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Decompiling a Hacker's mind.
Author
How do you prevent hacker from cracking your program? What are the best ways of doing it without having to screw game play up?
---Added 5-5-2k---
Just to clear things up a bit, I'd like to say that I am talking about CHEATING and not copying. Screw copy protection. Although, it would be nice.
Edited by - nes8bit on 5/5/00 7:29:40 PM
Simple, either release a game you need to register online to play (ie create an account). Or release a game that goes over their fixed release size aced and zipped...right now that''s 65 x 2.88 MB I think.
Currently I have''nt seen a game which is uncrackable. Believe me to make a game uncrackable would definately put you in the Guiness Book of Records 
Every Game on the N64 Has been Cracked
Every Game on the PSX Has been Cracked
Every Game on the PC Has been Cracked.
*You may say that Starcraft hasn''t been cracked, but in a way it has - You can play Normal Campaign missions on your own. You can play Multiplayer via IPX. However you can''t get on B.net unless you have a Serial #. But then again who wants to go on B.net when there are other FASTER FREE Game servers such as FSGS, AUS NET, Korea Net - they all offer a much better challenge Ohh yeah and if you really want to play on B.net, you can always go down to your local Computer store and find a Starcraft CD and write down the CD-Key number in the bottom-left corner of the CD case (on the back of it )
Letz face it, if you want to protect a Single Player Game like Messiah, then you''ll have to say Connect to the internet in order to play - And on one would do that - Even if ppl did connect to the net just to play a single player game, I''m sure it would be cracked
My advice is, ignore crack-protecting your game - put a basic one on if you like, but don''t waste too much time working on it, because theres a 99.9% chance that it''ll get cracked. You''ll still get a large revenue from the Honest ppl in this world.
/Memir
Every Game on the N64 Has been Cracked
Every Game on the PSX Has been Cracked
Every Game on the PC Has been Cracked.
*You may say that Starcraft hasn''t been cracked, but in a way it has
- You can play Normal Campaign missions on your own. You can play Multiplayer via IPX. However you can''t get on B.net unless you have a Serial #. But then again who wants to go on B.net when there are other FASTER FREE Game servers such as FSGS, AUS NET, Korea Net - they all offer a much better challenge Ohh yeah and if you really want to play on B.net, you can always go down to your local Computer store and find a Starcraft CD and write down the CD-Key number in the bottom-left corner of the CD case (on the back of it )Letz face it, if you want to protect a Single Player Game like Messiah, then you''ll have to say Connect to the internet in order to play - And on one would do that
- Even if ppl did connect to the net just to play a single player game, I''m sure it would be cracked My advice is, ignore crack-protecting your game - put a basic one on if you like, but don''t waste too much time working on it, because theres a 99.9% chance that it''ll get cracked. You''ll still get a large revenue from the Honest ppl in this world.
/Memir
quote: Original post by nes8bit
How do you prevent hacker from cracking your program? What are the best ways of doing it without having to screw game play up?
Er.. You CANNOT create a game which is "unckrackable". Because with a good disassembler and/or debuger you can crack every game.
Why ? Just go to astalavista.com (and not www.alatavista.com) and seek for "cracking tutorial". You will understand.
PS: I apologize for the bad english since I''m frensh and drunk...
PPS: Like Dostoïevski would say : "keep LOADED!"
You can encode the routines which have to be cracked and code them in assembly language so that the code confuses everyone, that would make it harder for crackers but you''ll have also more work!
Visit our homepage: www.rarebyte.de.st
GA
Visit our homepage: www.rarebyte.de.st
GA
Also, you can have your own crypting algo in it. Something very single does the trick like x^2+6x-15. Because it is in your head and that algo is invisible changes are very little to crack it. Of course this needs too much experience and I can't do it. I'm not even sure if you can do it.
Time comes, time goes and I only am.
Edited by - Arch@on on 5/4/00 10:13:35 AM
Time comes, time goes and I only am.
Edited by - Arch@on on 5/4/00 10:13:35 AM
Ga:
It does not prevent cracking by writing your code in assembly. Its the same as writing it in C++ or Visual Basic.
Infact, if you write it in assembly, it might be easier to crack because it will be cleaner code when you put it in a deassembler (deassemblers are very easy to find)
-Dan Smith
dans@3dgamedev.com
It does not prevent cracking by writing your code in assembly. Its the same as writing it in C++ or Visual Basic.
Infact, if you write it in assembly, it might be easier to crack because it will be cleaner code when you put it in a deassembler (deassemblers are very easy to find)
-Dan Smith
dans@3dgamedev.com
quote: Original post by Dan Smith
Ga:
It does not prevent cracking by writing your code in assembly. Its the same as writing it in C++ or Visual Basic.
Infact, if you write it in assembly, it might be easier to crack because it will be cleaner code when you put it in a deassembler (deassemblers are very easy to find)
-Dan Smith
dans@3dgamedev.com
Yes, but its way harded if for example:
Tha part he needs to code is only 20 lines is assembly.
Among those lines he would put say 100+ lines of [useless] asm code just to confuse the cracker.
Just adding useless asm code does nothing to the cracker, as when they run it, they keep track of which lines were executed, and when. The useless code will be taken out automatically.
There is practically no program that has never been cracked.
But it''s also ignorant to think that you don''t need any protection at all. If you leave something in, say, plain text, everyone is going to abuse it.
A big generalization but true from what I have seen.
People will usually only pay for things that take to much effort for them to do themselves. The big crackers have almost no end to patience on just trying to get past your program, especially if you say it''s uncrackable.
Fortunately, the average person is just to lazy to search and try to crack most programs.
Now there are methods you can protect your game that only a few people will ever be able to crack, but unless you are doing sometime that is very light on the processor, they would not be what you would be searching for. (The methods are more for backing up key data)
There is practically no program that has never been cracked.
But it''s also ignorant to think that you don''t need any protection at all. If you leave something in, say, plain text, everyone is going to abuse it.
A big generalization but true from what I have seen.
People will usually only pay for things that take to much effort for them to do themselves. The big crackers have almost no end to patience on just trying to get past your program, especially if you say it''s uncrackable.
Fortunately, the average person is just to lazy to search and try to crack most programs.
Now there are methods you can protect your game that only a few people will ever be able to crack, but unless you are doing sometime that is very light on the processor, they would not be what you would be searching for. (The methods are more for backing up key data)
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