My old man vs LC Standalone

Tom Glod tom at makeshyft.com
Tue Oct 22 13:38:34 EDT 2019


Funny, I just sat down to fire up LC to check on the encryption option.
That will be the first thing I will do.

My dad will do this using a C++ / assembly debugger, and he finds the point
at which the trial limitation is lifted or enforced, and does all his work
there.  So he'll be looking at memory directly and will try to inject a
'simple' workaround.

I'm not sure about this, but probably the arrangement and sequence of
variables in the applications' memory space will be different each time it
starts?  I could be wrong but I believe cracks and patches often use a
specific byte offsets to make changes to specific portions of the program,
assuming their location is always the same within the applications
memory.   This is where I think an LC standalone is different, but thats
just speculation on my part.

With enough time ....sure...everything can be cracked......., I don't think
it will be easy for him at all, given he's never seen LC.

On Tue, Oct 22, 2019 at 11:20 AM J. Landman Gay via use-livecode <
use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> That was my first thought too, password protecting the stack makes the
> scripts unreadable. The hacker would have to read the memory directly and
> I'm not sure what that would show, but I don't think it would be
> particularly organized.
> --
> Jacqueline Landman Gay | jacque at hyperactivesw.com
> HyperActive Software | http://www.hyperactivesw.com
> On October 22, 2019 10:09:40 AM Bob Sneidar via use-livecode
> <use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
>
> > I'd be curious to know how well simply pass protecting the stacks does.
> > Given the "hacker" doesn't know the key that was used for the
> encryption,
> > it shouldn't be possible.
> >
> > Bob S
> >
> >
> >> On Oct 22, 2019, at 07:46 , Tom Glod via use-livecode
> >> <use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> JB, of course thats true, its just a matter of how long it takes and how
> >> skilled the cracker must be.  Its definitely not a reason not to try.
> >>
> >> Kee, that sounds like quite the scheme.... a self-destructing stack.  My
> >> initial instinct is to create some trap using hashing also.
> >>
> >> Thanks. :)
> >>
> >> On Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 11:03 PM kee nethery via use-livecode <
> >> use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> My wife built a Hypercard stack standalone that was protected by a
> dongle.
> >>> But, every call to the dongle was something you could search for in the
> >>> scripts. So she had scripts that did hashes of the scripts that talked
> to
> >>> the dongle. And she had scripts that did hashes of the scripts that
> checked
> >>> the hashes of the scripts …
> >>>
> >>> Plus, she broke up the calculations into various sections of other
> code.
> >>> When a script noticed stuff was being altered, it would start erasing
> stuff
> >>> in the app stack. And it would look for Hypercard itself on their disk
> and
> >>> start erasing stuff in it. It would hold on as long as possible doing
> as
> >>> much damage as possible.
> >>>
> >>> Setting the code to do all this protection was a carefully scripted
> >>> process because one false step and it would self destruct and damage
> her
> >>> Hypercard. It was pretty obvious to me when that happened because the
> >>> cursing would be rather loud and prolonged.
> >>>
> >>> She’d do things like add up all the chars in a script, do a modulo on
> that
> >>> number, and then go to script ID <that answer> to execute a line of
> code in
> >>> that script.
> >>>
> >>> I’m sure someone could have eventually gotten past all that stuff but
> >>> don’t think anyone ever did.
> >>>
> >>> ------
> >>>
> >>> All that said, shareware authors would routinely hang out on crack
> sites
> >>> and seconds before releasing their app, they would post a crack. No one
> >>> wants to be the second person to crack an app so the author would be
> the
> >>> only crack. That crack would allow someone to use the app for some
> period
> >>> of time (months) and then it would develop some kind of error. Users
> would
> >>> call in for support on XYZ error and the answer was, the more recent
> >>> version fixes that. It’s a simple upgrade, here’s the URL for users
> with
> >>> this error. And those folks would become paid users.
> >>>
> >>> Kee
> >
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-- 
Tom Glod
Founder & Developer
MakeShyft R.D.A (www.makeshyft.com)
Office:226-706-9339
Mobile:226-706-9793



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