I cracked a $200 software protection with xcopy
by vmfunc on 12/6/2025, 2:37:58 AM
https://www.ud2.rip/blog/enigma-protector/
Comments
by: Nexxxeh
Is it not more "VST author just does the bare minimum to keep honest people honest, because more invasive DRM risks ruining a live performance"? I'm not understanding why TFA author has such an attitude about this. Is the VST author a horrible person or running a toxic business model or something?
12/6/2025, 3:45:36 AM
by: pierrec
Personally, I would change the article to anonymize the actual plugin that was cracked. The plugin author seems to be a solo dev/musician, actually more a musician than a developer, which might explain the poorly implemented copy protection*. But they're good at crafting sounds, and that's what they're selling. Or trying to sell. Or taking donations for, by the way: <a href="https://ko-fi.com/bassbullyvst" rel="nofollow">https://ko-fi.com/bassbullyvst</a><p>* I highly doubt it was deliberate as some others are suggesting.
12/6/2025, 5:35:44 AM
by: Liftyee
This is definitely just me, but the diagram with "motivation to buy" was amusing to me. I (try to) refuse to be manipulated by these tactics - if I think the software is worth buying, I will purchase and use it, otherwise I will look elsewhere! Nothing sets my "motivation to buy" to zero quicker than aggressive, "uncrackable" DRM. In fact, it usually skyrockets my "motivation to reverse", whether or not I actually need the thing (though usually this is overruled by having better things to do with my time).
12/6/2025, 4:03:19 AM
by: vmfunc
author here. the irony is enigma protector's documentation literally explains how to add runtime checks to your payload. they just... didn't read it
12/6/2025, 2:38:28 AM
by: stevefan1999
For VST performance and timing is important so you can't protect the actual plugin
12/6/2025, 3:28:57 AM
by: kaszanka
> no winhttp.dll, wininet.dll, or ws2_32.dll. offline validation only. all crypto is local, so theoretically extractable.<p>You can't possibly know that by the mere lack of these DLLs from the import directory.
12/6/2025, 3:52:06 AM
by: mberning
For $200 how many casual pirates does it have to dissuade to pay for itself. Not many. At that price it doesn’t need to be very good.
12/6/2025, 4:32:43 AM
by: cocainemonster
this reeks of ai even if you bottomified the sentences. do better.
12/6/2025, 4:45:43 AM
by: HHad3
Is this LLM slop? One cannot truncate RSA signatures and still check them. The sample hook code is nonsense, it lacks an address to hook (and would break Enigma‘s self-checks). The sentence structure and all lower-case looks like a bad prompt attempt to hide LLM usage.
12/6/2025, 5:16:54 AM