VB.NET Bot License Options?

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voi_tech

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What are my options to license my programs I create in vb.net?

Should I code that functionality in to my programs manually or is there some kind of 3rd party solution?

Thanks.
 
Here are some of the options

Amember Pro excellent support
 
I code my own custom licensing functions. Just use some sort of encoding, obfuscate your executable and make sure the connections to your website cannot be sniffed with Fiddler!
 
I code my own custom licensing functions. Just use some sort of encoding, obfuscate your executable and make sure the connections to your website cannot be sniffed with Fiddler!

This, use a webservice and make sure it cannot be spoofed.
 
No matter what you do, they'l find a way to crack it ... if they really want to ;) 3rd party - the easiest + some obfuscation + a bit of your own solution, but don't go crazy. If you go overboard, this could easily hurt you legitimate customers and you could find it difficult to update your own code. Just add some code protection and give your customers plenty of reasons to buy - good support, frequent updates, etc.

Most likely the best approach is to keep some of the functionality on your server, but this brings its own sets of problems.
 
If you're planning to go for a real time(server based) licensing validation, it's not very easy to code it yourself though it is possible. And it's a hassle to maintain the licensing servers etc which will cause problems to your users. You can find open source projects in codeproject.

3rd party libraries are easy to integrate and tested well and they provide support.

It's Better to go for a simple & custom copy protection to lock the software based on few system info(HDD serial, BIOS no etc). i.e a basic serial generator based on user's system info to validate every time they start the application.

As the previous poster said you can avoid only casual copying of the software. If someone decides to crack it, it's not that difficult to crack. And don't spend too much effort or money on protecting it for first few versions(until your software is really required by people and well known in the web and when people search for cracks).

http://installkey.codeplex.com/ is one of the free & open source version of a commercial product without support.
 
I also code my own licensing features. First of all you know what you are doing and that you can modify and change security along the way depending on what your needs are. For obfuscation i tend to use confuser which is really neat and can be found here: http://confuser.codeplex.com/

Regards,
MoonWolf
 
I code my own custom licensing functions. Just use some sort of encoding, obfuscate your executable and make sure the connections to your website cannot be sniffed with Fiddler!

Just curious, how would one accomplish this? There are tools such as Echo Mirage and WPE Pro which use DLL injection to hook the APIs used for sending and receiving data. Can you really protect against that?

I don't see how obscuring the connection data would help prevent cracking, considering it just takes a simple NOP in the right place to cancel the entire validity check.

There's also de4dot which is an extremely powerful .NET deobfuscator. Although it only halfway works with Confuser, most of the commercial and free obfuscaters are done when it comes to de4dot.
 
NOP instruction is often used by crackers to remove code from the software. If you remove the licenseing from my softwares they will stop functioning since the liencense part contains instructions aswell for how the software should operate. Nop out my license and you nop away the functionality.
 
What are my options to license my programs I create in vb.net?

Should I code that functionality in to my programs manually or is there some kind of 3rd party solution?

Thanks.

Get Eriz -.NET Reactor get the developers version and it is pretty straight forward. Everything is crackable, just remember that-even windows products are cracked. Its just a matter of how long it takes to crack something.

But get the ERIZ licensing software man. Great Encryption. All the other processes mentioned here are pretty much useless against fighting creackers. This is one of the best encryption and licensing software you can get.
 
NOP instruction is often used by crackers to remove code from the software. If you remove the licenseing from my softwares they will stop functioning since the liencense part contains instructions aswell for how the software should operate. Nop out my license and you nop away the functionality.

Hmm, could you elaborate a bit more, or provide a simple example (any language)?
 
Hmm, could you elaborate a bit more, or provide a simple example (any language)?


I can give you an idea. I have a bit more advanced system in place but just something to go with.



You check the input from the user against a server to se if it is valid (licensekey)
This you send with a good seed and some nice encryption like AES or similar.


In response you get data that can be used to see if the server validated correctly and some extra operation data.


In this example the operation data contains of a string that we store for later use. this string is the name of a function/sub within the software.
Now when the program want to call that sub/function it needs to retrive the data from that string and try to execute the string data instead of
a hardcoded name to a function. So if you nop out the license the software will not know which function to call and stop to function.
Other ways can also be to send whole code snippets to the software.


This will prevent a simple nop cracker to do it's work.


Above method should not be taken as an idea to be safe from crackers but rather stop the non more advanced ones.

Regards,
HatIsBlack
 
I can give you an idea. I have a bit more advanced system in place but just something to go with.



You check the input from the user against a server to se if it is valid (licensekey)
This you send with a good seed and some nice encryption like AES or similar.


In response you get data that can be used to see if the server validated correctly and some extra operation data.


In this example the operation data contains of a string that we store for later use. this string is the name of a function/sub within the software.
Now when the program want to call that sub/function it needs to retrive the data from that string and try to execute the string data instead of
a hardcoded name to a function. So if you nop out the license the software will not know which function to call and stop to function.
Other ways can also be to send whole code snippets to the software.


This will prevent a simple nop cracker to do it's work.


Above method should not be taken as an idea to be safe from crackers but rather stop the non more advanced ones.

Regards,
HatIsBlack


nice method dude.. i tried almost 3-4 system and it was "ROYAL PAIN in ASS"!! ended up coding my own system!
 
whether you use vb.net or c# "Eziriz Intellilock" is a very good solution.
 
They have support only for C# not vb.net :) Everything is coded in C#

Code:
http://www.eziriz.com/intellilock.htm

[B]Supported Languages:[/B]
                                        [IMG]http://www.eziriz.com/images/pfeilrechts.gif[/IMG]C#
                                        [IMG]http://www.eziriz.com/images/pfeilrechts.gif[/IMG][B]VB.NET[/B]
                                        [IMG]http://www.eziriz.com/images/pfeilrechts.gif[/IMG]C++.NET
                                        [IMG]http://www.eziriz.com/images/pfeilrechts.gif[/IMG]Delphi.NET
                                        [IMG]http://www.eziriz.com/images/pfeilrechts.gif[/IMG]J#
                                        [IMG]http://www.eziriz.com/images/pfeilrechts.gif[/IMG]MSIL
and many more..

Pretty much any .NET obfuscator will protect .NET assemblies, because they all basally compile to the same byte code. Personally I prefer a later version of CryptoObfuscator, I've yet to find any deobfuscators (de4dot, Improve .NET Debfuscator, etc) that can do anything useful to a packed exe using the right settings. If you want a download link, PM me.

Here's a screenhot:
1365072651-crypto-obfuscator-for-net1.png
 
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