Date   : Wed, 16 May 2001 18:06:17 +0100
From   : "Richard Gellman" <r.gellman@...>
Subject: Re: Locked and beyond

First of all, the hidden messages thing. I am not 100% sure this is actually
linked, but its an interesting coincidence.

According to the games page in the May '87 Acorn User, Psycastria has a
cheat mode that can be enabled by holding down I L T D and N on the title
screen.

Buried into the code of my copy of Star Striker is a body of text which
reads: "This may not be the first game to carry the intials of 'I Love
Tracey Dianne Nicholson' " - coincidence?

Second point, software protection.

If you would like a real copy protection cracking challenge, try copying the
disc version of The Sentinel. (it is possible because I managed it after 1
week of trying, involing various pieces of interrupt code, rom polling
interrupts (I have a master 128 :) ), and vector interception).

When copied, u have a single machine code file thats rather large.

On the disc, there is only 1 real file, !BOOT - &400 bytes long, and the
disc is set to option 2 (RUN)

This file is of the kevin edwards type, mult-part encrypted, using via
timers for decoding. When decrypted it contains code to read data from a
"secret" area of the disc (the way most discs were protected). This is
loaded, and then run.

Guess what? same thing. Multi-part encryption. This leads onto ANOTHER
loader, loading in the main program from ANOTHER secret area.
Then THAT is decrypted using an easier decryption method, and then FINALLY
run...

god i hope my ADFS games disc with sentinel on it doesn't corrupt......

-- Richard Gellman