Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!hao!ames!lll-tis!lll-lcc!pyramid!prls!gardner
From: gardner@prls.UUCP (Robert Gardner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: An Idea for Hardware Protection
Message-ID: <8253@prls.UUCP>
Date: 12 Jan 88 01:04:45 GMT
References: <8801090958.AA20842@ucscb.UCSC.EDU> <4779@videovax.Tek.COM> <8801110635.AA03499@ucscb.UCSC.EDU>
Reply-To: gardner@prls.UUCP (Robert Gardner)
Organization: Philips Research Labs, Sunnyvale, California
Lines: 48

In article <8801110635.AA03499@ucscb.UCSC.EDU> lupin3%ucscb.UCSC.EDU@ucscc.UCSC.EDU writes:
>Seeing as how all the file I/O goes through the I/O chip, perhaps
>it would not let you READ the security section of the disk.

An interesting idea I heard in the early days of the Mac was to have a
sector on the disk that could be READ by the hardware but could not be
WRITTEN, except by very expensive drives. Turns out this is just a
clever way of making a key-disk scheme, though, with all the problems
associated with that. And it also standardizes the access code to the
special area of the disk so it is very easy to check for references
by the program to that sector. It's then just a matter of figuring out
for each program what it expects to find there.

Another interesting scheme is to have hardware that can partially write
a bit such that when read it will random value. Then the program just
reads it several times. If it always gets the same result it knows it
is on a copied disk. Again defeatable by someone who knows where in
your code you make the check and can trap the disk access, always
returning a random value.

I just don't see how any copy protection scheme can be completely
foolproof because some clever programmer can figure out where you check
for the copy protection and alter it. It then becomes a race to see
who can keep ahead, the developer or the cracker. The best solution
is to provide good support and a hard-to-copy but absolutely necessary
manual. Of course, these days software that can be used without the
manual sells better (and is more fun to develop)....

Contrary to opinions expressed here earlier, I do think piracy hurts
developers, especially small ones that would like to expand and produce
more/better products but can't generate the revenue to do it. I believe
I could provide hard evidence that piracy has hurt my development
efforts and made it much harder for me to earn a living in software
development. (I have yet to copy protect a commercial product, but
that may change...)

The worst part about piracy is that people do it without really realizing
that it's wrong, illegal, and damaging to their own (long term) self
interests. How many VCR movies or audio tapes/records have you illegally
pirated? I'm very guilty there -- or was before I got into software
and began to realize what I was doing. It just never occurred to me before
that making a copy of someone else's record was illegal! Piracy, I
believe, is an educational/social problem that probably cannot be solved
through hardware/software tricks. There are ways to minimize your losses,
but what is needed is more education -- and not just via bboards and
user groups.

Robert Gardner