This guy who's been in the business for over 20 years apparently wrote a pretty tough protection, but it's hard to find. Has anyone here run across it?

You need to be more specific. There are several products which use this name. See:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=Windows+Protection+Plus

Any idea which one YOU are talking about????

Regards,

Written by Henry Roberts, and try the search with quotes, since it is an actual product name, often abbreviated 'WPP'

Other than that, I *don't* have any idea what I'm talking about... ever.... ;-)

Here's your info -

http://www.nalpeiron.com/whyus/testimonials-3.asp

SiGiNT

I've inspected that site, and I maybe overly optimistic, but I think I already found the weakness of that protection system (software version, not the hardware dongle). The licensing information must be stored somewhere. They claim that it does not store it in the registry, nor on files on the disk, nor does it require an Internet connection. What other places can small amounts of data be kept in a non-volatile manner? I can think of two right now, one of them being reserved sectii on the hard disk and the other in the various configuration flash memories in various devices. Hardware has some undocumented "features", but those features eventually surface due to their discovery in esoteric applications such as this. They claim it is immune to hard-disk imaging, and most likely it uses serial numbers of various components of the system (standard practice) in order to do so. They also claim the license information is stored in an area "outside the access of the user". Very interesting.

Finally, this is the part where I have to actually laugh at their implementation:

That's all? Spoof the DLL and you're done. Here's something else interesting:

Look who makes the ultimate decision. (Underlined portion).

Ok... no machine ID... one less thing to worry about. But then how does that data get put there and how is it read? There must be a way! Too bad they don't give a downloadable demo to experiment with

Somewhere on that site I believe it said that their protection DLL was written with C++. Not even Asm.

Most of that site is just exaggerated advertising. "Our products have never been "cracked" in 22 years (Since 1983)" but is that really true? Perhaps noone wants to because the amount of software protected with it is very small. But reading through the site really makes me want to crack it. It's as if they're inviting us to. Any prizes to the first one who can crack it?

A clear "evolution" of the techniques used by the software "Goldsim" (a high end simulation software). This may be useful for people who seek "historical" or "embryonic" timelines...

Have Phun

I don't quite understand what you mean by either of these sentences. Would you please explain?

One good thing about this is the compiler often serves to obfuscate the code with less work than trying to do so directly in asm, right?

And now grab a good dictionary and find out about the difference between aging and ripening

it doesn't work on virtual machines. If you try and install and run an app protected with it on a virtual PC environment the app will fail. TI-Nspire CAS by texas instruments is protected with it and it won't run under a Virtual PC 2007 install of XP.

Gosh this thread was old hope someone didn't already post this.

Well Duh! Let's see ... won't run under "virtual machine." What could cause that....Hum.... Do you suppose it might "detect" you are attempting to run it in a "virtual machine"????? And did YOU investigate, at all, how that might occur and do ANY searching on THAT issue, or are you just reviving this old Thread because you didn't have anything else to spend your time on???

Regards,