Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!elroy!cit-vax!tybalt.caltech.edu!palmer
From: palmer@tybalt.caltech.edu (David Palmer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Copy protection and the consumer (dongles)
Message-ID: <5217@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Date: 18 Jan 88 17:15:45 GMT
References: <4663@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <22628@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Sender: news@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu
Reply-To: palmer@tybalt.caltech.edu.UUCP (David Palmer)
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Lines: 23

Many years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, I wrote a copy protection
system for such a dinosaur.  The system had an escalating series of penalties
as the hacker penetrated deeper and deeper into the copy protection scheme,
from simply returning to the shell, to what I hoped would scare them for good.

I put up a quote from a famous crimefighter, and then wrote "now trashing
main drive"  (Data is sacred, hardware is not).  I set the step time on
the drive heads to the maximum (I think 200 mS) and seeked in and out
until the computer was turned off.  The result was a gratifyingly loud
grinding sound which made it sound as if the drive were tearing itself
apart.  It actually did no damage, but it sure sounded bad.

The system was cracked in a few months by people who looked at the "onecopy"
program, which made a single backup copy of the disk.  I had not finished
obfuscating that program by the time I left, and it may not have been
done properly.  It almost certainly did not have the elaborate safeguards
of the program proper.

That company no longer copy-protects its software.

		David Palmer
		palmer@tybalt.caltech.edu
		...rutgers!cit-vax!tybalt.caltech.edu!palmer
	"Every day it's the same thing--variety.  I want something different."