Re: Cocoa apps protection software
Re: Cocoa apps protection software
- Subject: Re: Cocoa apps protection software
- From: "Michael Ash" <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:10:47 -0500
On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 12:11 PM, Nick Zitzmann <email@hidden> wrote:
>
> On Nov 19, 2008, at 9:53 AM, Donnie Lee wrote:
>
>> Does anybody know software protection systems for Cocoa apps and
>> bundles? Like in Windows ASProtect, Themida, etc.
>
>
> You're best off making your own. The only one I know of that's out there is
> AquaticPrime, and it's trivial to crack globally.
You really should not put forth any effort to avoid being cracked. I
hope nobody minds me zooming off into opinion and potential
off-topickness....
Your app will be cracked. It's a simple fact of life, and there's
absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. Actually, I take it back,
there is one thing you can do to stop it. You can prevent your app
from being cracked if you make it so terrible, so boring, so useless
than nobody *wants* to crack it.
So assuming that your app is actually worthwhile, it will be cracked.
You can't stop it. You may put hundreds or thousands of hours into
your protection scheme. (Or you buy a scheme from somebody else who
has done so.) And then it's going to get into the hands of some guy
who thinks that cracking apps is *fun*, and that every extra layer of
protection you put in just makes it more fun to break. He's probably
done this a dozen times before and knows far more about cracking than
any DRM company, he enjoys it, and most importantly, his time is worth
far less than that of anyone who makes software for a living. He can
afford to put in far more time than anyone on our side can. And he
probably won't even have to.
And remember, it doesn't matter how hard you make it to crack, because
your app only has to be cracked once, and then you're done, and all
that effort is wasted.
Ultimately you cannot stop the pirates. The best you can do is keep
honest people honest. If somebody is applying a crack to your program
then you've already lost the battle. This is not someone who would
purchase your program.
Penny Arcade put it so perfectly today. "I don't know why people ever,
ever try to stop nerds from doing things. It's really the most
incredible waste of time." Don't make that your wasted time.
What you can do is have a good serial number scheme. Pirated serial
numbers are so easy to obtain that a lot of mostly-honest people use
them. Make it difficult to generate fake serial numbers. Make it so
only real serial numbers can be traded around, with real people's
names on them, and that you are able to blacklist them in new
versions. And at this point you'll have won as much of the battle as
you'll be able to anyway, so you may as well stop there.
Something like AquaticPrime fits the bill nicely. Yeah, it's easy to
crack, but so what? It's secure in the ways that count.
Mike
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