screwing with pirates

[carlsson]

I was about to suggest to set attack, decay and release to 0 and simulate a software envelope by altering the sustain level, but realized first through emulation and then verifying with real hardware that if the sustain level is increased during a note, it gets cut off on the SID. Reducing sustain level however works as expected. That is something I never have considered before in 30+ years of C64 usage, but one never is too old to learn new stuff.

[Jackel192]

i've switched to the atari 800. too many pokes need to be done for the c64. still working on it

[Jackel192]

what if I wrote a joke program that can be easily cracked but when the cracker cracks the next layer of security, the program locks up?

[VladR]

what if I wrote a joke program that can be easily cracked but when the cracker cracks the next layer of security, the program locks up?

You seem to think that it's somehow, automagically, impossible for the cracker to find and see all the security layers

 

Have you ever seen or used a disassembler ? These days, with large LCD monitors and a multicolumn display of the disassembler output, one can see up to 8 KB of the code on one screen, without having to scroll the screen. You see almost all the code/conditions/jumps at the same time, comfortably without jumping back and forth and it takes literally just minutes to find the right spot in the code...

 

About a year ago, I was asked to hack a 3.5 MB executable (no data, just code). That's almost 2 orders of magnitude more code than on Atari. Took me 3 days (been a long time since I touched PC assembler) to find the spot and circumvent the logic within the binary via hex editor.

 

 

How long do you really think it's going to take with a tiny 32-64 KB Atari binary ?

 

But please, by all means, go on and implement all the "security layers". They're actually extremely appreciated, as they always provide a great dose of laugh (think: stand-up comedy show intensity) during cracking process

[fujidude]

We should start a new topic; The Care and Feeding of Trolls.

[VladR]

A Pure Troll would only fire up the warmongering topic, never to retreat back to the battlefield...

[Jackel192]

i'm not trolling. and carlsson, i see your point. its impossible. thank you for that info. anyway, i have decided to not continue it any further, knowing what i know now.

 

nevertheless, i thank you for the info.

[TMR]

i've switched to the atari 800. too many pokes need to be done for the c64. still working on it

Probably for the best considering you're posting in an Atari 8-bit/5200 specific programming section... but since PEEK and POKE are probably the most useful commands for encrypting and decrypting a program, you'll be needing them for your new target platform as well.

 

what if I wrote a joke program that can be easily cracked but when the cracker cracks the next layer of security, the program locks up?

As noted repeatedly, there's no magical way you can do that which can't be undone by someone else, especially since your "enemies" in this case have two, three or possibly even four decades of programming experience over you and have usually seen and defeated the best of what the copy protection programmers threw at them during that time. And crackers like a challenge... there was a hidden message in the scrolltext after the wrap byte for both versions of WannaClone for example, the C64 one was broken in a couple of days.

 

BASIC isn't the way to go because, regardless of what you come up with, it doesn't take any serious technical knowledge for someone else to undo it and probably in less time than you took to devise the protection in the first place. Assembly language isn't much different in that respect either (especially since you've been talking about something which can be uploaded, helpfully negating the use of media-based protection that companies used) and the only "viable" option is encryption... except that we're talking about something an 8-bit computer can undo in a reasonable timeframe which is therefore something open to brute force attacks with a Windows box and some Python code, again likely to take less time to undo than you put into creating.

 

And sure, you can be subtle and bury the encryption somewhere as anti-tamper code; having level data encrypted against a chunk of the code where the lives counter or collision detection takes place will, if that code is altered by a trainer, screw up the later stages of the game if done right... but even that isn't rocket surgery to remove especially since the code to decrypt that data is sitting there in the object code.

 

TL;DR version: you're basically just wasting your time and the crackers will end up screwing with you.

[Jackel192]

thank you. noted.

[Wilheim]

</sarcasm>

 

I remember once that a local pirate distributor made a protection technique using a weak sector on enhanced density, then make a very long program on BASIC to run a binary loader using encryption, and then that BASIC program was compiled on MMG COMPILER. It was a way to obfuscate the protection routine. Very clever, in my opinion, but I cracked back then anyway

[Jackel192]

interesting

[zzip]

what if I wrote a joke program that can be easily cracked but when the cracker cracks the next layer of security, the program locks up?

 

See the Analog "paperweight" program. Print a message "Say goodbye to your Atari, you filthy pirate!", then switch to white noise that not even the reset button can fix.

[fujidude]

i'm not trolling. and carlsson, i see your point. its impossible. thank you for that info. anyway, i have decided to not continue it any further, knowing what i know now.

 

nevertheless, i thank you for the info.

