Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!biar!trebor
From: trebor@biar.UUCP (Robert J Woodhead)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Mac clone rumor (long)
Message-ID: <587@biar.UUCP>
Date: 22 May 89 03:16:40 GMT
References: <20335@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU>
Reply-To: trebor@biar.UUCP (Robert J Woodhead)
Organization: Biar Games, Inc.
Lines: 24

In article <20335@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> mfi@beach.cis.ufl.edu () writes:
>C.E.K.A stores their Mac ROM code in modified EPROMs
>designed at IBM's Research Labs, which ERASE themselves if anyone tries to
>dump their code onto disk using software, or copy them using an EPROM
>Burner.

The first case is flat out impossible to protect against.  Any debugger
that can single step will be able to read the EPROMS, and worst case,
a modicum of extra hardware could easily snoop out the contents of the
EPROMS (they have to be read during instruction/data fetches anyway, and
you can just monitor the address and data lines).

In addition, it's foolish.  If it's possible to write a program that
trashes the EPROMS, what happens if, just by accident, System 7.0 just
happens to do this?  Ooops.

Bottom line; assuming they have a real product, they will lose more sales
because of pissed off customers trashing their EPROMS (plus god knows how
much $ spent in support) than they will from pirates stealing the EPROMS.

-- 
Robert J Woodhead, Biar Games, Inc.  !uunet!biar!trebor | trebor@biar.UUCP
"The lamb will lie down with the lion, but the lamb won't get much sleep."
     -- Woody Allen.