Making a game uncrackable

[AC/DC HACKER!]

Originally Posted by sparhawk

That doesn't help. It works with banking, because you are talking to an external server where you haven no control over. If your application runs locally, the RSA key doesn't help )or any other encryption), because you can simply decrypt it, using the key that the application itself needs- I have done that. Takes some patience, so it is mostly a question of motivation. How much time are you prepared to spend before you give up.
Many programs have multiple layers, which boils down to the same question.

Inspiration can be the drive rather than motivation. I remember some C64 cracks required me to Let Go of the challenge or problem, and go do something completely different.then the mind & spirit would work together to solve it. Ah, Ahhhh...moment would happen, and I'd return soon and progress further while learning more about it. If I wanted a game or program, there wasn't any quitting. Hehe. Break, do something else, sure but always returned...sometimes kept paper notes.


Agreed...cracking a blank or some other thing that talks to severs...very different.

Originally Posted by sparhawk

I think, today, with the internet and sophisticated crypto algorithm, games can be better protected. If part of the software runs on a company server, it's quite hard to crack that. And nowadays, nobody thinks twice that even single player games want to have access to the internet.

If that were true Steam games wouldn't be cracked so often. I prefer my games of today do not have Internet access. Saved games and such should be kept local. I don't buy much for Windows because of that. I don't support Cloud-peering-eyes. If you don't have Internet access...you can't access. That's not okay to me.

[jotd]

found a funny protection when cracked "Final Assault" (1988) (I mean I re-did the crack for whdload, and using winuae and not a real amiga helped a lot!)

Game uses Herdnon protection (encryption + diskcheck, predates RN copylock and is not that easy to remove), except that it's done twice (encrypting the encrypting executable). As a result game has 2 almost identical layers of decryption.

Not uncrackable, but cheap second layer, applying the same protection again with slightly different decrypt keys.

There's no such thing as an uncrackable game on the amiga. If the game is well protected at each level but sucks so much that no cracker wanted to test the game 100%, maybe it can remain uncracked... But that's not going to boost sales either

[AC/DC HACKER!]

Originally Posted by jotd

There's no such thing as an uncrackable game on the amiga. If the game is well protected at each level but sucks so much that no cracker wanted to test the game 100%, maybe it can remain uncracked... But that's not going to boost sales either

Exact-a-mundo!

[sparhawk]

Originally Posted by AC/DC HACKER!

If I wanted a game or program, there wasn't any quitting. Hehe. Break, do something else, sure but always returned...sometimes kept paper notes.

LOL! That reminds me of "Cauldron 2" on C64. I liked the game so much, but couldn't beat it. So I disassembled the whole memory and printed it. I took this printout for months even to school and read it while riding the bus to school. I put it away when I got frustrated, but always came back to it, until I found the part where the lives were stored and I could do a trainer.

If that were true Steam games wouldn't be cracked so often. I prefer my games of today do not have Internet access. Saved games and such should be kept local. I don't buy much for Windows because of that. I don't support Cloud-peering-eyes. If you don't have Internet access...you can't access. That's not okay to me.

Steam is just part of it. It depends on how the game is written. There are enough games which can be run offline, and those can be cracked because you can always provide a DLL which gives the correct answers. That's how IMO most cracks for Steamgames work. Steam or no Steam doesn't matter in this case.

[kamelito]

Even if the game is sold as a cartridge with custom chips?
On the console market is has been copied but on the Amiga land it would be harder I guess if not impossible if the chips can’t be replicated.

[WayneK]

Originally Posted by redblade

When people were cracking a prerelease version of a game, where would be the best place to put a serial?

Would you put it in the copper list? Put it as a sample in a music module? Or would you change the level order so that the cracker wouldn't recognise it i.e Lemmings has many levels so only the publisher would realise if the level order was different?

Thanks

This happened a few times, some games were (pre)released and there were identifying features (watermarks) that led to a certain reviewer or someone being blacklisted from receiving any future games from that publisher.


Of course, if you can get 2 previews from different sources and compare the 2, any watermarks were usually trivial to remove

[redblade]

Originally Posted by WayneK

This happened a few times, some games were (pre)released and there were identifying features (watermarks) that led to a certain reviewer or someone being blacklisted from receiving any future games from that publisher.


Of course, if you can get 2 previews from different sources and compare the 2, any watermarks were usually trivial to remove

Can you give an example of this on the Amiga and what they used for watermarks? copperlist, or a different crc32 value?

