We have seen many commercial copy protections. Many of them are applied on game cds. Safedisc, Securom, Starforce, Tages are some of them. Almost every game CD is protected with such CD protections. Most of them can be dumped, however, with tools such as Alcohol 120% and Blindwrite.
There are some freeware applications to copy protect CDs too, but very few are meant to protect Data CDs. I wanted to make a data CD which is copy protected. Many freeware copy protection softwares can be dumped by Alcohol. I tried TZ Copy Protection, but it too can be dumped easily with Alcohol, if correct options are set. It can be dumped easily with another dumper called Pregap Image builder. I forgot where I downloaded from. So I have uploaded it to
http://www.geocities.com/khattam_khattam/pregap.zip , Hope the author (PersianKitKat{at}gma!l.com) does not mind.
This program is made for NT Based Operation Systems. This mean it will not
works under 9x Series, as it does not uses ASPI!
Basically made to make a backup for tzCopyProtection, But it worked for
CD-Guardian , RockLock , SoftLock and WTM CD Protect.
I want to make a copy protected CD of NT Password Changing Utility. Actually, my friend needs it but I know if I give it to him, he'll make a copy of it and boast too much of it. So....
So, we are using freeware tools to create our so called "Copy Protected CD". We are going to protect an ISO of a Linux CD which contains the captive NTFS and NT Password changing tool with Syslinux boot loader. It is available at
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/
It contains the following files when unpacked:
1. Boot.msg
2. Boot.cat
3. Isolinux.cfg
4. Isolinux.bin
5. Vmlinuz
6. Initrd.gz
Unpacking can be done with WinRAR, available at
http://www.rarlab.com It is a shareware and gives a NAG if you dont register after the 40 days trial period. But you will face the NAG for such a great program. Hope you know about this better...
The integrity of Vmlinuz is checked at boot time, so we cannot edit or protect it. However, other files can and will be protected.
Let me introduce to you a tool called Magic ISO Maker. Trust me it is a Magical program to deal with ISOs. IF you have used UltraISO and thought it is a great program, then you will know that Magic ISO is a boon. Unlike UltraISO, it does not unpack and repack the ISO when you edit it. Instead, it saves the changes to the existing file, make it much faster to edit ISOs. Not only it can edit any ISOs, it can also deal with any type of Nero .nrg files. You can add/remove files to and from these images and even make them bootable or extract the bootimage. If you are used to dealing with ISOs then you need this program. It will be worth a buy if you plan to buy it. (Yeah, it is a shareware). We will use the Trial version of the program. It is available at
http://www.magiciso.com Hope you download and install Magic ISO as soon as possible and give this great program a try.
Let me come to the point again. We were going to make a copy protected Linux CD, and for free. So we are going to combine two copy protectors. They are:
1. TZ CD Copy Protection (
http://wave.prohosting.com/~tzcp/TZCP155FullInstall.zip)
2. WTM CD Protect Shareware Trial Version (
http://www.webtoolmaster.com)
Both are claimed to be successfully ripped by Pregap Image Builder, but when combined, it fails to make a working dump of the protected CD.
Read the TZ Copy Protection Help and also the help of WTM CD Protect and come back again for better understanding of what we are going to do.
I will assume you have downloaded and installed all the programs that are required.
Firstly, we launch Magic ISO and open the file cd050303.iso, which is the ISO of the CD to protect. Then, look at the CD content. I have already said what files it contains. Anyways, lets proceed.
Open the folder %WTM CD Protect Installed Directory%\Imp-Image\Image-Imp\ and copy all the *.imp files to a location, say c:\Protect\junkimgs. Now, rename the *.imp files to any name that will look real. These files are fake files, which will be protected by WTM CD Protect. You can rename them to anything you like. To make them like real required files, I gave them names like BOOT, BOOT.CFG, CHPSSW.GZ, ISOLINUX.CON, KERNEL.GZ, KERNEL.IMG, KERNEL.SYS, LILO, VMLINUZ.CFG, VMLINUZ.GZ, VMLINUZ.IMG. You can even make multiple copies of the files and give them other names if you like. Make sure that it does not match any of the files already on the CD. If you wish to make a setup CD for your application, you can give names such as setup.dll, install.cab and such to fool the pirator.
Now, drag the files to the Magic ISO program to add these files to your CD compilation. Then save it. Now the CD will contain the original files + these fake files, which will be made uncopyable by the WTM CD Protector later. Now, lets also protect few of necessary files to make them uncopyable too, coz if the pirator is able to figure out the required files, he will escape all the fake and/or uncopyable files and easily make a copy of the CD. So lets protect some original files too. Extract the files INITRD.GZ and ISOLINUX.BIN to protect. VMLINUZ cannot be protected coz while protecting, the file size is increased, and it will fail the integrity check at boottime. If you are protecting some other CD, do not protect files with CRC checking. Some executibles have self-check routines. These should not be protected by this process, or the exe will not run.
Ok, if you have extracted the files INITRD.GZ and ISOLINUX.BIN, by right clicking and extract in MagicISO, it is time to launch WTM CD Protect. Launch it and click "Add Errors". Click on "Hanging error image at arbitary file" and then select INITRD.GZ. It will show a messagebox, saying "It has been saved to %path%\initrd.gz.cry Rename this back to %path%\initrd.gz and burn it on CD." Do the same with ISOLINUX.BIN and quit WTM CD Protect. Now, we have two extra files in the directory in which we had extracted the files. They are INITRD.GZ.CRY and ISOLINUX.BIN.CRY. Delete the files INITRD.GZ and ISOLINUX.BIN and rename the *.*.cry files to *.* ie to INITRD.GZ and ISOLINUX.BIN. Now, put them back in the CD, in Magic ISO, by dragging. Replace the original files. Save the ISO. Exit Magic ISO Maker.
