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From: ddrex@gorgo.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Protecting against copying from
Message-ID: <58200001@gorgo.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 22-Nov-86 08:20:00 EST
Article-I.D.: gorgo.58200001
Posted: Sat Nov 22 08:20:00 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 24-Nov-86 22:01:24 EST
References: <278@rocky2.UUCP>
Lines: 46
Nf-ID: #R:rocky2.UUCP:-27800:gorgo.UUCP:58200001:000:2206
Nf-From: gorgo.UUCP!ddrex    Nov 22 07:20:00 1986


/* Written  4:06 pm  Nov  9, 1986 by reintom@rocky2.UUCP in gorgo.UUCP:comp.sy.ibm.pc */
/* ---------- "Re: Protecting against copying from" ---------- */
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.
<
<                   - Jim Frost * The Madd Hacker -

That's not so hard to thwart unless there are no floppy drives on the
machine.  Someone can walk in with a DOS disk, boot from it, and copy any
file off the hard disk.  I really don't know how you can effectively do
what you want to do, except the following:

Rewrite the file BIOS functions in DOS and rearrange the FAT so that it is
non-standard.  This is very risky and I would not think that it would be
safe, but I guess it's possible.


-- 
Tom Reingold -- Rockefeller Univ, 1230 York Av, NY 10021; (212) 570-7709
UUCP:    {seismo|philabs|phri|harvard|ihnp4}!cmcl2!rna!rocky2!reintom
ARPANET: reintom@rockefeller.arpa
BITNET:  REINTOM@ROCKVAX
/* End of text from gorgo.UUCP:comp.sy.ibm.pc */

It turns out that there is a pd (shareware) harddisk protection program that
does something very much like that. It dinks with the FAT, and if you don't
know the password, you can't access the disk, regardless of how you boot
the machine. The program installs itself as a device driver. It can be
overcome if you're real handy with a debugger, and you exactly what it
altered on the disk. I have not used, tho, and don't recall the name of it.
You can get more info from the bbs number listed below.

 David Drexler
 
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