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Another "pirating software" thought

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I'm pretty sure you could come up with an "uncrackable" copy protection scheme, but I doubt you could come up with one that does not significantly inconvenience the legitimate buyer.

I think the Bard's Tale (1980s game) required you to look up the [n]th word in the [n]th paragraph on the [n]th page in the manual and input it to run the game. THAT'S annoying...and it was readily cracked by patching the EXE to prevent it from calling the protection subroutine.
 
im not sure what exactly you could do to make an "uncrackable" protection scheme. I think if they could they would have one by now, not to say they are not trying.
 
I would just like to remind everyone that there is no such thing as an "uncrackable" scheme. If all else fails, you can make your own program that is exactly like that one, minus the protection.

However, realisitcaly, any scheme can be broken.

Armani
 


<< i'm sure this could be another topic, but does everyone remember the "old" copy protections (not really a copy protection i guess)?

they would have keys, or make you look in certain pages of the game manual to proceed to the game. 🙂

anyone recall any other weird schemes? >>



Haha
Lucasarts came up with some clever ones...for "The Secret of Monkey Island" you had to match up a bunch of pirate faces on a wheel and punch in a code. My friend copied the game and copied the disc in every position...it was like 30 pages.
I asked him why he didn't just pull apart the 2 discs and make his own wheel? He didn't think of that...

And even further back, for Zak McKraken and the Alien Mindbenders, you would be asked an access code anytime you tried to leave the US. The game came with a HUGE card full of bizarre symbols that you had to look up to get the code.
The card was printed black ink on maroon paper so that it would be hard to photocopy.

The problem is that no copy protection scheme will ever withstand the efforts of people who have all the time in the world to circumvent them.
 
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