Hey Everyone
This might not be a good idea and may sound stupid to some. But I have been administering virtual servers for quite some time now. With all the recent advances in cd rom security and blacklisitng software and the steady stream of anti blacklisting software, I started thinking about how DT could be hidden from the rest of the system.
When I use VMWare and GSX Server, they virtually create CD drives, hard drives and floppy drives all the time. But what I have yet to test is how Copy protection software would react to these physical, yet virtual drives. As far as the operating system knows, this is all physical hardware, when in fact it is being emulated by a piece of software. Although this sounds alot like what Daemon Tools does now, it is not entirely the same.
My understanding of Daemon tools is that when you install it, installs a SCSI adapter (and the SPTD driver) which in itself sets off some alarms as far as copy protection goes. I assume that the SCSI adapter is there because we can only have 2 IDE channels with 2 drives in each. Then we come to all the anti-blacklisting software such as CureROM, Securom Loader etc. which attempt to hide these cirtual drivers. Please correct me if I am wrong in any of this.
The difference between DT and VMWare is in what layer the software is running. VMWare has something that Daemon tools does not, complete supervisor control over the entire system. Essentially, the operating system is run within a container that is completely open for VMWare to monitor and control.
For example, I have created a virtual machine with 1 cd rom drive and one hard drive. Of course, since it is a virtual machine, the two devices obviously virtual as well. But not to the operating system (Windows XP). The advantage here is that no matter what technique the operating system uses to identify the drives, they will always appear to be physical. Since I know very little about the inner workings of copy protection, would this actually solve some issues?
Basically, my idea is this. Create a program that essentially does what DT does now, but has the ability to install itself as a supervisor/hypervisor (for those who know what I'm talking about). If Daemon tools installed itself as either of these, then it would be capable of watching every aspect of the operating system. As in, it would have control over every command and every result. Ie, if you typed in IPCONFIG and your ip was 192.168.0.1, a supervisor program could be configured to intercept this command and force it to return say 123.123.123.123. Could this concept be applied to CD/DVD emulation? When the protection system scans memory/hardware for virtual software, the supervisor could intercept this and return values required to pass the test.
Its just an idea.
This might not be a good idea and may sound stupid to some. But I have been administering virtual servers for quite some time now. With all the recent advances in cd rom security and blacklisitng software and the steady stream of anti blacklisting software, I started thinking about how DT could be hidden from the rest of the system.
When I use VMWare and GSX Server, they virtually create CD drives, hard drives and floppy drives all the time. But what I have yet to test is how Copy protection software would react to these physical, yet virtual drives. As far as the operating system knows, this is all physical hardware, when in fact it is being emulated by a piece of software. Although this sounds alot like what Daemon Tools does now, it is not entirely the same.
My understanding of Daemon tools is that when you install it, installs a SCSI adapter (and the SPTD driver) which in itself sets off some alarms as far as copy protection goes. I assume that the SCSI adapter is there because we can only have 2 IDE channels with 2 drives in each. Then we come to all the anti-blacklisting software such as CureROM, Securom Loader etc. which attempt to hide these cirtual drivers. Please correct me if I am wrong in any of this.
The difference between DT and VMWare is in what layer the software is running. VMWare has something that Daemon tools does not, complete supervisor control over the entire system. Essentially, the operating system is run within a container that is completely open for VMWare to monitor and control.
For example, I have created a virtual machine with 1 cd rom drive and one hard drive. Of course, since it is a virtual machine, the two devices obviously virtual as well. But not to the operating system (Windows XP). The advantage here is that no matter what technique the operating system uses to identify the drives, they will always appear to be physical. Since I know very little about the inner workings of copy protection, would this actually solve some issues?
Basically, my idea is this. Create a program that essentially does what DT does now, but has the ability to install itself as a supervisor/hypervisor (for those who know what I'm talking about). If Daemon tools installed itself as either of these, then it would be capable of watching every aspect of the operating system. As in, it would have control over every command and every result. Ie, if you typed in IPCONFIG and your ip was 192.168.0.1, a supervisor program could be configured to intercept this command and force it to return say 123.123.123.123. Could this concept be applied to CD/DVD emulation? When the protection system scans memory/hardware for virtual software, the supervisor could intercept this and return values required to pass the test.
Its just an idea.
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