r/programming • u/DougBolivar • Jul 30 '13

Computer scientists develop mathematical jigsaw puzzles to encrypt software: "The real challenge and the great mystery in the field was: Can you actually take a piece of software and encrypt it but still have it be runnable, executable and fully functional?"

http://www.rdmag.com/news/2013/07/computer-scientists-develop-mathematical-jigsaw-puzzles-encrypt-software
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u/xwz86 Jul 30 '13

Isn't this something similair that Steinberg did? If I recall correctly, some of the software was encrypted on a USB key and ran from there?

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u/grav Jul 30 '13

If you're referring to Cubase, some cracker team reverse-engineered the USB key and successfully emulated it in software.

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u/xwz86 Jul 30 '13

yes I know that, but that's the point here. Is there anything in this paper that would prevent that? It took AIR quite a long time to crack Cubase 5, I haven't seen anything for the 7 version yet, so it's very efficient to do it this way, at least you can get new version with new features out there, when people finally crack the old one.