Confessions of a Disk Cracker: the secrets of 4am
June 16, 2018 5:28 PM Subscribe
This is really interesting! Thanks!
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:42 PM on June 16, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:42 PM on June 16, 2018 [1 favorite]
Awesome!
I suddenly have a dire need to play Bolo again. This is perfect!
posted by darkstar at 5:49 PM on June 16, 2018 [9 favorites]
I suddenly have a dire need to play Bolo again. This is perfect!
posted by darkstar at 5:49 PM on June 16, 2018 [9 favorites]
Ohhhhhh AppleWriter better be there.
/em nostalgia wave
posted by tilde at 5:53 PM on June 16, 2018 [1 favorite]
/em nostalgia wave
posted by tilde at 5:53 PM on June 16, 2018 [1 favorite]
Ohhhhhh AppleWriter better be there.
AppleWriter ][ (4am crack)
posted by slater at 6:15 PM on June 16, 2018
AppleWriter ][ (4am crack)
posted by slater at 6:15 PM on June 16, 2018
If anyone wants way too much information about how this kind of copy protection works, there's an excellent PoC||GTFO article about the nitty-gritty (starts on page 38).
posted by phooky at 6:17 PM on June 16, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by phooky at 6:17 PM on June 16, 2018 [9 favorites]
This is so cool.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:19 PM on June 16, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:19 PM on June 16, 2018 [1 favorite]
I have a IIe, IIc, and (until I finish restoring it) a II+. Someone's Disk II is getting a workout this week!
posted by 1adam12 at 6:26 PM on June 16, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by 1adam12 at 6:26 PM on June 16, 2018 [1 favorite]
This is a great read about some really cool work. I would've bet that cracking Apple II copy protection was a dead art, but it looks like it's healthier than ever! Thanks a lot for the post, So You're Saying These Are Pants?!
posted by yomimono at 7:09 PM on June 16, 2018
posted by yomimono at 7:09 PM on June 16, 2018
I have a IIe, IIc, and (until I finish restoring it) a II+.
I have only jealousy. My IIc was one of the best computers I ever owned. I wish I still had it.
posted by middleclasstool at 8:33 PM on June 16, 2018
I have only jealousy. My IIc was one of the best computers I ever owned. I wish I still had it.
posted by middleclasstool at 8:33 PM on June 16, 2018
i remember visiting a friend a friend who had an apple II and playing games growing up, and also using a computer at the public library. would be amazing to have one these days, especially with work like this being done!
posted by d6 at 8:40 PM on June 16, 2018
posted by d6 at 8:40 PM on June 16, 2018
I suddenly have a dire need to play Bolo again.
Oh. My. God. My weekend is over.. I *forgot* about Bolo!
What else have I forgotten? Did I have childhood friends? Another life?
posted by DoubtingThomas at 8:43 PM on June 16, 2018 [4 favorites]
Oh. My. God. My weekend is over.. I *forgot* about Bolo!
What else have I forgotten? Did I have childhood friends? Another life?
posted by DoubtingThomas at 8:43 PM on June 16, 2018 [4 favorites]
Someone's Disk II is getting a workout this week!
This week? More like every time you close the drive door lever and the poor old drive head rattles its klunky way home to re-register on the hard stop tab.
*click* *chu-chu-chu-chu-chunk* *bzzzzzz-bzzzzzt*
posted by loquacious at 8:45 PM on June 16, 2018 [8 favorites]
This week? More like every time you close the drive door lever and the poor old drive head rattles its klunky way home to re-register on the hard stop tab.
*click* *chu-chu-chu-chu-chunk* *bzzzzzz-bzzzzzt*
posted by loquacious at 8:45 PM on June 16, 2018 [8 favorites]
/swoon
posted by Celsius1414 at 9:24 PM on June 16, 2018
posted by Celsius1414 at 9:24 PM on June 16, 2018
Oh, man this brings back memories. Taught myself 6502 assembler in 9th grade and cracked the copy protection for Sensible Speller. Also did a cheat for Robotron to have infinite lives. Good times.
posted by paladin at 3:26 AM on June 17, 2018
posted by paladin at 3:26 AM on June 17, 2018
I saw a kid deprotect a Snickers bar at the local 7-11 yesterday.
posted by fairmettle at 8:02 AM on June 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by fairmettle at 8:02 AM on June 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
I saw a kid deprotect a Snickers bar at the local 7-11 yesterday.
Was it thirty years past its sell-by date?
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:45 AM on June 17, 2018 [13 favorites]
Was it thirty years past its sell-by date?
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:45 AM on June 17, 2018 [13 favorites]
From the Hacker News discussion, here's a link to the Passport automated crack tool. Also 4am's tweets about best cracks are fun reading.
posted by Nelson at 8:55 AM on June 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Nelson at 8:55 AM on June 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
I would love to see Apple respond to this somehow? Do they fear giving tacit validation to cracking? I mean they should be paying this guy.
posted by latkes at 9:32 AM on June 17, 2018
posted by latkes at 9:32 AM on June 17, 2018
I'm very new to the Apple II, and I'm mystified why this level of disk protection was considered necessary. Apple games seemed to be more expensive than for other machines: is this what drove the huge pirate market? Or was it that, because the hardware was expensive, people felt that the software was something they were entitled to? (Or possibly even that, if you could afford an Apple II, you could likely afford a modem too and go and find software on BBSs?). I'm sure there's a ton of bravado in there too from the original "developers vs crackers" conflict.
