Illegal Contents on a Web Site

[Justin]

What can a person do to have a site shut down for having illegal stuff, like, for example, a crack to a program? I should say MANY cracks to MANY programs, but there is one crack on this particular site that bothers me . Not an FQ site, of course, but I figured someone here would know the steps to take to get this site shut down. I already wrote the administrative contact of the domain (crackstore.com) and the person taking credit for the crack.

A user of my program sent me the crack. At first I though it was a joke, then I ran it. That's when my heart sank. I have been throwing stuff, can't hold a cigarette still, typing so fast......

I'm very upset, to say the least... I don't know what to do. For every person that downloads that crack I lose $30.00!!! I would just love to put my hands around this guys.....

Never mind that. But how can I have a site shut down? I know it's hard to prove that a crack is illegal by itself, if it's not distributed with the program, but there must be something I can do!?!?

ANyway, there's more stuff I need to throw right now. I'll be back here when I've calmed down a bit.

Justin

[Deb]

Hey Justin,

Crack sites are illegal from what I understand.... but I am not a lawyer able to give professional advise by any means.

The advise I can give you is:

1. When posting about "this site" feel free to use their URL so others can know what site they want to avoid... or talk poorly about.

2. Do a whois lookup on the domain name and find out who their provider is. Email the host of the site... DO NOT email the host until you are all done throwing pillows at trees and have calmed down enough to develop a well laid out, short, sweet, to the point, professional email explaining that you find this to be illegal and you will involve the host as well as the site owner if no steps are taken to prevent this.

3. Understand that the host can not "MAKE IT STOP" it would be unreasonable to expect them to check each and every file on their server to make sure it is what it says it is. It's to easy to name the crack "letter_to_mom" or whatever....

4. Stay angry but do not let it stop you from producing excellent software! Warez serves more then the purpose of just thieving software (all you developers out there don't hate me for what I'm about to say please) but warez can also be a way to find fixes to bugs as many crackers are pretty good at enhancing the programs which in turn gives you some free work.. it also helps get the word out about your program... a crack distributed to 50 people may actually gain you 10 sales that wouldn't have known you existed before. At the same time, you are right in noting that it lost you 40 others

You may want to work on your registration area of the program also.... I don't think any package is going to find a sure fire way of preventing the theft.. but many are starting to make it a whole lot more difficult!!

very sorry to hear this is happening to you... rest assured you're not alone.. I assume every developer has it happening to them in some form or another...

Keep fighting the good fight
Deb with no good answers

[Justin]

I did the whois lookup and wrote to the administrative contact and the technical contact, which happens to be an ISP in southern Florida, bridge.net. Also, I read their "Acceptable Use Policy" before writing them, and of course, cracks and warez are not allowed. What do they expect to find on www.crackstore.com, anyway?

As for the registration routines, I admit it was simple in the first version. I never found a crack before, so I didn't change the algorithm, but I did make the program do a random number of string compares, comparing the entered code to a random string, and somewhere in the middle of all of this randomness it compares to the actual code, based on the person's name. This will make using SoftIce or another debugger a nightmare. Altogether there are between 5000 to 10,000 compares being done.

All of this does no good when you don't change the algorithm from the previous version, which is the one that was cracked. I only did that to save my regged users from having to enter in a new number. I even made the new version automatically register them if the old version was!!! What an idiot I am.

I've read all about reverse engineering, and I have used this knowledge to attempt to defeat the crackers, but I should've changed the algorithm. In the old version, I could probably crack it myself. So all of these people with the cracked version can upgrade as seemlessly as a registered user!!!

Another thing the program does is it validates the reg code every time you start it up, instead of storing a flag that it's registered. And the code is based on the person's name, and it's anywhere between 16 and 25 characters in length, letters and numbers. But of course they can just use the old version to crack and then use the reg number in the new one.

I am just so frustrated right now. I'm rambling because it's helping me to calm down a little. I just know that the site host is going to do absolutely nothing about it. Besides that, it is probably at a thousand other sites.

I know - I am going to recompile the program to not accept that reg number at all, and even fail to function afterwords. That will keep new users from being able to use it

Gotta go program...

Oh, any programmers might want to check out http://www.crackstore.com/ and see if your program is there. If so, email the cracker, the site host, everyone involved

Don't SPAM, of course, we wouldn't want Hormel on our backs!!!


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Justin Nelson, SFE Inc.
http://www.vdj.net

[Terra]

Hello Justin - I can say that you are fighting an uphill battle... I feel your pain as I am a software developer as well, just not commercial, FQuest only...

