(no subject)

[wolfwings]

And on a much, Much, MUCH lighter note... I've found the Ultimate Spyware Solution. Permissions-based file systems like NTFS have a use after all. Turn off inheritance, set SYSTEM to deny execute only. End of problem. :-)

Well, at least until they make load-and-modify executables that read the spyware off the disk somehow before running it. Then things get trickier on what to block where...

I'm still amazed as just how crappy most protection systems are these days, compared to just what was done with floppy-disk-based games. Not even key-disk stuff, but actual anti-copying code was much better-thought-out then, compared to today's utter crap.

Comments

Why just SYSTEM?

[aerowolf.livejournal.com]

Why not just Everyone? (And also set Everyone to deny read, to prevent the extension of the attack that you described?)

SYSTEM = hardware

[wolfwings.livejournal.com]

At least, in Windows XP, which I'm using, though a very throughly lobotomized Win2k-ish version, setting SYSTEM to deny, all caps, means the group system, I.E. hardware drivers can't physically access the file, so at the physical layer nothing can execute that block of the disk.

And why not block read? Because many protection systems store some configuration information in the executable that's not wanted to execute, so by allowing reading and writing, but blocking execute, I can fake current-gen stuff into thinking all is happy.

Make more sense now, hon? :-)