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  #1  
Old 01-01-2006, 01:19
md5
 
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Need a suggestion for a decent software protection

Hello

OK, I realize this is a weird question to ask, but I thought this would be the best place to ask it

I have an application that I want to distribute and I'd like some suggestions on the protection to buy and use. I know that no protection is perfect, I'd just like one that would be decent, that is, not very easy to be cracked. My budget is not the greatest (say, around 300USD max), so I wouldn't go for a very expensive protection (i.e. 3000+ USD). An online activation scheme, or an activation based on a key would be all I need. I plan to give it around, but I'd like to have control over its distribution and activation

I was thinking of Armadillo at first, but it seems it's quite easy to crack it. ASProtect looks to be better. What would you guys suggest, given my budget and requirements?

Thanks in advance
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  #2  
Old 01-01-2006, 01:56
berry berry is offline
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you may try winlicense. here is the address
http://www.oreans.com
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  #3  
Old 01-01-2006, 02:02
Crk
 
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the best protection and tricks is the one you could make with your own imagination think you're a cracker or reverser.. what would they do...and what you could do to make it hard for them..this is my opinion.. don't waste your money for another packer or protection that you will see later unpacked and cracked.

Happy New year and My Best Regards!
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  #4  
Old 01-01-2006, 03:51
rumor
 
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As far as i know, only one public version of Themida was cracked, which is ancient.WinLicense is an amazing product, which does all what it says.
Until now, i've never seen a product cracked which is protected with WL.
It support SmartKeys (activation by key), also it's very very easy to develop a custom online activation scheme, using the SDK from WL.
If you intergrate WL "deeply" in your code and do your own "magic" as Crk said, then it will be very hard to crack your software..

Have a happy new year full of health and wealth!
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  #5  
Old 01-01-2006, 04:00
JMI JMI is offline
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Before you consider Thermida, perhaps you should review this Thread:

http://www.exetools.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7745

Titled: AKIRA AGAINST THEMIDA

Regards,
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JMI
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  #6  
Old 01-01-2006, 04:08
rumor
 
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This is exactly the crack i was reffering too, but it's been 6 months since then, and i believe Themida/WinLicense improved itself, specially with the new features it introduced on 1.1.
Thanx for reminding us though!
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  #7  
Old 01-02-2006, 10:14
md5
 
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Thanks for the suggestions everyone, I'll try Winlicense (Themida)

How about EXECryptor? Is it any good?

I don't want to create my own protection right now as I don't have the necessary knowledge and experience. Can anyone suggest a good book on the subject?
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  #8  
Old 01-02-2006, 13:01
Crk
 
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http://pnluck.altervista.org/soft-tute/Execryptor_a_look_on.html
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  #9  
Old 01-02-2006, 20:21
Asus Asus is offline
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With WinLicense, if you want to active Hardware ID like Hardware Fringerprint likes Armadillo, you have to program it by yourself with SDK.

It has more options to active your products as text file, license file and .reg file.... I guess there is not protection is absolution, the main program how long it will be defeated!
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  #10  
Old 01-03-2006, 03:20
Relayer
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Crk
http://pnluck.altervista.org/soft-tute/Execryptor_a_look_on.html
but code restoration after morphing is still open problem
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  #11  
Old 01-03-2006, 05:38
willcodeforfood
 
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Any protection can be cracked (IMHO). The trick is to make it impossible to create a keygen or single user names/serial number pair that any noob can use. As long as it requires a patch you can minimize the number of cracked copies by using embedded/protected/encrypted custom key checking and updating your releases often. This will:
1. force the cracker to disassemble and nop/remove the checks to create a patch
2. make it difficult for the noob to find the matching software version and patcher
Keeping 1/2 step ahead is the best you can hope for.

As to commercial packages, I gave up an built my own (using lots of information from exetools, thank you very much). The two I did use where:

CypKey: Pretty good protection, too expensive, has a habit of eating user's keys for no apparent reason, no re installing of os

SDProtector: Absolute crap. Based on some copy protection on planetsourcecode.com. Very incompatible, terrible support, barely works

Hope this helps, wcff
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  #12  
Old 01-03-2006, 08:19
peleon peleon is offline
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My two cents for ExeCryptor and WinLicense.

The rest seem easily cracked nowadays
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  #13  
Old 01-03-2006, 08:31
theunforgiven
 
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i wouldn't support execryptor/themida/winlicense at all since they are terribly slowing down your app and could create difficulties (execryptor is detected as Win32.Crypted.Exe on kaspersky and other av's)

They are doing the starforce way, terribly scramble the exe with some polymorphic engine and own vm leaving behind the perfomance!

i would go for asprotect since people arent too wild about this like armadillo..

As long as its not keygennable its already enough, best would be to add some of your own tricks to the unprotected exe before applying the protection...

I wouldn't support people to use these polymorphic/metamorphic/whatever protection since they ruin the fun for everyone, i would still go for the wrappers if its just some self coded app.. If its really important, try to do your own thing.. since every generic protection can be unpacked in the long run...

Greetz to fly who already unpacked and cracked themida afaik! (well he can unpack everything )

Last edited by theunforgiven; 01-03-2006 at 11:26.
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  #14  
Old 01-05-2006, 13:26
adaptor adaptor is offline
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Think about future, md5. Winlicense (Themida) has no 64bit Windows vesion support.
And probably will not, because, as far as I know, M$ want restrict access to low level OS parts... (http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/driver/kernel/64bitpatching.mspx)
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