A good protection is NOT an impossible dream! :-)

[surferxyz]

FRAVIA'S "HOW TO PROTECT BETTER"
A good protection is NOT an impossible dream!

hxxp://wxw.searchlores.org/protec/protec.htm

[peleon]

Hmmm...don't know if that link is older than me

[Shub-Nigurrath]

two fast observations

1. quite old material currently not the "state of art"
2. the title says "How to (try to) protect software effectively" .. try to ;-)

[bgrimm]

Those guidelines are good, and could be great, if not running
on the underlying Micro$oft Windows OS.

The OS is the biggest weakness aside from sloppy protection
design. Even protectionists who try to write there own underlying
system calls with special drivers, sys and vxd's are not safe.

If it runs on windows, you can make it no fun to reverse, but if
someone wants to take the time, windows will let them take it
apart.

I honestly think many of the highly regarded folks who visit this
board know more about the internal workings of Windows than
most of Bill Gate's wage slaves who sit in there cubicles and
write convoluted code all day long with no sense of direction.

If you put many of those protection mantra's in place in a
secure OS, or even better, an embedded OS, THEN they may
be sufficient to fend off all but the occasional government
sponsered agency & honest or not "corporation".


my 2 cents,
-BG

[CrackZ]

FRAVIA'S "HOW TO PROTECT BETTER"
A good protection is NOT an impossible dream!

hxxp://wxw.searchlores.org/protec/protec.htm

Quite possibly appropriate in 1997 ;-).

My 2c, but there are many better pages to look at for more current tricks, need I suggest Daemon, Elicz, Z0mbie, this forum and others, my own and about 20 others via your favourite search engine.

Regards

CrackZ.

[dj-siba]

FRAVIA'S "HOW TO PROTECT BETTER"

FRAVIA is gone into searching the web now as all know, those old pages are kept for historic reason!!!

but what JMI: CrackZ should be a VIP memeber, or am i Wrong ?


Regards

[JMI]

He certainly is in my book, but I do not make the usergroup settings rules and only Aaron may make such decisions.

I'm not sure he even wants such a designation, but I would recommend it to Aaron.

Regards,

[dj-siba]

Thank's JMI for unlighting me

Regards

[JMI]

We should thank Aaron for recognizing CrackZ's contributions to the Reversing craft by all this great contributions.

Regards,

The OS is the biggest weakness aside from sloppy protection design.

Blah-blah-blah...
I'm managing my small business in developing the protections for individual clients (not some widespread bullshit like armadillo or so) and I can assure you, OS doesn't really matter.

well, we are interested in unpacking new thingz, (IF they are interesting)

[bgrimm]

Originally Posted by volodya

The OS is the biggest weakness aside from sloppy protection design.

Blah-blah-blah...
I'm managing my small business in developing the protections for individual clients (not some widespread bullshit like armadillo or so) and I can assure you, OS doesn't really matter.

I am sure, having browsed your past posts, that you for one know more about the inner workings of the Windows OS than most of Microsoft.

My point is, you can write the most solid code, but it is the underlying design of the OS, Windows in particular, that would allow others to unravel the protection written to run on it.

Until there is a fundamental change on the hardware level, (and not just an execution bit for example), M$ Windows apps will be more vunerable than apps written for a hardened OS or embedded system.

Not a rant, no disrespect, just my 2-cents.
-BG

Ok, assuming windowsOS would be coded more clean more "secure" what would it change? the normal user cannot break the usual protections, and would not break better protections, too. But no system could be so good that not even one human will find a way to undermine it.

Example 1: PEiD Buffer Overflow Vulnerability

Example 2: the new StarForceProtection was even broken after short time

[taos]

Originally Posted by bgrimm

M$ Windows apps will be more vunerable than apps written for a hardened OS or embedded system.

it's because M$ is the most OS used. If Linux was used like M$ you will see a lot of cracks for Linux.

[aldente]

it's because M$ is the most OS used. If Linux was used like M$ you will see a lot of cracks for Linux.

Exactly!

And that's also the reason why there are more virii, trojans and worms for Microsoft Windows.
But every nasty bastard obviously thinks he'd have to blame Microsoft, and not all the dummy users, or the coders of such malware.
If I'd code a trojan, it would just make sense to do so for a widely used operating system, and not for a system just a few thousand folks use.
So it's definately NOT Microsoft's fault!