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Crack protection

Hi experts

How do I protect my programs against crack protection, ofcouse there is no way to protect my program, from real crackers, lot a game and program companies has been trying this for years, but I will try to make it as difficult as possible.

I have encoded some strings telling that user has entered a wrong code, when registering.

I have come up with an idea, a popular cracking tool seems to be SoftIce, running the program at the same time as my program, couldn't I somehow check for such a program and force it to shutdown or close my program?

If anybody has any good idea please tell them.

inthe

hi,
as you have said there is no way to protect your program, from crackers.but you can put as many checking functios in your prog as possible like using system and file times,dates ,calling functions from dll's,writing datetime to registry,hard disk serials etc,encryption ,and calling the fuctions all through your program as often as possible,maybe dissabling some functions unless a certain file is present or in the right directory.
With dissamblers like softice,w32Dasm they dissassemble your prog without your prog ever knowing so that would'nt work.
Regards Barry

Brian Mulder

>Barry, Who are they?? :O)

inthe

Koger
i have seen some components around torrys or dsp that help with creating shareware etc maybe of some assistance.

Bruintje
???
They are Crackers who use Debuggers(SoftIce) and Disassemblers(W32Dasm)and they rip our progs to pieces and spit them out backwards then when you run the program it sends secret messages to your brain ,like "Worhip satin " .
lol
Regards Barry

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shayang

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koger

ASKER

Well, most crackers would easy get around this detecting-softice-protection removing this code with softice before it's runned, but perhaps some novices would be fooled.

In case anyone want the delphi code this should do it

function IsSoftIce95Loaded:boolean;
var
hFile: thandle;
begin
result := false;
hFile := CreateFile('\\.\SICE', //or \\.\ntice under OS: nt
GENERIC_READ or GENERIC_WRITE,
FILE_SHARE_READ or FILE_SHARE_WRITE,
nil,
OPEN_EXISTING,
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL,
0);
if hFile <> INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE then
begin
CloseHandle(hFile);
result := true;
end;
end;