On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 12:11 PM, Nick Zitzmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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 _______________________________________________ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