 

I never meant to imply you were. It was just a reaction to some of the on-going content in general. Besides that I wasn't specifically responding to you, I'm thinking more along the lines that there is feeding taking place. It is the original posting which I feel was a bit of trolling. Trolls get a kick out of poking bees nests and seeing the reaction of the bees. Now there are some bees buzzing around making noise, but they are only reacting as nature designed. Despite that, there is some worthy content in here too. And of course, this is all just my opinion. Other's may vary.

Edited September 11, 2017 by fujidude

[peteym5]

Are we talking about anti-piracy as in preventing software from being copied? Or being hacked or changed? I know a few tricks I had done with cartridge games that can do things when not running from a real cartridge. As for anti-hacking, what you doing in Basic may work. But there are other things you can try like using Inflate/Deflate that makes it difficult to change the file with an Hex Editor until it is re-inflated back into RAM. I cannot reveal all my secrets and what ever someone does to protect their information is up to them. The stuff done on modern PCs is much more sophisticated. Software running on computers connected to the internet check websites for updates and also if the program had been pirated. Cannot exactly do that with the Atari, can we?

[flashjazzcat]

Heh... this gold just writes itself.

[VladR]

The stuff done on modern PCs is much more sophisticated. Software running on computers connected to the internet check websites for updates and also if the program had been pirated. Cannot exactly do that with the Atari, can we?

How exactly would it help if it was possible on Atari ?

 

Hack is the same - just NOP the condition via Hex Editor and make the jump to address that continues the "Check OK" part....

 

The moment one has the binary....

[+Stephen]

You do realize that over 14 years ago, someone "sniffed" a 200MHz double data rate buss, in order to hack the XBox "secure" flash ROM right? Have fun doing anything on the real Atari. We don't even need to run it in emulator (although anything can - and I do mean ANYTHING). Turbo Freezer will give you the full machine state, all (whopping 3) CPU registers, program counter, the entire massive 64kB memory, etc.

 

Absolutely ludicrous to even think anything can be made secure on that platform.

[sanny]

Can't we just bury this thread and let it rest in peace?

[Jackel192]

agreed

[+remowilliams]

Heh... this gold just writes itself.

 

He went went full troll, man. Never go full troll.

[carlsson]

You might want to read this story about an invitation to the Datastorm party which had a password protected part. The first person to figure out the password would be given a code to mail to the arranger to get a free ticket to the party. It involved several more or less obfuscated levels of protection, but eventually one person broke the password and won the contest.

 

http://datastorm.party/2017/08/19/c64-invitation-cracked/

 

Also, the degree of protection only matters as long as you have something worth protecting. If you post something seemingly lame without any valuable content, barely anyone will bother trying to break your protection. It might appear to you as you have the perfect scheme, but then if you reuse it to protect something meaningful, you might see your encryption be smashed into pieces within minutes or at most hours.

[tep392]

Have any companies done more subtle things like altering gameplay if a cracked copy is detected. For example, they could ramp up difficulty more quickly on a cracked copy. This subtle approach is less likely to get detected and defeated.

[TMR]

Also, the degree of protection only matters as long as you have something worth protecting. If you post something seemingly lame without any valuable content, barely anyone will bother trying to break your protection. It might appear to you as you have the perfect scheme, but then if you reuse it to protect something meaningful, you might see your encryption be smashed into pieces within minutes or at most hours.

That's why some current gen PC games using Denuvo last a few months and others are zero day cracks; Sonic Mania was one of the most recent and that version of Denuvo lasted less than a week.

 

Have any companies done more subtle things like altering gameplay if a cracked copy is detected. For example, they could ramp up difficulty more quickly on a cracked copy. This subtle approach is less likely to get detected and defeated.

There's a few who did that, here's the link to a relevant IGN article which includes Batman Arkham Asylum which, if it detected a pirated copy, would disable the glide mechanic; there are multiple points in the game where it's impossible to continue with that turned off.

[NRV]

Have any companies done more subtle things like altering gameplay if a cracked copy is detected. For example, they could ramp up difficulty more quickly on a cracked copy. This subtle approach is less likely to get detected and defeated.

 

Alternate Reality the Dungeon, with the FBI agents and the "long arm of the law".. but that wasn't "subtle" x)

 

Gods in the atariST did that, for all the levels before the first boss, that I think was inmortal.

The only problem was that, when I played a good "backup", I was disappointed about the real difficulty of the game.. the bad copy was much more challenging

[Good_Times]

Awwww, man; these replies are NOT what I expected from a thread titled "screwing with pirates", sigh....