write to a physically write protected disk.  This could be used to - zap
>
> as such, one wonders just how soft the system is...  If the write protect
> tab opens a switch in series with the write-head drive current, that'd be
> good enough for me.  If the tab only goes to a switch that is wired to an
> XOR gate, that's another matter entirely...
> ***PaRaNoIa Off*** (I hope).

Well, I hope this doesn't start a wave of paranoia out there, but I believe
that YOU CAN WRITE TO A PROTECTED DISK UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS.  Some time
back I was fooling around with Disked....And it weems to me that it gave me 
the choice of toggling the write protect on and off from the keyboard, 
irrespective of the "sense" of the tab on the diskette.  Obviously if this
program can do it, so can others, particularly in the case where the
software takes over the whole machine (as in EA and other game type software)
or runs under some sort of "modified workbench".  As of late, I have not had
the chance to get out the EA disks and put any time into playing with them to
find out if they do make "unauthorized" writes to the disk, but judging by
the rate of failure of these things, particularly in the early releases, I
would suspect this is the case.  (I ran with an out-of-spec internal drive for
awhile, and you wouldn't believe how long it took sometimes to boot Archon!
I also had to get it replaced several times in the first month or so it was
out....which I still suspect was due to it getting "self-modified".  It all
might have just been a fluke, but 'ya never know..........sigh)

-- 
--Rick Frazier--  DISCLAIMER: The above is individual opinion (the result of my
imperfect recall of facts, real or imagined) in no way representing anyone else.
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