Best anti-crack solution?

I would be interested to know if anyone has experience with this as well. My app is very quickly cracked every update.

 

I can tell you this: All it will do is slow down the crackers, not stop them.

Right now all someone has to do is run a simple script which makes a downloaded app "cracked". That works for the vast majority of apps available at the App Store. Numerous apps use tricks like Anticrack in the link above, but all it does is delay the inevitable. The crackers see that the script didn't work, so they go into the program and look for "self aware" code (which is what Anticrack is) and manually remove it. Then they upload the modified app to the hacker websites and bittorrent.

Software piracy has been around as long as there have been commercial programs. It's just something you have to accept as a developer. Just remember that the majority of iPhone/iTouch users do not jailbreak, and even among those who *do* jailbreak, not all of them are pirates.

My suggestion: Use self-aware code if you like, but don't make it cripple the app if it detects that it's been cracked. Just write it so that if it is cracked, it puts a little reminder on the loading screen, asking the user to purchase the app. Don't make it intrusive (otherwise the cracker will just remove your nag screen). It shouldn't interfere with the game in any way. At least some people will decide to go ahead and buy it.

 

i found this on ipodtouchfans forum maybe in your app you could include a search for this file
http://www.ipodtouchfans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=210203

 

That would only tell you if the device is jailbroken, not that it had been pirated. My phone is jailbroken, but I still buy games.

 

Crackulous can't crack any games with numerals or oddball characters in them like %, or @, so that would be a cheap solution. Although they could still manually crack it, but there is not many people that can do that method.

 

Oh also I checked some of his apps on Appulous and they are already cracked so I doubt his method is very good.

 

Greeeat! I pirate contributing to a thread dedicated to stop his actions.

 

who said he was a pirate, anybody could have checked that site without downloading anything. O look, I just went on the site, am I now a pirate that should be hunted down? I hate it when people jump to conclusions

 

actually there are a lot. it's a very easy practice to learn. i am not encouraging anyone to start, but the fact that you are willing or asking about paying someone for their protection which may delay your application from being cracked by a few hours, is a total rip off. it has become a cat and mouse game, everytime some kind of "new" protection comes out, they have a fix for it. real racing and toki tori had an amazing protection on them, better than what you can buy from a person, and they were eventually cracked. apple needs to step up and find a better way to curb their drm protection because the way it is now is a joke.

 

not cool. don't ass-u-me.

 

you realize his whole system is 1 function that returns a 0 or 1 on the crack status.. you do realize that is about as easy to bypass as not even having it at all.

and the sad fact is any public infos to stop crackers will also hand them your technique and theyll know how to sniff it out and bypass it..

so either get familiar with how it works and think of a good solution and keep it to yourself, or dont bother

 

The better your copy-protection, the more inspired crackers will be to crack it. Most people who make an effort to download your cracked game are not likely to buy it anyway.

I do, however, like the idea of detecting a crack and then simply inserting unobtrusive ads to buy the game. The key thing is it has to be subtle enough that a cracker won't be driven to cracking to get rid of the ads.

 

Or impair some of the functionality of your app if it is cracked so that it becomes the demo version that Apple won't let us distribute...

 

You have something wrong there. Why would I spend $9.99 on the App Store (for example like Rolando2) to buy a app when I can have it for free with some little ad that doesnt bother me? The best way is to make it disable the app if it is craked. The person who has the cracked app would delete but if he wanted so bad he would have to buy it. Cause if you have a craked app for free and not have to buy the app on the App Store for $9.99 why would you spend the money when you have the $9.99 app for free? Yea, it supports the dev but it's best to completely cripple the app so it can't run.

 

I have idear

just dont smoke crack. thats my anti-crack.

Make the game an online only game like my brute, that works too.

 

Personally I believe working on piracy protection features is a waste of time and money. If you're going to put some protection in, put the most basic thing you can find just to prevent script kiddies from hacking your game. But in the end if your game is worth it, someone will figure a way to crack it.

If you want to cripple the game, make it obvious that the game is crippled due to the pirated copy of the game. You don't want users to think your game is defective on their device.