RE: Software authentication (was RE: Gibson (was Crack Office XP) )

["Kayne Ian (Softlab)" <Ian.Kayne () softlab co uk>]

Comments inline:
 
<snip>
> I've noticed that
> > HL runs just fine without authenticating over a LAN-- no 
> central server
> > needed there.  This technique might keep you off the WON, 
> but not the net.

When you load HL into server mode, it automatically registers itself with
the WON network. Thats why the LAN game and Server mode are different -
you'll notice that when you select server mode for your copy of HL, then get
someone else to retrieve the entire WON server listing from within HL, your
server shows up - you have no options about "publishing" to the network, or
running a LAN server over the net for eg.

> I think it's due to the current underground culture. As the 
> traditional 
> crackers went pro (many of the people who cracked games now 
> work in the games 
> industry), the new breed didn't understand how to do the more complex 
> cracking (reverse engineering the copy protection). Instead, 
> they focused on 
> generating serial numbers.

I'd say this is not as rife as you would think. Granted, there are far more
newbies to the cracking scene who just generate serial numbers, but there
are still the very talented crackers around.

> > listings coming off the WON. My guess is that folks join 
> the game through
> > direct connection anyway,  so it really would be fairly trivial.

The only problem is, the HL server you connect to proxies your
authentication to the WON network. So, short of hacking the executable to
either a. prevent WON authentication (which presumably would require the
same hack in any of the clients connecting to the server) or b. provide fake
information (which is arbitrary anyway, if it was possible to do this you
wouldn't have to hack the server in the first place), you're still going to
have the problem of authenticating.

> The cracking scene died with the demo scene though... it was 
> more about fame 
> than piracy, Unfortuneatly, people started ignoring the 
> skilled ones and just 
> got the software. The incentive for inventive cracks is no 
> longer there, so 
> all that remains are the people who just do the piracy...

I'm fairly surprised to see a remark like that! I'd say the demo scene is
far from dead. It certainly doesn't have the health it did back in the early
'90s, but the talented groups and crackers are still around and doing their
business. The demo & warez scene really crossed back in the late 80's/early
90's, when people like Fairlight were not only cracking the games, but were
releasing quality intros with their cracks - thats when you knew the scene
was alive, because you saw demo releases outside of parties. Anyway,
probably not the place to get into a "The scene is dead, long live the
scene!" argument ;)
 
> Alas, most of the copy protection for games these days uses 
> third party 
> software. The traditional rivalry between the developers and 
> the crackers is 
> no longer there, so the developers don't have the input from 
> the crackers.

That's not entirely true. I can cite the example of a recent game (the name
of which I won't mention for privacy reasons) that scored extremely high in
the game "charts". The protection was written by an employee of the company,
who was also a scener. There was a fair bit of rivalry going on between this
scener who wrote the protection, and the real, original scene crackers. The
bet was along the lines of how many hours/days it would take to break the
protection. In the end, I think the figure was less than a day. The old
rivalry (and fun!) is still there, it's just in the cut-throat world of
games publishers, there is no time or inclination to follow the old
practices. You would be amazed at just how many sceners also work for games
publishers. Off the top of my head, I can think of sceners who have
published games for psx, pc, amiga, gameboy, gameboy advance, ps2, n64...
 
Anyway, this has got my brain going, so I think I'll sit with a packet
sniffer & a copy of HL this weekend, see what I can find out....

Ian Kayne
Technical Specialist - IT Solutions
Softlab Ltd - A BMW Company


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