In case you are protecting another CD which has an EXE file, make sure that the EXE runs well after protection, before adding it to the compilation. EXEs with CRC checks fail to run after protection so beware.
Now, launch TZ CD Copy Protection. We are going to change the sizes of the dummy files to unbelievable sizes, such as 1 gb or 2 gb, for further protection. However, do not change the size of Vmlinuz and initrd.gz file. This is because the crc of Vmlinuz is checked and filesize shoud not change at all. For initrd.gz, the filesize shouldnt be changed coz, it is loaded to the RAM during boottime, so if you change the size to 1 Gb or 2 Gb, then it will simply crash. Dont do this with EXEs with crc checks and other such files too, if implementing in other projects.
So, to change the filesize of any file, Launch TZ Copy Protection, if you havent already done so, and File>Open ISO and select the ISO we just compiled. Then, at the lower right corner, enter the filesize. By default, you can see 2047 MB ie 2GB or 2147483647 bytes. Change it to any number you like and then select the file whose size ou want to change. Then click on Step 3 in the standard toolbar. I changed the size of BOOT.CAT to 1 Gb, ISOLINUX.BIN to 2 Gb, Kernel.img (Dummy file) to 500 Mb. You can change the sizes of other dummy files to any size too. It wont increase the size of the ISO, and it wont need a DVD to write the ISO, too. So, change the filesize of other files too if you like, but NOT of Vmlinuz and initrd.gz....
Then, exit TZ Copy Protection when you are done.
Now, we need to create a RAW dump of the ISO. We will use CDRwin. It is a great utility from Golden Hawk. The shareware demo version gives full functionality, but the speed of read/write is 1x. We will do with that. . It is available for download at
http://www.goldenhawk.com/download.htm
We will also need Alcohol or any other tool to mount our CD to virtual drive. We need to do this so that we can rip with CDRWin and get a RAW image with a cue file. We need CDRWin because it is compatible with TZ Copy Protection program.
So get a virtual drive program. Lets use Alcohol 120% trial. Launch Alcohol 120% and then click on virtual drives. Install at least one virtual CD drive. Then go to My Computer. You should see a new drive. Right Click on the new Virtual CD Drive and Click Mount > Open and then open our ISO image. Then our ISO will be mounted to the CD drive.
Now, launch CDRWin and click on the third button. On taking your mouse over the button, you will see "Extract Disk/Tracks/Sectors". Yeah! Thats it. Click on it and select the Virtual Drive in the "CD Reader" field. Browse for the Image file name you want to save the file to and then click start. After dumping is done, close CDRWin.
Now, launch WTM CD Protect. Click Image and select the Raw *.BIN dump we just got after dumping with CDRWin. Then, click Options and select a larger IMP file. I selected Image6.Imp. Then, click on Protect. It will show the trial version NAG. Just click OK. Then, the protection process will start. The readme of the WTM CD Protect says that, if we select slower option in the "Add Errors" tab, we get better protection, but the operation for protection will be VERY VERY SLOW. So we select the fastest option available ie Super Fast Scan/Write.
When it finishes, quit WTM CD Protect. Actually, when it finishes it says "Image Protected. Burn this Image." But we want more protection, don't we??
Now, launch TZ CD Copy Protection. Now, Click on File> Open Cue Sheet and open the cue file just created with CDRWin. Now, we are gonna use various protections offered by TZ CD Copy Protection. Great!
Click on Step 1. It wil say "Protection Added." So, done. For informations on these protection types, please read the TZ Copy Protection's help file.
Then, in the lower left corner, tick on four second fix. We are NOT going to use Interleave Filesystem, since it is not compatible in some cases. Read online for more info. In the Audio Tracks to add, leave it to 94. Then, click on Step 2 and wait for a few seconds. When it is done, click on Step 4. We need not use Step 3 again. We have already used it earlier, haven't we?? Scroll up and see when we increased the file sizes to Gb. Remember?? Yes, that is Step 3.
Then, click on Step 5 too. It will ask if you want to load the current cuesheet. Click yes. It will convert BIN Image. Wait for a while and when done, close it. It asks if you want to create another TZC file, Click Yes. Then we come back to the TZ CD Protection.
Now, when you have to burn the image, we can still add another important protection. To burn the CD, run TZ Copy Protection. Then, Open the BIN Image. If it is already open, its OK. Then, click on the "Manager". Then, click on "Create Ghost" and then click ok in the messagebox that follows. Then, without closing TZ Copy Protection, or the Manager, launch CDRWin. And then click on the first button which is "Record Disc". Then, click on Load Cuesheet and select the cuesheet we have created. Tick on "Raw Mode" and then choose a slower writing speed, well if you have a registered version. Otherwise, you will automatically have slow writing speed . Then, click on "Record Disc". Click "Yes" to any warnings that it gives. When the recording process starts and the drive light start blinking, come bak to the Manager of TZ Copy Protection and click on "Modify Ghost" button. It will give up a messagebox. Click OK to it. So, after 99% of CD Burning, CDRWin will fail, and you will get the copy protected CD we are making. So, mission successful......
To check how much protected it is, try to dump it with Alcohol. Use ClonyXXL to determine the protection and it says "Cactus Data Shield 100". Fine. Try dumping with any dumpers. Let me know if you find any dumpers which will make a working dump of this CD. Yes Pregap Image Builder, that I mentioned earlier was able to make a dump, but the dump did not boot when written to another disc. It had problems reading the protected initrd.gz file. Moreover, many files from the CD cannot be copied to harddisk
