Software licensing and protection

[Anonymous]

Hello all,

I wonder if someone has experience with third party software for protection and licensing of our c#.net projects in AutoCAD (without hardware locking). Especially the following tools:

- PCGuard (sofpro.com)
- Intellilock (eziriz.com)

Both tools have solutions that I am searching for: usage of a license file for both single user and network servers, online licensing websites etc.


I have some questions:

1. Can Intellilock create a licensed and protected dll that still can be read and run by AutoCAD ? (I've heard that PCGuard can't, except if you invent a hidden workaround for it).

2. Is it possible to use Intellilock together with PreEmptive's Dotfuscator Professional ? (or has Intellilock enough obfuscate abilities itself ?)

3. Are there other (better) tools than these?

Thanx,
HeNkL

[Anonymous]

emmm. Ok, I assume this is not the right place to ask these questions.

HeNkL

[Anonymous]

No not necessarily, it's probably just that not too many
are using protection schemes, and if the were, they're
probably not interested in publicly discussing which one
they are using or anything about it, because they may
regard it as sensitive.

--
http://www.caddzone.com

AcadXTabs: MDI Document Tabs for AutoCAD
Supporting AutoCAD 2000 through 2011

http://www.acadxtabs.com

Email: string.Format("{0}@{1}.com", "tonyt", "caddzone");

wrote in message news:6364102@discussion.autodesk.com...
emmm. Ok, I assume this is not the right place to ask these questions.

HeNkL

[Anonymous]

That makes sense.
It's true that concealing the way a program is protected (and what tools are used for obfuscation and licensing) is part of the protection itself.
Anyway, the manufacturers of these tools should be willing to give all the information needed. And I will take a better look at the evalution versions they provide.

Henk

[Anonymous]

The absolute best possible protection is RemoteSoft's Protector.

Protector is not an obsfucator (obsfucated code can still be disassembled to
IL).

Protector is to my knowledge, the only tool that converts managed code into
native machine code, making it as difficult to reverse-engineer as compiled
native C++.

However, I don't know if it will work with AutoCAD, where reflection is used to
do things like invoke CommandMethods, and so forth. They claim that all metadata
is kept intact, so it's possible that it will work.

--
http://www.caddzone.com

AcadXTabs: MDI Document Tabs for AutoCAD
Supporting AutoCAD 2000 through 2011

http://www.acadxtabs.com

Email: string.Format("{0}@{1}.com", "tonyt", "caddzone");

wrote in message news:6366594@discussion.autodesk.com...
That makes sense.
It's true that concealing the way a program is protected (and what tools are
used for obfuscation and licensing) is part of the protection itself.
Anyway, the manufacturers of these tools should be willing to give all the
information needed. And I will take a better look at the evalution versions they
provide.

Henk

[Anonymous]

We have used Crypto tools from LogicNP [ http://www.ssware.com ] for licensing/obfuscation for our AutoCAD plugin - integration was easy and so far it works great!

[Anonymous]

Tony, thanks for your info. This looks like a good solution too.

But for now we are searching for a manufacturer who can supply an allround solution for both protection and extensive licensing tools (for standalone and network licensing, online license code generation etc) . And I only have some weeks to make all things work (deadline at april 30th).

[Anonymous]

Thanks WMike !!
Looks very promising what they can offer, maybe exactly what I am looking for !!

- Are the "CryptoLicensing" and "Crypto Obfuscator" applications in combination easy to use?
- You're able to obfuscate and license your plugin and still get it fully loaded and functional in AutoCAD?
- Do you have experience with the other program tools this company provides?

Henk

[Anonymous]

1. I had no problems.
2. Yes, all I had to do was exclude some classes from obfuscation.
3. We are currently looking at using their megapack controls too. Still evaluating.

[BKSpurgeon]

for those reading this in the future this might benefit you.

(1) If you are writing dlls in .net you can just about forget trying to protect it from being cracked from someone who knows how. Reflector will allow you to read dlls. from there on, it's just a matter of searching for where your validation code is. once it's found you simply bypass the validation check by editing the dll. it's so disgustingly/trivially easy. Obfuscation makes it a little harder..........but it won't stop the zombies from coming at you. they'll keep coming. so if with .net it's a losing battle.

(2) if you do not obfuscate your code: hahahaha you're running the street bare naked. there is absolutely no where to hide and the whole world can see your code.

[CADbloke]

Decompiling obfuscated .NET code is trivial - https://github.com/0xd4d/dnSpy

Plenty has been written on the "fors" and "againsts" of obfuscation. This is a good one: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/7312/Piracy-and-Unconventional-Wisdom

Here's a good article, if a little "salesy" on hardware locked licensing: http://wyday.com/limelm/features/why/

Here's a thread on the swamp that taslks about it: https://www.theswamp.org/index.php?topic=50609.0

[artemlQGM8J]

Hi HeNkL,

There exists a cloud based licensing platform, called SKM platform, which allows you to protect and implement many kinds of licensing models, including subscription-based. Since it's in the cloud, you will be able to access your information everywhere and get be able to control all instances (eg. blocking, upgrading features, etc).

Here's more information:

• https://skmapp.com/autocad.html

/Artem