Cracking all licensing (LimeLM vs. Themida vs. VMProtect, etc.)AnsweredLocked

But the point is, my co-worker couldn't crack it when it was protected with Themida. He says it takes time and very advanced reversing skills and some part of the virtualized code depends on the license key, so without the key, it's impossible to execute it and with the key, it's still virtualized and it's extremely hard to reverse this process, there are no known tools for it (aka devirtualizers), I double-checked on this.

With your protection, he took the application to the IDA, found the license checking code and he patched it in literally 5 minutes in front of my eyes and dropped jaw, I didn't know cracking LimeLM would be that easy! Why it doesn't contain any counter-measures?

So what's the advantage of using LimeLM when it can be cracked within minutes versus protection that lasts in months or even years uncracked?

Isn't it obvious LimeLM is just a simple licensing without any benefit of protecting an application against cracking?

How your solution would help us to protect the algorithms in our software against stealing if LimeLM doesn't offer any form of code protection, obfuscation or virtualization?

I'm new in this dev team, my friend is much more experienced in this matter, but it seems LimeLM doesn't solve any problems our software might face, like cracking, stealing IP and bypassing licensing.

I just want to understand - how can it help, when it doesn't help at all because it doesn't even contain any security features or components?

Why it doesn't contain any counter-measures?

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So what's the advantage of using LimeLM when it can be cracked within minutes versus protection that lasts in months or even years uncracked?

Everything can be cracked in minutes. Like I said, there are tools that automate this.

Isn't it obvious LimeLM is just a simple licensing without any benefit of protecting an application against cracking?

Nothing can stop cracking.

How your solution would help us to protect the algorithms in our software against stealing if LimeLM doesn't offer any form of code protection, obfuscation or virtualization?

Like I said, everything can be cracked. Really. Don't fall for the false-advertising of fraudulent "anti-crack" products. There are tools to undo every single anti-crack product on the market. And it's trivially easy to do manually if you don't have the know-how to find the existing tools.

Just because your colleagues lacks the experience to do this, doesn't mean it can't be done. It just means he lacks the experience to do this.

I just want to understand - how can it help [...]?

Like I said...

Increasing revenue, reducing costs of credit card fraud, preventing casual piracy. Long story short, read: What is hardware-locked licensing and why choose LimeLM?

Hi. Derek here.

We've been trying to find automated tools to crack Themida. We didn't find any. Could you point those out if you say they exist? Are you a man of your words?

How to devirtualize the code or to decrypt the encrypted virtualized code without the license (they are too using asymmetric encryption in their licensing system)? How do you crack this asymmetric encryption? Even if you had access to the stolen key, still you would have to spend months to devirtualize the code and restore other code mutations within the executable image. I've been around cracking forums for a while and I haven't seen any automatic tool to do that. It's too complex. So, where do you have it from?

Can you show us any proof of what you are saying, that there are automated tools to circumvent it?

"everything can be cracked"

It's not true. I am in automotive software for more than 10 years (I had worked in 3 different companies), and there are some titles that haven't been cracked in those past 10 years. Can you explain that?

Some use a combination of exe-protection and dongle with a dedicated, secure black box CPU where the protected code scripts are executed (like an RPC routine). How do you crack it or extract the original software from this dongle? By investing a million dollars into an electron microscope and another million into the research team to rebuild this CPU? How is that even feasible for anyone?

I think you are misinformed about the current state of software protection and some more advanced methods, how long ago did you do any research into it?

Going LimeLM and accepting the fact the software gets cracked is just a terrible idea!

Just because you say everything is crackable is a little bit arrogant, don't you think? You could use the same logic to say that we can go visit the stars in another galaxy, but what is the cost, time and effort of that?

Do you say that to defend the obvious weakness of your own LimeLM, that doesn't provide any level of protection for any technology and programming language?

We sell our software for thousands of dollars per license, there is no casual piracy in this market, and you - saying we should accept everything is crackable is just a statement to your ignorance about software protection & licensing. 

Like I already said, we plan to release a series of videos showing how each of these “anti-crack” products can be cracked.

No hard date. It’s a medium-term priority. Debunking the licensing industry’s shadier practices (lying to customers about anti-crack) is a priority for us.

There‘s not a whole lot of point of going back and forth on this.

We’re likely not a good fit for you. Our ideal customers are those with realistic expectations of licensing.

I wish you luck in your search.

So where are those videos?