Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

Dev.SN ♥ developers

How Can Software be Protected from Piracy ?

posted by janrinok on Friday March 21 2014, @10:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the questions-without-answers dept.

AnonTechie writes:

"Echoing a question asked on programmers.stackexchange.com - How can software be protected from piracy ?

It just seems a little hard to believe that with all of our technological advances and the billions of dollars spent on engineering the most unbelievable and mind-blowing software, we still have no other means of protecting against piracy than a "serial number/activation key." I'm sure a ton of money, maybe even billions, went into creating Windows 7 or Office and even Snow Leopard, yet I can get it for free in less than 20 minutes. Same for all of Adobe's products, which are probably the easiest. Can there exist a fool-proof and hack-proof method of protecting your software against piracy? If not realistically, could it be theoretically possible? Or no matter what mechanisms these companies deploy, can hackers always find a way around it ?"

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
How Can Software be Protected from Piracy ? | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 1000 moderator points   | 90 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Ken_g6 on Friday March 21 2014, @11:56PM

    by Ken_g6 (3706) on Friday March 21 2014, @11:56PM (#19597)

    Back in the day, this was the way to protect really expensive software. Have the dongle sign something with a PGP key, protect the hardware from hacking (I hear there are ways), and that should do it.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Informative=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  
    Total Score:   2  

  • (Score: 1) by axsdenied on Saturday March 22 2014, @12:10AM

    by axsdenied (384) on Saturday March 22 2014, @12:10AM (#19601)

    Dongles are still in use (for some software). However, they increase the cost and this approach is not hack proof. Nothing is...

  • (Score: 1) by The Archon V2.0 on Saturday March 22 2014, @01:10PM

    by The Archon V2.0 (3887) on Saturday March 22 2014, @01:10PM (#19743)

    These days, though, that makes the sale harder (because digital distribution is impossible - the customer is going to have to wait for something to arrive via mail, which is a tick against you if there's a competitor who doesn't have that). Also, the software itself is still a target, so you need to harden the software so it's not a matter of changing the right JE opcode to a JNE. And while the software is an easier attack because you can't break your only copy, little hardware is truly tamper-proof, especially if you need that hardware to work on any PC with a USB port or hub.

    PGP is encryption, meant to stop attacker A from intercepting or faking a communication between B and C. Simple. But in this scenario (or scenarios like CSS on a DVD), who are A, B, and C?

    Are B and C the customer and the software package? Then A is B. This is like using encryption to protect your e-mails from the NSA, when you only e-mail someone who works in the NSA's SIGINT section.

    Are B and C the software and the dongle? Well, then A OWNS both of them and the infrastructure by which they communicate, and can do as he pleases with them. Even if Jehovah can't factor the product of large primes, he can crack open the heads of B and C and make them more amenable to his plans.

    This is the core problem with copy protection: The customer is the attacker. You have to give easy access to the person who you want to keep from accessing it, because when someone with cracking skills buys your software his evil bit isn't set for you to check.