Differentiating Software protection from Copy protection

Laurentiu Cristofer’s blog discusses the differences between security and copy protection. I agree with his points and the eventual comparison between security and obfuscation. However, the discussion needs to differentiate between copy protection and software protection technology.

Copy protection solutions attempt to control the usage of applications and the number machines software can be installed on. Although technology in this space may share certain software protection capabilities (i.e. encryption, obfuscation) in my opinion they are closer cousin to software licensing and DRM systems.

Software protection technology is squarely focused on creating technology that makes it expensive and time consuming to reverse engineer valuable software. I would have to agree with classification that falls more under obfuscation then security, but I believe software protection is a specialized technology and has a wider applicability then copy protection. For example, software protection can be used effectively to prevent decompiling .NET applications, without it the intermediate level code is subject to variety of threats by individuals with only novice software skills using any publicly available tools. In the piracy realm, reverse engineering is used to bypass licensing and copy protection schemes at the machine code level, but again using obfuscation, run-time re-encryption, and anti-debugging and tampering techniques you can deter this by layering protection on top of licensing in per software title unique way. This can prevent a “class break” as well as require increasingly higher skill levels to crack the protection.

Again, because software has to be available unprotected for the CPU its not absolute security, but I liken the value of this technology to protecting your house. Depending on where you live and value you assign to the property you are going to install a combination of locks, tall fence, and maybe a security system. None of these are foolproof, but your property is less attractive to intruders.

Vic