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From: mjwingrove@wateng.UUCP (Mike Wingrove)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Protecting against copying from hard disks
Message-ID: <3121@wateng.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Nov-86 11:42:35 EST
Article-I.D.: wateng.3121
Posted: Tue Nov 11 11:42:35 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 12-Nov-86 00:48:52 EST
References: <836@ur-tut.UUCP> <579@bucsb.bu.edu.UUCP> <278@rocky2.UUCP>
Reply-To: mjwingrove@wateng.UUCP (Mike Wingrove)
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 27

In article <278@rocky2.UUCP> reintom@rocky2.UUCP (Tom Reingold) writes:
>In article <579@bucsb.bu.edu.UUCP>, madd@bucsb.bu.edu.UUCP (Jim Frost) writes:
><
><How about:
><Go through COMMAND.COM and find the COPY command.  This is really easy to do
><with Norton Utilities.  Make it anything you want, the more bizarre the better.
><This should disable the COPY command within DOS.  Then just write your own,
><naming it anything you want.  This way, you can restrict access better.  It's
><hardly foolproof, but it oughta work to keep at least some people from
><copying things.  This is simple and quick, and should help until some real
><guru comes along with a better way.

You could try encrypting all of the executables and then patching the 
DOS EXEC call so that it decrypts the file as it loads it.  Thats what is
done on some of our on campus pc-nets here at U of W.  That doesn't 
prevent people from copying them but what they get won't execute on their
machines.  I'm not sure how you could make this secure in a non network
environment.  You might need a special peice of hardware to perform key
management.  Encryption might be able to be done in software, or again
using special hardware, with a DES chip.

Mike Wingrove
Computer Communications Networks Group
U of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario.

Disclaimer: !? I don't need no stinking disclaimer!!!! :-)