Subject: Re: Aw: Re: [stella] Is Stella GPL'd? (was StellaX PAL detection) From: Julian Squires <tek@xxxxxxx> Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 10:59:50 -0330 |
On Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 10:30:43AM +0100, cybergoth@xxxxxxxx wrote: > So? I could make Stella read somewhat strange packed > BINs instead or something like PGP it. > > Then one could release the complete source of the thing > but only emulators compiled with a certain key are able > able to decrypt the ROMs that are encrypted with the > same key. > > Ha! That's even better! Everybody can encrypt his > own ROMS and emulator and no-one can debug them > out, even when the source is available :-) Ah, but that's just what they did with DVDs, and it was trivially broken. (Actually, the hard part was getting the DeCSS algorithm, the easy part was getting a key from one of the ``licensed'' players) The only way to provide provable copy protection in this way is to have your ROMs encrypted (with a respectable encryption algorithm), and to provide the encryption key only to legitimate users who are not going to distribute their keys -- and accept the fact that these users could reverse engineer your program. As soon as someone who plans on modifying your program obtains one of the keys, whether it's embedded in an emulator or distributed only to legitimate users, they can, with enough work, reverse engineer your program. I will admit, though, that of course more ``practical'' schemes will still foil 99% of pirates and what-have-you, but it is that 1% (who would do it, no doubt, just to prove you wrong), who are dangerous. While no real surprise, an article about copy protection in a modern playstation game is at http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20011017/dodd_01.htm and is worth reading just because it shows that you don't need _perfect_ copy protection (which is inconvenient), just pretty good copy protection. -- -/ |/| Julian Squires <tek@xxxxxxx> /- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archives (includes files) at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/ Unsub & more at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/
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