There's a certain performative aspect to the scene, too. I'm now in regular contact with some of the guys from a notorious European Amiga cracking team. Most of them are very regular dads now, and hold down respectable senior tech jobs. But when they get to talking about cracking, or if even a few of them get together, they're basically norse gods again: they still post news of epic drinking and cracking runs (but I guess they don't mention the hangovers or hours in the gym running it off …)
Every computer I've had before an Apple II used a fairly standard floppy controller (okay, so maybe the SX-64 didn't, but Commodore was weird because Jack was cheap). I'm amazed the Disk II controller works at all, it's so low level. But it clearly does, as 30+ year old disks still work.
Hats off to 4a, whoever they may be. Gonna load up the FloppyEmu with a bunch of images, plug the Canadian Gravis into the IIgs, and have a fine old time …
(but the real story, for me, would be the still-unresolved ZX Spectrum Tape Loading Schemes, involving characters such as the shadowy Bob "Lerm" Evans …)
posted by scruss at 10:08 AM on June 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
There's a certain performative aspect to the scene, too. I'm now in regular contact with some of the guys from a notorious European Amiga cracking team. Most of them are very regular dads now, and hold down respectable senior tech jobs. But when they get to talking about cracking, or if even a few of them get together, they're basically norse gods again: they still post news of epic drinking and cracking runs (but I guess they don't mention the hangovers or hours in the gym running it off …)
Every computer I've had before an Apple II used a fairly standard floppy controller (okay, so maybe the SX-64 didn't, but Commodore was weird because Jack was cheap). I'm amazed the Disk II controller works at all, it's so low level. But it clearly does, as 30+ year old disks still work.
Hats off to 4a, whoever they may be. Gonna load up the FloppyEmu with a bunch of images, plug the Canadian Gravis into the IIgs, and have a fine old time …
(but the real story, for me, would be the still-unresolved ZX Spectrum Tape Loading Schemes, involving characters such as the shadowy Bob "Lerm" Evans …)
posted by scruss at 10:08 AM on June 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
why this level of disk protection was considered necessary
It's easy -- because the easier levels had all been cracked! Obviously some of the schemes worked, otherwise 4am would have nothing to do. It was probably more lucrative in some ways to sell protection schemes to publishers than try to market a game.
I don't know as much about C64 copy protection, but it seems similar (with a Passport-like program called Rapidlok) except there are hardware limitations that make certain disks uncopyable without extra hardware.
I got most of my software at my school's "Computer Club" which was unsupervised time on a bunch of Apple ][s -- guess what we did? :) No one including the staff gave it a second thought. Without cash, transportation, or a modem, a kid had few options except to wait for birthdays.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:11 AM on June 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
It's easy -- because the easier levels had all been cracked! Obviously some of the schemes worked, otherwise 4am would have nothing to do. It was probably more lucrative in some ways to sell protection schemes to publishers than try to market a game.
I don't know as much about C64 copy protection, but it seems similar (with a Passport-like program called Rapidlok) except there are hardware limitations that make certain disks uncopyable without extra hardware.
I got most of my software at my school's "Computer Club" which was unsupervised time on a bunch of Apple ][s -- guess what we did? :) No one including the staff gave it a second thought. Without cash, transportation, or a modem, a kid had few options except to wait for birthdays.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:11 AM on June 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm very new to the Apple II, and I'm mystified why this level of disk protection was considered necessary.
My family computer had something like five 100 disk drawers full of software that came with our computer when we bought it used.
I think maybe three of the programs were legit original copies. One of them was the Infocom Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy text adventure game. The other one was Hard Hat Mac. And I think the third was either Koala Pad or Print Shop.
Hell, even our entire Apple II was a copy because it was one of those funky Franklin Ace 1000 clones that got the Franklin Computer Company sued back into the stone ages and the Franklin Pocket Digital Dictionary Company.
Even our disk drives were physical clones of the Disk II drives, right down to Wozniak's physical drive head alignment hack, except the noises it made were somehow less cute and more awful than the original.
So, yeah, bizarre copy protection schemes like spiradisk and other weird drive-level hacks were definitely highly lucrative fields to develop.
posted by loquacious at 11:20 AM on June 17, 2018 [5 favorites]
My family computer had something like five 100 disk drawers full of software that came with our computer when we bought it used.
I think maybe three of the programs were legit original copies. One of them was the Infocom Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy text adventure game. The other one was Hard Hat Mac. And I think the third was either Koala Pad or Print Shop.
Hell, even our entire Apple II was a copy because it was one of those funky Franklin Ace 1000 clones that got the Franklin Computer Company sued back into the stone ages and the Franklin Pocket Digital Dictionary Company.
Even our disk drives were physical clones of the Disk II drives, right down to Wozniak's physical drive head alignment hack, except the noises it made were somehow less cute and more awful than the original.
So, yeah, bizarre copy protection schemes like spiradisk and other weird drive-level hacks were definitely highly lucrative fields to develop.
posted by loquacious at 11:20 AM on June 17, 2018 [5 favorites]
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posted by schmod at 5:37 PM on June 16, 2018