Guenter Dongle Question

Hello Günter,

you protect your software with a dongle. How do you ensure that your software will not be decompiled and thus ineffective protection of the dongle?

Kind Regrads


Thomas

[forum.mysnip.de]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/2008 06:41PM by Piet van Zanten.

Hi Thomas,

first, ANY protection can be circumvented. So, keep cool. Cracks exist for most of the well-known & expensive dongles. A brain-dead youngster can 'crack' them by only knowing the correct web site for a download.

Now, we're introducing a more challenging concept to wannabe-pirates: think yourself! Which in fact is harder than expected in case of WinDev software. Remember, there's p-code in memory - NOT pure assembly!

You have to use a good tool, let's say BlackIce debugger or IDA. You will be able to find any readable string for which you can search in memory. So, a guy with computer education will be able to locate the string and read its contents after decryption from the dongle. No problem.

The real trick would be to alter the license text, re-apply all checksums and to re-encrypt the whole thing in order to trick our software into thinking that the license-file is OK. The problem for those guys are complex checksum algorithms because WinDev would send them criss-cross over the runtime. So, of course, it can be cracked, but it will take onsiderable time and expertise. After that, one would have to re-encrypt the file - by which algorithm?

I'll build a sample project and let you try. You'll see yourself how hard it is!

Kind regards,
Guenter



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2008 08:19AM by Jimbo.

Hi,

thank you Piet and Guenter!
I hoped you would have a EXE Packer found, with Windev works. I am annoying the fact that any script kiddie my encryption code can read.

Kind Reagards


Thomas