SoftIce used to be my most beloved tool for many things (e.g. tracking down those really nasty Win95/98 GPF's via stack investigation and back traces)... The problem that you are going to have is NO matter how difficult you make the 'compare' routines - it all boils down to one simple basic fact, *it either passes or fails*... If you find the spot that tests for validity, you can easily (90 NOP) the test, or just munge the test with (1 == 1)...

IMHO - you best defense is to use an encryption algorithm, that uses the result of the 'compare' routines to decrypt the rest... At least then, it is on magnitudes of greater difficulty to crack... The defeation to that scheme is for someone to actually register, and then enter the valid User/Pass/Reg into a crack database...

There are some **very** successful protection techniques that stem the tide of cracks... Finally, one company got a clue and started doing it right -- Oil Change... Unfortunately, their methods involve the basis that the programs working data needs to be updated frequently - meaning the client has to go back to the company to d/l the updated program data files... This allows them to monitor the registrations being used, and if they see 20 different people login with the same reg, they can easily deactivate that registration - forcing the *valid* software owner to apply for a new code (e.g. some computer tech goes onsite to install your software, snagging the reg code in the process)...

Just my 2 cents on the whole issue and possibly a couple ideas along the way...

--
Terra
Systems Coder
FutureQuest

Hi,

cracks are a bad thing. I once fought against these sites, but getting them down is nearly impossible. Most have a web-provider located in Eastern Europe or Far East and these people just don't care about that matter.

So I decided to check my referer log very closely to check when a new crack arrives and immediately upload a version where this crack doesn't work.

It seems that many people browse these crack sites and download the software and the crack at the same time. The moment I upload a changed non-crackable Version, the crack site is just doing free ad for me. Of course, I still write to webmasters, geocities, hypermart, xoom, aol, etc. Sometimes a site disappears, sometimes not.

It's also a good idea to do something against easy cracking. You can compute the CRC of your executable and compare it to the original value. That never stops cracking, but it considerably slows down the rate of appearing cracks. I've not seen a new crack since I employed some anit-crack methods. It seems that some of these crackers shout much louder than they really are. If they find the assembler instruction to change and find that the software still doesn't work, some give up.

I suggest, you program a routine that runs the offending crack useless. Just replace the files to download (no new version needed) and everything is ok (for the moment).

Meikel

[Justin]

The problem is that they apparently cracked the algorithm. It's a username and reg code that is posted on this site. And it's not a registered user. I have a database of all of my regged users (yes, all 11 of them) and the first name is "Magic Mike", last name "[EVC]", which stands for Ebola Virus Crackers. I just changed the scheme to reject illegal characters, like the brackets and spaces, and also to reject the particular code as well. It will just show it as an invalid code.

I know that it's an uphill battle - I will admit that in the past I have cracked a program or two - SoftIce, PSEdit and WDASM32 were among my favorite programs to use. But that was a couple of years ago. The shoe is on the other foot now... and it doesn't fit well at all

At least now, anyone downloading VDJ for the first time from my site will not be able to use that reg number, or any other numbers that contain illegal characters in the names. It's a start.

My next version is going to be a lot more crack PROOF. Well, resistant anyway.

I like the other ideas, and I am thinking of making certain functions dependant on the actual code / name combination. Also, no confirmation if it's good or bad. It will just stop after 30 minutes as it does unregistered. So the cracker will have to wait 30 minutes between tries, to see if successful. Oh, and of course, I will change the algorithm!!!

One other thing: Next version will be 2.0. I give all regged users free upgrades to any 1.xx version, so now they will have to pay again, maybe at a discount, but this was what I decided at the beginning. As soon as I find a crack, it goes to 2.0. I might not do that, though, I guess it depends on how many registrations I can pull off.

What sucks is that I've had a LOT of downloads, and only the 11 registrations. Makes me wonder how many people used the crack.

The person that gave it to me was using it; some 15 year old who actually thought it was funny. He slipped and said that he was using the "Freeware" version in a chat. I said "What do you mean 'Freeware'?" and I talked him into fessing up, and he sent me the crack. That's when the keyboard hit the 'fit hit the shan', if you know what I mean.

Ok, I'm going to shut up for a while. I do know that most people who use a crack probably wouldn't have bought it anyway, and it does make the program more popular. I guess I can be flattered that someone found my program useful enough to want to crack it Besides, that's why Microsoft's protections are so weak in everything except for Windows, the one thing that they have cornered. I was going to give example, but I probably shouldn't.

