[nycbug-talk] Protecting a CD

[Hans Zaunere]

> > Any thoughts would be appreciated,
> 
> Well anything that the computer can see, a person can see 
> too.  Imagine running this under Bochs.  Why not host it 
> remotely and allow access only through VPN+HTTPS w/ client 
> certs or something?  What about just duplicating the CD?  
> Distributing an image of Bochs+CD to all your friends?  
> Screen scraping the hell out of it until all the data is sapped?
> 
> Your problem is that the private key for whatever you're 
> trying to protect must ALSO be at that computer.. so any 
> encryption or whatever that you do is really just a nuisance, 
> not a roadblock.  Look at what happened to CSS, or any given 
> DRM scheme, for example.

Yeah, my thoughts exactly... the user has the bits in their hand...
it'll be rough to protect.

> Maybe your best option is to just give up and allow less 
> restricted access to your data.  It's probably better for 
> your business to sue the hell out of them if they break the 
> law than to make it difficult for them to use the software.  
> One way to make it easier to sue the hell out of them may be 
> to watermark the data with the customer's information in such 
> a way that it's not easily detected (and thus, not likely to 
> be removed)...

Unfortuneately I'm just giving some advice to someone, otherwise I'd do
things very differently  :)

Thanks guys,

H