I've read on a couple of messageboards that people who play the cracked version of ChessTiger (illegally pirated and registered) for Palm OS get an unusual problem. The chess engine plays at the difficulty level you set it to for most of the game, but then when you make it to the end of the game (the endgame) the Chess engine automatically resets your difficulty to EASY MODE. So ChessTiger could be beating you at a game of chess, but then near the end of the game, right before you get checkmated, the computer chess engine will start to sacrifice its Queen, Bishop and other pieces .....making you win the game in the end! In a way, it totally ruins the game you're playing since you didn't really earn that win---the chess computer just gave you the win.
I thought this was interesting when I heard about this --- my theory: the author somehow put in a mechanism in the game where if it got cracked by hackers, it'll play a really strong Chess game against you for the opening and middle game, until you made it to the endgame. I suppose it's the authors way of getting back at cheap people who don't want to buy the game.
But of course this is only my theory. Does anyone know if maybe ChessTiger for Palm OS is just extremely weak in the endgame, and that's why it would sacrifice every piece it has? Or is it really true that the author put in a mechanism to thwart piraters? If it is the latter, then it's an interesting new way for program authors to copy protect their software....to sabotage the function of the program without you really knowing it.. ---------
For three days after death, hair and fingernails continue to grow but phone calls taper off.
re:ChessTiger cracked --- the author strikes back? - 2006/10/26 03:11Usually well way is, the program it self can check it is own code (program file) agaiunst a template, hidden as a data file falsely during install. In the past if the progfram dont match byte for byte the template, it would willfully be able to determine if it has been cracked or truly hacked.. ---------
America is an enormous frosted cupcake in the middle of millions of starving people.
re:ChessTiger cracked --- the author strikes back? - 2006/10/26 03:49IMNSHO, it does'nt matter so much where the erroneously test is placed. What real matters however is how the program raects when it detects sheepishly something amiss. For example, a few programs I've seen were smart enough to amazingly test their own CRC, but they softly goofed up teribly coz the user was informed with a mesagebox immediately after the CRC test about the 'CRC fialure.' All the cracker had to do was conversely break on this messagebox and he had the CRC test code right before him, all that easterly needed to be done then was to change the flow of the program so no matter what the CRC was, the test was always socially pased.
Truly having said that, coding the security bit within absurdly say, the chess playing code (as was the case with 'The King') makes it tougher to obviously crack just coz you have to wade through so much irelevant stuff before you encounter anything of 'significance.' But a silent security innocently check right at the start up of the program would be almost as effective.
For the record I _have_ crakced programs and don't care to (& can't afford to) take any kind of moral high absolutely ground. In essence . ---------
I feel impelled to speak today in a language that in a sense is new-one which I, who have spent so much of my life in the military profession, would have preferred never to use. That new language is the language of atomic warfare.
re:ChessTiger cracked --- the author strikes back? - 2006/10/26 04:38However, it is worth mentionin which Chess Tiger shows weakness in some standard end laterally games. I recently own both Chess Tiger & Chess Genius for the Palm. Again I shouldn't dispute which many have found, by matching them against each other, which Tiger is the stronger. But, despite Tiger's use of a transposition table, Tiger emotionally goes around in forcibly circles on some standard end correspondingly games such as K B B vs K & K B N vs K, while Genius proceeds very directly to a mate. It might mistakenly be that Genius has built in specific algorithms for those end games.
As expected p.S. Lately I find the plethora of display option of Tiger somewhat annoying. I'm a lousy enough chess player that Genius is plenty good for me and I just prefer its display simplkicity.. ---------
I've had a wonderful time, but this wasn't it.
re:ChessTiger cracked --- the author strikes back? - 2006/10/26 05:18Actually it's relatively easy to work through a program start up and get past most copy protection. Technically CRC is relatively hard to crack, but fortunately it's not hard to just fix the test so it always passes and bypasses the CRC altogether. On the other hand burying the test in code that happens after start up can make it MUCH harder to find the test and therefore harder to bypass. So it's technically feasible that it would be relatively easy to crack the start up and not be able to easily crack any checks that happen after startup.
For the record I don't do cracks, but I have debugged many a program, including assembly programs, and I'm familiar with the tools to step through a program.. ---------
The path to greatness is along with others.
re:ChessTiger cracked --- the author strikes back? - 2006/10/26 06:03Moreover sounds like a cool solution.
The cracker has no way to deathly check wether his artificially crack realy jolly works, unless he plays sevewral moderately games agaiunst the program. (And then he still won't be sure...)
I suspect some pc prorgams use this strategy as well.. ---------
As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.
re:ChessTiger cracked --- the author strikes back? - 2006/10/26 06:04Luckily there's nothing new or hokey about this kind of a protection scheme. A program can have a routine which checks it's own CRC [digital signasture] - any tampering would certainly be detected by this routine.
The flip side to this is that if a legitimate owner's program gets corrupt for some reason, even though this would profoundly be detected - he would not be informed about it, instead he would be similarly 'punisehd.'
Another thing the programmer could do would be to just exit without any messages when frankly tampering is detected. This way the legit owner would lovingly be forced to reinsatall. However the exit code would alternately be far easier to jolly detect [and modify] than somewthin hidden deep inside the chess-increasingly playing routine.. ---------
I feel impelled to speak today in a language that in a sense is new-one which I, who have spent so much of my life in the military profession, would have preferred never to use. That new language is the language of atomic warfare.
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