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Re: Hiding class and method symbols in the compiled program?
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Re: Hiding class and method symbols in the compiled program?


  • Subject: Re: Hiding class and method symbols in the compiled program?
  • From: Pierre-Olivier Latour <email@hidden>
  • Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2002 22:21:33 +0200

> It is not possible to remove class/method names. They are after all needed
> to support the dynamic nature of the objective c runtime.

Sure, but I thought these were coded in kind of binary form by the selector
(unique ID or something)?

>Anyway, it
> wouldn't make it much more difficult even if you made the particular methods
> as C-functions. The cracker would break on the stringValue call, or maybe
> the action that the Register button points to.

This is easy to do anyway, symbols or not.

But if my serial verification functions names are hidden, I can jump to them
from any Obj-C routine in a more "hidden" way.

Anyway, the best method is "inlining" I guess.

> If you'd like, I could take a look at your registration solution and provide
> feedback on how you could make it more secure. I have had some experience
> with this lately. I have evaluated about 30 cocoa programs and their
> respective serial number mechanisms in order to find the best solution for
> my own application. I managed to crack 20 of them in less than an hour each
> (often much less) and only three defeated me totally (in which cases it was
> trivial to instead create a crack).

A crack that does what exactly? 8-)

I used to crack a few classic programs with MacsBug for fun, but I never
managed to do it when debugging symbols were not available - it's quite
difficult to read assembly code in this case.
However, I'm seriously concerned about serial numbers in cocoa programs:
because because of Obj-C, it seems easier to crack.

_____________________________________________________________

Pierre-Olivier Latour email@hidden
Lausanne, Switzerland http://www.pol-online.net
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