[turrican3]

Originally Posted by jotd

found a funny protection when cracked "Final Assault" (1988) (I mean I re-did the crack for whdload, and using winuae and not a real amiga helped a lot!)

Game uses Herdnon protection (encryption + diskcheck, predates RN copylock and is not that easy to remove), except that it's done twice (encrypting the encrypting executable). As a result game has 2 almost identical layers of decryption.

Not uncrackable, but cheap second layer, applying the same protection again with slightly different decrypt keys.

There's no such thing as an uncrackable game on the amiga. If the game is well protected at each level but sucks so much that no cracker wanted to test the game 100%, maybe it can remain uncracked... But that's not going to boost sales either

If i remember well jotd,
settlers was badly cracked at the time ????
I remembered be locked in one solo stage surrounded by big mountains with no way to go, like if it was a protection against crackers...
Is it possible or my memory is wrong ???

[alexh]

Originally Posted by kamelito

Even if the game is sold as a cartridge with custom chips?
On the console market is has been copied but on the Amiga land it would be harder I guess if not impossible if the chips can’t be replicated.

It would depend how integrated the chip function was to the game. And how exclusive it was. Something complex enough the game wouldn't work without it. A math accelerator or gfx decompressor.

I don't think those doing cracks ever re-wrote games that required extra hardware? No-one patched AGA only games to run on OCS?

[jotd]

lol. Buy a Sharp X68000 game and try to crack it for the A500.

[AmigaDweeb]

Regards the thread title and no I didn't read much of it TBH. An impossible task but good luck of course IMHO & LMFAO

[kamelito]

Originally Posted by alexh

It would depend how integrated the chip function was to the game. And how exclusive it was. Something complex enough the game wouldn't work without it. A math accelerator or gfx decompressor.

I don't think those doing cracks ever re-wrote games that required extra hardware? No-one patched AGA only games to run on OCS?

Yep I meant that games were requiring the HW to work like the Super FX chips on the SNES...

[lesta_smsc]

Actually this is impossible. Anything programmed can be cracked the only issue is time it takes. An encrypted key can be brute-forced which may take many years lol.

[Galahad/FLT]

The only way a game can be uncrackable is if you never have access to the actual game itself, much like how Googles Stadia and Antstream work.

Problem is that they suffer from lag so gamers outright reject them.

[sparhawk]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Problem is that they suffer from lag so gamers outright reject them.

Google has a a lot of patience, so I guess this will be solved/accepted over time. But you are right. No access to code - no way to crack.

[mcgeezer]

I might try and protect Super Sprint for a bit of fun, see how long the protection lasts (that's if it actually worth cracking hahah). Of course it would be cracked quickly but if I could identify who supplied it then I think that would be fun.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by kamelito

Yep I meant that games were requiring the HW to work like the Super FX chips on the SNES...

The SuperFX was incredibly expensive to design and make. The NRE of such a chip would have put off anyone except Nintendo.

I imagine the economics of Amiga games didn't demand an "uncrackable" disk solution? Just that you couldn't do it yourself using AmigaOS disk-copy. I wonder what the percentage of counterfeiting was on the platform? Most of my friends who were not enthusiasts bought (or rather their parents bought) all their Amiga games.

I was the only person I knew who had a Megadrive/SNES/N64 cartridge backup device, most had never seen or heard of them.

Modchips for PSOne, Saturn again enthusiasts knew about them, a little bit of exposure to mainstream users with the PSOne "swap trick" but I bet it affected sales in very low percentages as very few people had CD-writers.

[Retro1234]

the machine/console has to be uncrackable like today's consoles i.e if you modify it and take it online it bricks.

last time I looked there was still a bug in a later level of Sleepwalker AGA WHDoad, is this a protection check......I don't know but you can't progress. The JST version works. Not to say it's uncrackable but things get missed - this was a few years back maybe it's fixed now.

[Radertified]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

last time I looked there was still a bug in a later level of Sleepwalker AGA WHDoad, is this a protection check......I don't know but you can't progress. The JST version works. Not to say it's uncrackable but things get missed - this was a few years back maybe it's fixed now.

"V1.2 (29-Jan-2004) - protection removed correctly - barrel appears"

I hope that's what you're talking about, otherwise you should submit a bug report on Mantis.

[Retro1234]

Originally Posted by Radertified

"V1.2 (29-Jan-2004) - protection removed correctly - barrel appears"

I hope that's what you're talking about, otherwise you should submit a bug report on Mantis.

no it's not that iirc the giraffe? head doesn't move in a later level.