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Need a solution to secure a CDROM

P

polive

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Sep 28, 2005
Messages
1,283
I'm making some CD-ROM's to sell to a few customers with some info, that can't be easily copied to a CDR with an average Joe trying to make a copy. i.e. doesn't have to be elaborate.

Most of the info will just be Word docs, avi clips, jpg.

Anyone know of a good program to use or another solution?

Just simple copy protection method would be good, but probably not just password protecting files on it.
 
I would just make a flash "app" that would present all of the info. It would stop most if not all people from redistribution of your content...
 
Well I want the disc to be browse-able. How would I do a flash application?
 
Maybe I'll just zip the files and password each CD, and they have to email me for the password.

I need to sleep but I think that should work.

If anyone has some good ideas just post them here!
 
Can you use trucrypt on a Cd-Rom? if so i would use that and just provide the customer with the encrypt password.

You have to be careful with this kindof thing though, i have seen apps that "wrap" a exe file to prevent users from making copies, but AV software sometimes flags the wrapping app and won't allow it to run.
 
Thanks a lot guys. Wow, that isocrypt is crazy encryption! Plus it's not available yet :/
 
Think of all the time and money that game companies have put into making "uncopyable" discs.... How well has that worked out for them? Honestly, I wouldn't spend much time trying to work through a solution... Millions of dollars and countless man hours have already been spent on such tactics.

Also, if you want the disc to be "browsable" then what would stop the clients from simply copying the files off the disc and emailing them, copying them to a USB drive, etc? Even if you used one of the various encrypt / decrypt programs.. At some point the files need to be decrypted to be useful, at which point the content can be duplicated.

What are you really trying to prevent?
 
jpochedl said:
Think of all the time and money that game companies have put into making "uncopyable" discs.... How well has that worked out for them? Honestly, I wouldn't spend much time trying to work through a solution... Millions of dollars and countless man hours have already been spent on such tactics.
Click to expand...

The difference is scale. Games target millions of customers. This guy is targeting only a few customers, who probably will not care enough to reverse engineer his work, or respect him enough not to.
 
You have to think about your target here. Chances are, none of them will simply try to copy the CD. They would just Save-as or Send-to instead. You're just going to make it more frustrating for them to do their work.
 
With any DRM (which is what you're trying to do), you're handing someone a locked object and the key to the lock. If they can access the content, they will be able to copy it (somehow, some day). DRM is really just a way to make it harder to copy by adding artificial technical hurdles. The goal of your product is to give them access to the content, and eventually someone will find a way to copy it if they really want to.

Another option is to blatantly advertise its copyright and go after anyone who does violate it. In this setup, you're inherently trusting your users, and going after the ones known to have broken the rules. With DRM, you're essentially assuming everyone will break the rules so you're locking it down ahead of time. See Why the BSA Is Less Reviled Than the RIAA for more info on that take.
 
k1pp3r said:
The difference is scale. Games target millions of customers. This guy is targeting only a few customers, who probably will not care enough to reverse engineer his work, or respect him enough not to.
Click to expand...

Wasted man hours is wasted man hours... Why waste the man hours when it's already proven that such tactics are ineffective?

If the OP's customers respect him enough to not copy the data, then it doesn't matter whether there is any DRM on the files / disc. Also consider that if the data too difficult to access, (or less usable because it's stored in some DRM'd format) then customers may actually lose respect for the business.

ah well, maybe the OP can give us some more insight as to what he's realy trying to prevent? Is there a way he could even leverage the data on ths disc to provide more services for other clients if copies do get made? (In other words, if other companies saw the data, might they be more likely to call him to do work for them?) Sometimes, copies aren't all that bad.
 
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