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At that point you're not copy-protecting software, you're releasing a hardware product. Every sale of your software product requires production of a hardware co

At that point you're not copy-protecting software, you're releasing a hardware product. Every sale of your software product requires production of a hardware component. But to answer why this wouldn't work, I'm not particularly involved in cracking / reverse engineering, so maybe someone will chime in with better answers, but. If your code requires portions of it to run on my main CPU, can't I just black-box reverse engineer your external CPU? And like you say, ARM CPUs are very cheap, so with an iFixit kit and some soldering skills, couldn't I just move your ROM over to a raspberry pi or etc? Lastly, as a customer this heavily limits how I can use your software. So unless there are absolutely zero alternatives, I would just avoid purchasing this at all. It reminds me of what iLok has been trying / tried to do in the music production space. Originally it was a DRM scheme that required a USB dongle to run any iLok protected audio plugins. It wasn't too long until iLok server cracks existed. And while I don't have any insights into iLok or companies that chose their dongle based protection, almost every single plugin maker that used the iLok dongle has now moved away from it and iLok now offer a dongle-less DRM scheme comparable to other activate-via-internet methods. Edit: Another popular example in music production is Universal Audio plugins. These don't just offload parts of the application to a similar processor for DRM purposes, but actually have dedicated SHARC DSP processors which they offload the processing onto. These plugins have stuck around without angering the general community because it's not purely a copy-protection method. They actually remove significant amounts of processing from your main CPU onto their DSP processors. This has become less significant as CPUs have gotten better and better and requires a minimum $900 hardware investment up front. But it is still a more legitimate reason for a "dongle" than being just DRM.

amelius 5y ago
> At that point you're not copy-protecting software, you're releasing a hardware product. Not really if the hardware costs $5 and the software $1000, wouldn't you agree? Also, the same hardware-design can be used for different software products. > couldn't I just move your ROM over to a raspberry pi or etc? Well, you could tamper-proof it. For example, wrap a thin copper wire around the board, and immerse the entire thing in epoxy. When someone tries to get to the CPU or flash memory, the copper wire breaks and the flash is reset. Or something like that.
- squeaky-clean 5y ago
  > Not really if the hardware costs $5 and the software $1000, wouldn't you agree? Also, the same hardware-design can be used for different software products. I don't really agree. Like in my example of the iLok. The iLok was usually free with any compatible plugin purchase and was certainly cheap to produce. Customers still viewed it as a hardware product. Working at a different studio that day and you forgot your iLok? Tell your customer you can't work with them until you drive back home. Lost your iLok somewhere? You can't work until they next-day ship you a new key. It is not a software product. > Well, you could tamper-proof it. I'd say tamper-resistant, you can never really make it tamper-proof. Some youtubers will really surprise you with what they can break into. It also raises production costs more, as you're not buying an off-the-shelf device, and creates more potential customer issues. Is there any chance that if I drop the device, it triggers your tamper-resistant scheme? Etc etc. It's always a game of cat and mouse with these things. The only way to make something completely un-copyable is to never release it. (even server-only applications can get bootlegged with enough dedication. Look at private MMO servers). Otherwise you're just making it more difficult to do, and have to decide if the tradeoff of deterring piracy is worth the additional costs to research/develop/produce and the potential anger it can cause actual paying customers. Every industry probably has it's own sweet-spot, I don't think it's something that has a one-size-fits-all answer. As much as I would love to say just abandon DRM/copy-protection altogether, there are probably situations where it is a net-positive for the producer. Just a funny anecdote, but my main project is a SaaS application. We were in a meeting with one company who was demoing something for us, and we caught that they were using my app as one of their dependencies! One of our customers was reselling it to them, through a proxy, obviously against contract. Our company was still really small at the time, it got brought up with the CEO. He decided to just let it slide and to add something to the API response saying that the API was ours and what our website was.
- anthk 5y ago
  Just check what MAME community did on hardware protection for arcade ROMs.

amelius 5y ago

> At that point you're not copy-protecting software, you're releasing a hardware product. Not really if the hardware costs $5 and the software $1000, wouldn't you agree? Also, the same hardware-design can be used for different software products. > couldn't I just move your ROM over to a raspberry pi or etc? Well, you could tamper-proof it. For example, wrap a thin copper wire around the board, and immerse the entire thing in epoxy. When someone tries to get to the CPU or flash memory, the copper wire breaks and the flash is reset. Or something like that.

squeaky-clean 5y ago
> Not really if the hardware costs $5 and the software $1000, wouldn't you agree? Also, the same hardware-design can be used for different software products. I don't really agree. Like in my example of the iLok. The iLok was usually free with any compatible plugin purchase and was certainly cheap to produce. Customers still viewed it as a hardware product. Working at a different studio that day and you forgot your iLok? Tell your customer you can't work with them until you drive back home. Lost your iLok somewhere? You can't work until they next-day ship you a new key. It is not a software product. > Well, you could tamper-proof it. I'd say tamper-resistant, you can never really make it tamper-proof. Some youtubers will really surprise you with what they can break into. It also raises production costs more, as you're not buying an off-the-shelf device, and creates more potential customer issues. Is there any chance that if I drop the device, it triggers your tamper-resistant scheme? Etc etc. It's always a game of cat and mouse with these things. The only way to make something completely un-copyable is to never release it. (even server-only applications can get bootlegged with enough dedication. Look at private MMO servers). Otherwise you're just making it more difficult to do, and have to decide if the tradeoff of deterring piracy is worth the additional costs to research/develop/produce and the potential anger it can cause actual paying customers. Every industry probably has it's own sweet-spot, I don't think it's something that has a one-size-fits-all answer. As much as I would love to say just abandon DRM/copy-protection altogether, there are probably situations where it is a net-positive for the producer. Just a funny anecdote, but my main project is a SaaS application. We were in a meeting with one company who was demoing something for us, and we caught that they were using my app as one of their dependencies! One of our customers was reselling it to them, through a proxy, obviously against contract. Our company was still really small at the time, it got brought up with the CEO. He decided to just let it slide and to add something to the API response saying that the API was ours and what our website was.
anthk 5y ago
Just check what MAME community did on hardware protection for arcade ROMs.