Piracy protection of interpreted code

[ernie]

Hi Everybody!

I've written and compiled a program in LB Pro v. 4.5.1


I am adding piracy protection prior to its release, and the software I am working with (Enigma Protector) does not seem to work with .tkn files (returns "unrecognized file format"). Is there a way to combine the .tkn file with the exe, or can LB 5 create a program that is not interpreted?

Thanks much in advance for any help or suggestions.

Ernie

[Rod]

No, we need the .tkn and the renamed .exe runtime as well as the runtime .dlls. Enigma protector should accept the .exe file or is it baulking on that too? I read they have a virtual box which is where the .tkn should reside as a well as the runtime .dll files. Then the whole package is protected.

The renamed .exe looks for a similarly named .tkn in the current working directory. So enigma needs to create a directory with all files available prior to running the .exe. If it interprets and extracts files on demand it may not be compatible but I know very little about the product.

[Carl Gundel]

Jun 1, 2022 2:20:02 GMT -5 Rod said:

No, we need the .tkn and the renamed .exe runtime as well as the runtime .dlls. Enigma protector should accept the .exe file or is it baulking on that too? I read they have a virtual box which is where the .tkn should reside as a well as the runtime .dll files. Then the whole package is protected.

The renamed .exe looks for a similarly named .tkn in the current working directory. So enigma needs to create a directory with all files available prior to running the .exe. If it interprets and extracts files on demand it may not be compatible but I know very little about the product.

I agree that what Rod is saying here seems like a reasonable expectation of how a product such as Enigma should work.

[ernie]

Thank you for your responses.

When I create a protected version, including the similarly-named .tkn file, I get the error:

Smalltalk/V
    compiler unable to allocate memory.

the error log reports:
    Error log timestamp 5/31/2022 19:58:14
    Message 4001:
    compiler unable to allocate memory.


If you can tell me more about what this means, it may help address the problem.

BTW, here is my website which shows some of what LB can do. The user enters responses to a questionnaire into controls, and LB writes an .RTF narrative report. 35k lines, years of work, almost ready for release. Just want to make the code more protected if I can.

LB rocks!

[Rod]

Since we know Liberty works and this error has not been reported previously I have to assume it is Enigma again. I read that it runs as a virtual machine, so it will be managing memory. You need to see if you can get the virtual machine to start with greater memory. Restricting memory is a protective thing to stop .exe files copying things they should not. Is there an Enigma forum? I see they have an active support forum.

I dont think it is the .dlls and .tkn and .exe files that are causing the bother. It is when Liberty basic starts the runtime .exe it is looking for a sizeable chunk of allocated memory to run the process. The smalltalk virtual machine that runs liberty basic is reporting that it cannot get enough memory from Enigma's virtual machine.

Think Enigma's forum is your best bet for a solution. The smalltalk virtual machine is looking for something like 256Mb of memory to run in.


There might be alternative ways to protect your data. But remember at some point you are printing the whole thing out in clear so your content is ALWAYS copiable. If it is the logic and structure of unprinted text that you want to protect you might encode the data.

Others who have tackled this should offer advice.

[ernie]

Thanks, Rod. This is very helpful. I'll get on their forums and now I have an idea of the right questions to ask. I will post back here if I get it to work with LB, so others can benefit as well.

[Carl Gundel]

Jun 5, 2022 10:45:58 GMT -5 ernie said:

Thanks, Rod. This is very helpful. I'll get on their forums and now I have an idea of the right questions to ask. I will post back here if I get it to work with LB, so others can benefit as well.

Like Rod said, Liberty BASIC expects there to be a block of contiguous memory on startup.  This is the way the VM works.  I don't have any way to change it, but if your tools allow you to specify a size for memory you may be able to make it work.