Re: New Copy Protection Methods?

["Rob" <g8crapachino@comcast.net>]

chandler,

Not sure how your rant is really relevent to the discussion.    Those 
recovery disks that ship with modern PC's often have nothing to with copy 
protection.  They just serve as a method of restoring the system to original 
factory state, "value added" crap and all.

"e p chandler" <epc8@juno.com> wrote in message 
8e5971e0-60c5-4105-b049-9c58563e681f@m11g2000vbl.googlegroups.com">news:8e5971e0-60c5-4105-b049-9c58563e681f@m11g2000vbl.googlegroups.com...
On Sep 22, 9:18 pm, dog_...@macgui.com (D. Finnigan) wrote:
> e p chandler wrote:
> > On Sep 22, 2:44 pm, dog_...@macgui.com (D. Finnigan)
> wrote:
> > > I was wondering this morning if anyone had come up with any novel
> copy-protection
> > > methods, or if perhaps it's too perverse a topic in this day
> and age.
>
> > > An amusing one I had thought of would be to have every even
> track number be
> > > 13 sector, and every odd track number be 16 sector. Perhaps
> this has been done
> > > already?
>
> > > Anyway, it might lead to some
>
> interesting theoretical discussion, though I should hope> > that no one 
> starts
>
> distributing new Apple II programs as copy-protected. :-0
>
> > ICK. IMO the only
>
> purpose of copy protection on a floppy disk system> is to make un-reliable
>
> software even more un-reliable. Not only does> it interfere with 
> legitimate
>
> uses of the software, but floppy disks do> wear out, get damaged, eaten by 
> the
>
> dog, run through the microwave,
>
> > etc.
>
> If I may politely say so, I think
> that you're missing the point of this thread. I'm sure that no one here 
> actually
> believes that copy protection should still be used, or if it ever had more
> positives than negative aspects.
>
> > But all copy protection schemes can be
>
> broken. In the old days,
>
> > pirates had access to all sorts of specialized
> hardware for
> > interrupting the boot process, taking snapshots of memory, etc.
>
> Ah, you just reminded me of my second point which I had forgotten earlier: 
> and
> that was to make the program load in segments such that it is not all in 
> memory
> at once.
>
> Or imagine a self-modifying copy-protected program. Every time there's
> disk access, or the program loads, data get shifted around.

OK. I have seen new types of "copy protection", but they go by the
name of license management. Some involve cryptography. Others bury the
key-related code. So the program is copyable, but it won't run without
a hardware device, being keyed to the ID of the hardware it was
installed on, the users MAC address, zip code, number of goats in the
back yeard.... or the oxymoronic "Genuine Advantage".

[rant]

Worse, nowadays there is the "recovery disk" instead of a copy of the
OS on disk + drivers + patches + key. Said disks install lots of
"value added" (for the retailer, not the customer) crapola.

It's hard to copy protect something that you bootstrap up from 2 kinds
of paper tape!

[/rant]

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