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Author Topic: Create software protector  (Read 8958 times)

Mr.Madguy

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Re: Create software protector
« Reply #15 on: March 05, 2019, 07:56:01 am »
Current reality - is that protecting your software isn't worth it. Most companies use "Free for personal use, license for business/government" principle. Why? Home users will use hacked versions anyway. There is no ideal protection, so hacking is just a matter of time. And suing isn't worth it, as court costs will most likely exceed program price. So, via making you program free for home users, you're making it more accessible and wide-spread. And if people will like to use it at home, then may be they'll want to use it at work? And here is, where license for business/government kicks in. They're controlled much better, have higher penalties for violating law, easier to sue and are usually forced to use licensed software. That should be your target auditory.
Is it healthy for project not to have regular stable releases?
Just for fun: Code::Blocks, GCC 13 and DOS - is it possible?

Thaddy

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Re: Create software protector
« Reply #16 on: March 05, 2019, 09:50:54 am »
Yes. Same as I wrote.
Anyway, write part of your software (the unique parts are usually algorithms) to an FPGA.. and Bob's your Uncle...and even that can be circumvented...

Another option is to register your company in a democratic country with relatively low legal costs (Lithuania comes to mind, my wife is Lithuanian) and sufficient international contracts and quality.
« Last Edit: March 05, 2019, 09:57:06 am by Thaddy »
Specialize a type, not a var.

Mr.Madguy

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Re: Create software protector
« Reply #17 on: October 18, 2021, 01:21:23 pm »
I can even say, that current trend shifts even further. Many companies accept using software for free as fact. So they shift towards other means to earn money. Cloud services, ads, telemetry to determine preferences to make ads more targetable, or just collect some stats to sell it to 3rd parties and other things, that can be considered to be unethical.
Is it healthy for project not to have regular stable releases?
Just for fun: Code::Blocks, GCC 13 and DOS - is it possible?

jollytall

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Re: Create software protector
« Reply #18 on: October 18, 2021, 04:45:09 pm »
Well, it was not really specified what sort of software to what kind of customer base. Large volume, home use is a difficult case. For professional use, and in volumes you can handle, I learnt a trick that can work well in many cases.

Just when you sell your software hardcode in it the name of the customer. You can make some little tricks to "generate" it inside the software (e.g. make the name as a sequence of char codes calculated from integer constants) or use a more sophisticated approach, like a public key decryption from the private key encrypted name. Anyway, the point is that it is not worth to debug, change your code.

Then in all outputs, let it be screen, printouts, files, network communication, etc. put there a copyright notice, who bought that license.
No company would use an illegal copy, taking the risk and blame of everybody seeing it.

(Although, once on an Asian international airline I saw inflight movies with constant copyright subtitle, like "property of x studio, it is illegal to display it publicly)

 

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