My old man vs LC Standalone

[JB]

Well considering he writes assembly and other languages
and is communicating with other people he might be able
to do things that would surprise you.

JB

> On Oct 22, 2019, at 10:38 AM, Tom Glod via use-livecode <use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
> 
> 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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>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
> -- 
> Tom Glod
> Founder & Developer
> MakeShyft R.D.A (www.makeshyft.com)
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