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Subject: Re: Moderation - About Hacking threads

Author: Dave Gomboc

Date: 13:57:43 08/26/99

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On August 26, 1999 at 05:38:08, Micheal Cummings wrote:

>If the copyright of the program says you cannot alter it then you cannot, so
>does that mean if you belong to one of these countries it gives you the right
>to post on here and say hey Ed (Rebel) stuff you, here is the crack for
>everyone to use to crack your program and use it for free.

It is probably not necessary to alter Rebel so that it can play under Fritz.
A hypothetical example (e.g. the idea is right, the details may be wrong... I
don't program anything like this!):  You start up a program that grabs
information from Rebel's screen (because it's running in a DOS window) and sends
Fritz COM commands to tell it to make the move.  When Fritz reports a move, you
simulate keystrokes in the DOS window's keyboard buffer to tell Rebel the move
of Fritz.  There's plenty of technical obstacles to overcome here, and I'm not
sure if it's actually doable as stated, but the idea is clear: you don't need to
modify any files from Rebel, and you don't need to modify any files from Fritz.
You can just use a different program -- no "cracking" required.

>I do not think so, I doubt very much that any country allows cracking or
>hacking of programs, I know for one thing that Microsoft does not want anyone
>touching their operating system or altering it.

All kinds of stuff are allowed in European countries that are not allowed in the
USA.  When Microsoft (or any other company) sells software in a country, the
contract had to adhere to that nation's regulations.  Check out a Microsoft
license carefully, and you will see something similar to the phrase "to the
extent permitted by law in your area, you may not do this, do that, do the
other, yada, yada, yada".  The point is that they cannot expressily forbid e.g.
reverse engineering in a country that explicitly allows it.  They can only
refuse to sell their software in that country.

>you say under some conditions, well this is a condition where you have to ask
>before you do.

The example in my first paragraph demonstrates a method that does not change any
program, so would be legal even in countries like the USA.

>As for hacking, it mean getting into the program to either alter or change it,
>otherwise there is no need to hack a program. So I think your two points are
>not clear.

Hacking has more than one meaning.  If you want to talk about "getting into the
program to either alter or change it", use "cracking".  Me whipping up a
butt-ugly piece of code to sort my friend's phone numbers in 10 minutes is more
likely to be called hacking than what you are talking about.

Dave



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