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People assume that DRM is way stronger than it actually is. Most DRM for engineering software (>$20k per license) is easily defeated by just changing your MAC I
by aetherspawn 5y ago
People assume that DRM is way stronger than it actually is. Most DRM for engineering software (>$20k per license) is easily defeated by just changing your MAC ID to match.
Using a special MAC ID is way more convenient each time you buy a new workstation, or i.e. get it back with new components on warranty, or whatever, than waiting days or weeks for support to generate new keys.
But yeah, it's 2021, and most DRM is pathetic. Hardware keys are honestly the only truly effective DRM. (Although re hardware keys: Very annoying when you have 5+ softwares and need 5+ USB ports ... perhaps someone should create a bluetooth based DRM dongle or something like that.)
- tschwimmer 5y agoI'm curious to hear what you think of the video game DRM DeNuvo, which has shown itself to be somewhat more robust to cracking in recent years.
- parsecs 5y agoThere's been lots and lots of titles with Denuvo cracked by scene groups like CODEX and CPY/Conspiracy and EMPRESS[1]. There's also controversy with the DRM's highly excessive and arguably wasteful use of resources. Some games were much more performant after Denuvo was removed [1]: I would link CrackWatch but they seem to be down atm. https://www.reddit.com/r/CrackWatch/comments/lnbi5a/crack_watch_games/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CrackWatch/comments/lnbi5a/crack_wa...
- marcan_42 5y agoCan confirm. I looked at DRM for a certain FPGA vendor's EDA tools once. The license is MAC-tied, and on Linux, sometimes it picks the MAC of tun0 or some other virtual interface... which is the same on every host. Then your license works everywhere. Or you can just LD_PRELOAD a library that hijacks the relevant glibc function to always return a static MAC. They also use encryption for their IP cores. It's RSA. The private key is conveniently called "rsa_key" in their binary. Which they shipped with symbols. Once you decrypt the IP cores you get the full source code, with original comments, to do with as you please. It's all for show; the DRM in these "professional" tools is sillier than what games used in the 90s.
- no_time 5y ago>is easily defeated by just changing your MAC ID to match. HA I may or may not have cracked something similar back in the day. It was using GetIfTable() which meant that you'd need to have a NIC with the exact same name and mac address. Of course just dumping the output from a licensed machine and injecting it into the memory when needed did the trick.
- azalemeth 5y agoIs flexlm comprehensively cracked yet? It seems like a juicy target. Honestly, I hate all of these things. My employer spends multi-millions on software licenses every year. All these DRM schemes are painful, insulting, and inevitably break at the worst possible moment. We have one box -- legally acquired -- with a hardware dongle, plugged in the back of the machine. Someone smashed it when moving the thing accidentally. Were we inclined, with SEM, TEM, AFM and plenty of x-ray facilities, I'm sure that it's not beyond our ken to crack the sodding thing, and honestly, after that experience I was sorely tempted. I'm fed up of being treated as a rich criminal by businesses. They want an un-get-out-able subscription agreement, for life, and with "markets made" at every available opportunity, i.e. $METRIC_FUCKTON_OF_MONEY for $MINIMAL_INCREMENTAL features. One commercial FEM solver I use charges per GPU, per CPU, and per year. The whole thing is based on maths invented in my university!
- eitland 5y ago> Someone smashed it when moving the thing accidentally. And that's one of the reasons why I'm glad we used HP servers with internal usb ports for this.
- dsr_ 5y agoI worked at a company which made heavy use of a math library that had license enforcement via a method rather like FlexLM. After enough complaining, we got them to send us an unenforced version -- and they became a little more proactive in sending us annual bills and asking if we needed a new number of licenses. If you're paying bigbucks, try asking for better terms. Explain how painful it is for you, not to pay them, but to not be able to use their software. Maybe it will work.