Hard-Disk serial number

[hambool]

Hi,
I have an idea of protecting my own AMS4 application on CD's:

Is there any instruction (using DLL) for instance to get the SERIAL NUMBER of the harddisk, our AMS4 application reads this number store it, so that it wont work on any other harddisk (it works for only one user with one PC)?

[JimS]

I’m not too sure how that is going to work. Say that you can get the serial number from the hard disk. Where are you going to store the info? Can’t put it on the CD, so you have to store it on the user’s computer. So, the user takes out the CD, and puts it into another computer. The file with the serial number from the first computer is still on the first computer, not on the CD, and not on the second computer. So how would the CD know anything about the file on the first computer?

Another issue: I have more than one hard drives hooked to my computer. Drive C: has the operating system on it, but say I want to install the program on drive E: All is great until a power fluctuation kills my drive E. I go out and buy a brand new 120 GB drive to replace my dead one, and get busy reinstalling my software on the new drive, but your software will not let me reinstall because it’s a different serial number on the drive. So what? I’m just out the money I spent on your software?

I’m not trying to rain on your parade, just giving you a few things to ponder that maybe you haven’t yet thought of. I don’t know, maybe you have already worked these issues out?

[hambool]

JimS, thank you very much for your reply:

I just made a key-gen that:
1- Reads your "MAIN" harddrive serial or any one (it doesn't matter).

2- It compares the serial with an internal list of numbers within AMS4 then if it matches it goes to another page for example!

If we just think about it, we can make powerful protection.
If you are interested I may send you the AMS4 file of my key-gen.

[Lavrendi]

To be effective against piracy, a hard disk serial scheme requires the application to be registered at installation time and receive an authorization code based on the hard disk serial from a remote corporate server (or manually from the author by email!).

Please also take note that this kind of protection is, at best, minimalist because there are a lot of free utilities around that can change the serial number of any hard disk, so that it can match "authorized" serial number. Some well-established tax report software learn this the hard way few years ago.

Also, this protection scheme has a lot of disavantages from non-techie legitimate users who cannot run the program on another owned computer (laptop and desktop for instance) and practically forbid him to reformat or reinstall his system without calling the company to get another authorization code.

IMHO, you'll need an accumulation of protection schemes to protect your application better.

[dallasfreak2]

i had to copy protect some cd's i made, and i was very succesful doing it this way:

1st. all of the applications i had on the cd looked for a registry entry that i made before they would install. -- otherwise they would error out
2nd. The menu would create that registry entry first, install the app, then delete that registry value. This way, registry sniffers would not find my key.

now that I had my apps protected from someone just copying them off of the CD and running them, I then copy protected my cd.

To do this, i created an ISO and CUE sheet for my CD. Then I edited the cue sheet to cause the buring software to think that it was buring 99 1 second audio tracks onto the CD. I also made it so that the menu exe file on the CD appeared to be 2 gigs.
Obviously this meant that anyone trying to just copy the cd using any normal cd buring software would get errors all over the place one it hit the menu file. If they did not copy the menu file off, the apps were useless thanks to the reliance on a registry key. The only succesful way I found to copy my CD was using Linux. All Windows programs failed including programs such as blind read/write. Now using the modified cue sheet and ISO file, I then burned the new copy protected cds.

There is no one way to absolutely protect copying a cd, but there are ways to defeat the most common (and some advanced) users attempt at copying the CD.

info for copy protecting cds by messing with the cue sheets can be found on google and gamecopyworld.com

[Lorne]

Originally posted by dallasfreak2
All Windows programs failed including programs such as blind read/write.

Careful with the word "all." I'm sure CloneCD and Alcohol 120% could copy that CD without blinking an eye. I'd bet that even Nero could be configured to copy it as well.

Not meaning to rain on your parade, but sometimes a false sense of security can be worse than no security at all.

[dallasfreak2]

actually tested with the following apps:

Ferurio
CloneCD
Nero
EZCD
Blind READ
CDRWIN
Fireburner

also used this copy protection detection software:
Copy Protection Detection
CD Protection Detective
CD Protection Detector
CD Protection Scout
DISCInfo

they could not detect what kind of protection -- jsut unknown

there may be new programs out now, but tw years ago, every thing I found, i tried, and none of them worked. They main holdup was the 2 gig file on a 700 mb cd (accoriding to windows) and the dual data tracks and 99 1 second audio tracks.

I know its not 100% secure (thanks to linux) but for the usual guy that puts it in a CDROm drive then copies it -- it will stop him.

[Bruce]

I went about it a different way. I gave each CD a unique name, when the CD is run the first time, it checks to see if the user has registered (looks in registry) and is connected to the internet, if their not, it wont allow them to go on. If they are on line, the CD uses a PHP script to send me their name, OS #, CD’s name, address, Phone #, e.t.c. (Of course they agree to this) and checks that CD name against a mySQL server (The CD name is a .txt file so changing the name is dynamic), If the number is not on the server, their allowed to go on, if it is on the server a dialog box pops up and tells’em in so many words to eat poop and bark at the moon! If their system dies or they buy another puter, they simply call with a request. I did add some other goodies in there but that pretty much covers it.

[Lorne]

Two years is a long time in this industry.

I'm still pretty sure Nero could copy it with the proper settings and a decent burner.

I'm sure Alcohol 120% could copy it, as well.

Note that you wouldn't be able to copy such a CD using a Normal Data CD copy method in any program. However, even Nero lets you perform raw copies now, CloneCD lets you make 1:1 copies, and Alcohol 120% lets you copy and emulate completely uncopyiable bit patterns (e.g. SafeDisc 4) even if your drive can't write them.