Copy protection

[Tom Spear]

On 10/3/06, Robert Lunnon <bobl at optushome.com.au> wrote:
>
> 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
>
>
>
>
I'm by no means an expert on copyright law or copy protection, but I think
that using any method other than writing directly to the MBR with those copy
protection measures would be illegal because writing to a file (registry,
wine-only proprietary db or any other type of file) as opposed to writing to
the mbr like the copy protection is supposed to could potentially reveal
data that the copy protection companies don't want being revealed, and
therefore that would end up making wine a possible target for aiding
circumvention.  Sure there are tools out there that crackers use that read
the mbr and store it in a file, so that they can circumvent the copy
protection, but that has nothing to do with wine.

-- 
Thanks

Tom

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