Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcvax!kth!draken!umecs!ikaros!christer
From: christer@ikaros.cs.umu.se (Christer Ericson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: Software Piracy
Message-ID: <870@umecs.cs.umu.se>
Date: 5 Jun 89 20:49:14 GMT
Sender: news@umecs.cs.umu.se
Reply-To: christer@ikaros.UUCP (Christer Ericson)
Organization: Dep. of Inform.Proc.,University of Umea,Sweden
Lines: 47


Just wanted to pass these words, on the topic of copy protection, from one
of my favourite gurus on to you netters (as an extension of the discussion
of software piracy):


Excerpt from Krakowicz's Kracking Korner Basics of Kracking 105:
---
Our quotation of the week (month?) is from Don Lancaster, in the introduction
to his book "Enhancing your Apple II, vol. 1" (a semi-good but seriously
"stretched" compilation of little hardware tricks to make your Apple do new
things):

"Any attempt at copy protection will hack off and inconvenience your
legitimate users, and it will dramatically increase the number of bootleg
copies in circulation... The big thing about copy protection is that it
doesn't. A year's effort by a crackerjack military cryptograpy team can
usually be undone in fifteen minutes, between klingon zappings, by your
average fourteen-year-old. and, morality and economics aside, one fact
stands out... Undoing copy protection is fun! Not only is it fun, but
cracking the uncopyable is about the most challenging and rewarding thing
that you can possibly do with your Apple. And, the things you learn along the
way are exactly the skills that you will need to become a really great
programmer. So, I guess we should all be thankful for the copy-protection
people since they are are giving us all this fascinating entertainment and
superb training at an unbeatable price."

Beautifully put, Don; an excellent rendition of the "krackist's manifesto".
---

I wholehartedly agree with Don and Krakowicz.

For those of you who haven't heard of Krakowicz's Kracking Korner (hereafter
refered as to KKK [and DON'T misinterpret that, please]), KKK was a series of
textfiles circulating on the underground cracking tutorial disks (these files
originated from some BBS in the NY area [Pirate Trek?]) and covered absolutely
everything a freshman to the trade wanted to know. I recommend these files to
anyone interested in the working of the Disk II, they're far better than
anything Apple ever has published on the topic (have they?).


/Christer


| Christer Ericson                           Internet: christer@cs.umu.se  |
| Department of Computer Science, University of Umea, S-90187 UMEA, Sweden |
|     >>>>>    "I bully sheep. I claim God doesn't exist..."    <<<<<      |