I have to say that I have never once posted a crack - back then, I figured that if you didn't know how to crack yourself, you didn't need it that bad. Also, I wouldn't have ever purchased any of them anyway, as most of them were just too expensive. Of course I don't do that anymore, nor do I have any warez on my hard drive anymore. But the people who search the web for cracks are considered lamers by me, always have been, always will be. That's what the 15 year old Australian did. And he even wrote me on the 14th asking what time the new version was being released! It was the 15th in Australia.

Oh, well, I think I said I would shut up about an hour ago, so I'll just do it now.

Justin
-- Shareware programming isn't all it's cracked up to be ---

[Terra]

I agree with Meikel, running a self-crc check on yourself will deter the wannabees...

This will at least stop the simple instruction changes, and force the would be cracker to recompute a new CRC value for your program... On the flip side, if your self-referential checking is weak, then that can easily be sidestepped as well...

I couldn't find the URL, but a definitive *underground* source for this is 'Fravia's Reverse Engineering'... I utilized the info there when I was trying to figure out the guts of the Win95/98/NT Kernel API for troubleshooting client problems (Network and Systems consultant)...

My knowledge about cracks and stuff comes from my knowledge of Intel machine language, and understanding how C source code is compiled... I have, at times, had to isolate bugs in Microsoft software (raw machine code) to fix/patch something they didn't perceive as important, yet my client did and paid top dollar for me to do so...

--Terra
--Just say NOP to cracks--
FutureQuest.net

[MikeA]

Justin,

The problem is that, what's illegal here is perfectly legal in other countries, and since the Internet is a "free speech" you won't be able to shut them down. The best thing to do is not support them. Places like FQ is the first step, banning this sort of thing, but it takes more.

You can't stop it. I remember when I had a Comode 64 (lets you know my age) and they came up with a copy protection that put a bad sector on the disk. For about 2 months nobody could crack this kind of protection, then someone did, not only that, but the copy program played music while it copied. Just as sure as you put something better in there, it gets hacked. Just make an awsome program. (how about a random time from 30 to 60 mins)

Just remember one thing...How many people have registered your software and does there registrations make you want to release more versions? I remember that when I actually received my first registration on something that I wrote, it gave me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. People are going to pirate stuff, but there are a few people who pay for what they use. Write for them.

By the way, Microsoft uses the same scheme for it's OEM and CD releases. Windows 98 uses a new scheme, but we don't yet install that, so I don't know if there is a generic key for it. The generic key that works on Office will also work on Windows 95. Microsoft knows it's gonna make money.

I'm sorry it happened to you.

Mike

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www.webauthorities.com
"To continue press any key"...Where's the anykey?

[Justin]

http://fravia.org

Ahh, Fravia's pages of reverse engineering. Spent many hours there, trying to read every word on his huge site. Yes, that's where I get a lot of ideas. He even has a section for shareware programmers with tips and tricks to help against cracking. It's one of my bookmarks (actually, it has carried over from my cracking days)

Only, I have to remember to use Netscape or Opera, because a lot of his pages are IE hostile. Be carefull...

Give a man a crack, and he'll be hungry again tomorrow. Teach him how to crack, and he'll never be hungry again. - +ORC

I've read +ORC's entire How to Crack series before and after becoming a programmer. So I am very familiar with +ORC, Fravia+, Greythorn, and the whole +HCU cracker group. I almost joined them...

But I now use that info for the opposite purpose. Life is funny sometimes. First I hated shareware, nag screens, etc, and now I'm making them and getting mad when someone cracks mine.

I need to earn a living somehow, though, and I figured since I love programming, the internet, etc, that this would be a perfect way. And I'm sure that one little crack won't kill my bank account.

I have released a new version every month for 3 months now. Maybe I'll just keep doing that, but change the algorithm each time. That way, a crack is good for only a month, assuming it's cracked the same day it's released. And I would be flattered if they crack each new version each month. It would show that people really like VDJ.

Oh, well, I'll survive. Now that I've cooled down (amazing, with Slayer on repeat all day) I guess it's not that big a deal, and I always knew that a crack was inevitable. I know where to find cracks for any program - why would mine be any different? Besides, other software companies aren't broke because of it

I might make the codes based on the user's hard drive serial number, like Audio Grabber does. That makes it difficult to use the same number on different computers. Hmmm...



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Justin Nelson, SFE Inc.
http://www.vdj.net

[Justin]

I remember when I had a Comode 64 (lets you know my age)

Hehe - I learned BASIC on a Commodore Vic-20 that I still own. I was 5 at the time (23 now), and I wrote a tic-tac-toe game. ****ed commodore beat me every time...

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Justin Nelson, SFE Inc.
http://www.vdj.net