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@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 > _______________________________________________ > use-livecode mailing list > use-livecode@lists.runrev.com > Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your > subscription preferences: > http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode > -- Tom Glod Founder & Developer MakeShyft R.D.A (www.makeshyft.com) Office:226-706-9339 Mobile:226-706-9793 _______________________________________________ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
