Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!cbmvax!daveh
From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: An Idea for Hardware Protection
Message-ID: <3134@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: 12 Jan 88 16:39:04 GMT
References: <8801090958.AA20842@ucscb.UCSC.EDU>
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 40

in article <8801090958.AA20842@ucscb.UCSC.EDU>, lupin3@UCSCB.UCSC.EDU (-=/ Larry Hastings /=-) says:
> Keywords: "personal" dongle
> Summary: does this sound workable to you too, or am I just a numbskull?

>   This gets rid of all the hassles of normal, software-specific dongles (if
> you have numerous programs that all require dongles, you've got a clutter of
> 'em real quick, as well as not being able to run them simultaneously...); and
> yet protects the developer _totally_.

Nope.  Only until Joe Cracker learns enough about the OS to disassembler the
trackdisk.device, remove the dongle check, and re-assemble that device driver.
Then, when he first boots up, he RamKicks his new driver, and disks are no
longer checked until he powers down.  Don't think it wouldn't happen.

I do like this dongle-key idea better than what you normally see these days in
terms of program-specific dongles, or locked-in CP codes like you find on 
some Workstations, in that it doesn't prevent me running several locked
programs at once, or transporting locked programs between work and home as
long as my dongle follows.  The problem is that, being a standarized CP
method, there's more insentive for a Cracker to crack it than if it were an
individualized system.  I have no evidence that there's anything out there
that can't be cracked; look at how the Video Cypher II system has been
cracked.  They're now resorting to examining each unit out there very often
to check for it running Cracked code.  I don't expect to be launching
AmigaSat-I any time in the near future to Big-Brother such a CP scheme, so
I don't expect that any CP scheme will work given sufficient insentive to 
crack it.

>   (P.S. If everyone decides that this IS a great idea, I reserve all claims to
> this idea!! So THERE.  Heh heh heh...)

> |   _  _ _   _ |_| _  _ |_ -__  _  _ ARPA: lupin3@ucscb.ucsc.EDU
> L_ (_\( ( (_/  | |(_\_\ (_ || )(_)_\ UUCP: ...!ucbvax!ucscc!ucscb!lupin3
> larry      /   hastings        _/    BITNET: lupin3@ucscb@ucscc.BITNET
>      ^v^v^vBoy, I'm glad I don't live in an alternate universe!^v^v^v
> Disclaimer: All original text above was pointless & random, & it makes me proud.
-- 
Dave Haynie  "The B2000 Guy"     Commodore-Amiga  "The Crew That Never Rests"
   {ihnp4|uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: D-DAVE H     BIX: hazy
		"I can't relax, 'cause I'm a Boinger!"