Copy protection

[Robert Lunnon]

On Tuesday 03 October 2006 02:18, James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
> Martin Owens wrote:
> >> Re Copy Protection.
> >>
> >> be quite hard to make this work I think?
> >
> > It would be quite dangerous to make this work.
> >
> > What about creating a file say with a fake data map, wine thinks it's
> > the direct access to the hard drive where all this information is
> > held. all we do is add the place where the data starts and the data
> > thats stored. it would be slower but it would get around the dangers
> > while keeping the interface the same.
>
> The easiest way round this is to simply recognise the executable with
> the copy protection, and simply install a hook to catch the appropriate
> file system or registry calls and divert them to a special handling
> routine to satisfy the application. The difficulty would come from
> actually implementing the "copy protection" part. I.e. Preventing the
> wine user from copying the software.
>
> James

Why not just use a sparse database, IE when the write happens, record the 
program name, offset, length  and data and on a read to that offset and 
length, return the same data. Using the program name and offset as the lookup 
key means you can even support multiple programs writing to the same space 
and you don't then need to handle space management (Can emulate an empty 
disk). You could even use the registry.

Bob