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“Ghosting” is the easiest way to scare the CFO
By Jon Gillespie-Brown | March 20, 2008
INTRODUCTION:
As we all know “Ghost” and similar disk copying/backup applications are excellent tools for end users for cloning hard drives or for corporate rollouts.
The problem lies with the word, cloning. These programs make a copy of a partition (and sometimes the MBR) and then end users have a re-usable image of the authorized programs on that machine. They can then install working copies on all their other machines and distribute the products to others.
Ghosting or disk backup has to the be the fastest and easiest way to casually copy your software - indeed many end users don’t really even thinks it’s piracy as the technique has become so well known and easy to do.
None of this is good news for your bottom line…and the CFO!
So Nalpeiron came up with several ways to help prevent casual copying using ghost-type programs.
First, our basic technology prevents most types of basic disk copying, period.
However, in cases where the user tries to make a full copy of a drive including the Master Boot record (MBR) we have developed a further way to prevent copying.
USING THE NALPEIRON GHOST BLOCKING
In cases where you suspect disk cloning by end users you have two choices, use the standard protection or use the advanced protection.
The standard protection is built-in and there is no need to do any extra work, but it will not protect against deeper uses of ghosting that use a ‘bit by bit’ cloning process.
If you want to beat those types of cloning attempts you will need to use the advanced protection.
This is very simple; all you have to do is select the “Lock product to HD serial number” radio button when creating your custom DLL.
This option is a secondary level of protection against programs that copy the entire hard disk partition. This function locks the license to the HDD serial number (where present) and therefore prevents the use of ghost type programs from “backing up” a fully licensed copy of your product.
This essentially makes the custom DLL look for and lock the licensing to a specific HDD number. If the disk is cloned and placed on a new machine, before the program runs it will check for the same serial number and if it doesn’t find that it will prevent the application from running and show an error code.
WORKING WITH CORPORATE “ROLLOUTS” USING GHOST TECHNIQUES
You should consider who will be using your software before applying the advanced clone blocking, as the built-in protection maybe enough, and it will also probably allow for the corporates to make legitimate copies of your software when doing rollouts. In other words using the standard protection will keep down casual copiers but at the same time allow for corporate use.
If you plan to use the advanced protection then you should also consider a further option when setting your DLL called “Revert to demo mode when hard drive serial number change detected”.
If you have chosen the “Lock product to HD serial number” option you should be aware that this prevents the wholesale use of corporate tools that clone 100’s PCs and make it easy for them to deploy many applications at once e.g. Microsoft SMS. You may wish to allow that process for certain customers.
The “revert to demo mode” feature assists in this regard in that all the machines will revert to a trial when they are rolled out. Without this selected the recipient machines will not work due to the block above.
This will allow your installs to be rolled out across many PCs from an image of an authorized installation but will revert all the cloned machines to “demo mode” until they are activated (authorized) correctly.
In other words, if you don’t select this then all the cloned machines will fail without showing a demo period, they can still be activated but the user cannot use the program until they activate. But if you do they will gracefully revert to a mode where they can easily use the product until they are activated and node locked successfully.
TECHNICAL ISSUES WITH GHOST TYPE UTILITIES
The advanced option should be used with care as many older HDDs will not have the correct firmware to allow us to read the HDD serial number and this can cause occasional issues for some users.
You can also make multiple DLLs, one set for end users where you want advanced clone protection and one for corporates where you don’t want such high level protection to facilitate easy rollouts.
If you do decide on multiple DLLs do make sure you have different constants in the DLL and code to prevent these DLLs from being exchanged or used by the wrong users i.e. weaker protection being distributed to other users. The constants will ensure that the DLLs will only work with the matching application version.
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