JPS62166428A - Preventing method against illegal copying of software - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent software from being copied illegally while allowing it to be copied only by a specific machine by incorporating a nonvolatile ROM for storing codes which are not the same among individual bodies in necessary equipment that the software requires during the manufacture. CONSTITUTION:The nonvolatile ROM storing codes which are not always the same among individual bodies is incorporated in the equipment that the software requires at the stage of manufacture, and the software to be supplied is fixed on a supply medium together with an installation program for installation by using technique for copy prevention. The software to be supplied is converted into a file that an OS can handle when installed and codes stored in the ROM are counted from the installation program; and coincidence with the codes stored in the ROM is confirmed at every start of execution and the execution is stopped when no coincidence is obtained. Consequently, only legal users can copy the software.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention (Field of Industrial Application) The present invention allows copying of software for backup purposes and rejects copying for unauthorized use of software supplied to equipment that requires the software. The present invention relates to a method for preventing unauthorized copying of software.

(Prior Art) Since devices that require software can operate in different ways by exchanging software, individual pieces of software can be the subject of commercial transactions.

Usually, a usage contract is concluded between the copyright holder of the software and the user, specifying the equipment to be used, and the user can use the software. Based on this usage agreement, the software is essentially an intangible product, and copies thereof will perform exactly the same functions. Therefore, there is no end to the number of users who use the copied software without signing the aforementioned usage agreement (hereinafter referred to as illegal use). Furthermore, even legal users cannot use machines other than those specified in the usage contract, but this is extremely difficult to comply with.

Therefore, in the past, measures have been taken to make copying itself impossible by ordinary means and methods. That is, in order to prevent physical copying of the entire software supply medium, a physically formatted area is intentionally created on the supply medium, and then the supplied software cannot be treated as a file from the perspective of the operating system (hereinafter referred to as O8). For example, they were placed outside the O8's management range, were not registered in the directory, or ignored the logical format, so that they could not be read from the O8.

(Problem to be solved by the invention) Since the reliability and durability of software supply media cannot be said to be absolute, copying for backup purposes should be inherently permitted in any software usage contract. However, in the conventional method described above, copying itself is rejected and backup cannot be performed. This seriously undermines the inherent rights of legitimate users.

The present invention has been made in view of this problem, and it is an object of the present invention to provide copyable software that operates only on a specific machine.

(Means for solving the problem) Non-volatile read-only storage means for storing codes that are not necessarily the same between devices is incorporated into devices that require software at the manufacturing stage.

The supplied software is fixed onto the supply medium using conventional copy-resistant techniques along with an install program that performs the installation.

And the supplied software is O when it is installed.
8 is converted into a file that can be handled by the installer program, and at the same time the code stored in the storage means is taught by the install program. From then on, each time execution starts, it is checked to see if it matches the code stored in the storage means, and if they do not match, the program is executed. abandon.

(Operation) The codes stored in the storage means need only be mismatched to the extent that it is virtually impossible for a person attempting illegal use to come into contact with a machine with the same code.

The supplied software is protected by conventional anti-copying techniques at the time of supply and is machine independent. Therefore, the copyright holder does not need to prepare a wide variety of supplied software depending on the machine.

However, in order to execute the supplied software, it is necessary to install it, and when this is done, the supplied software can only be executed on a machine, so it cannot be used illegally, and moreover, it cannot be used normally. Backup copies can be made by file copying.

Therefore, as a result, unauthorized copying is prevented.

(Example) To show an example, 8 inch single-sided single density, 1 sector 12
One 8-byte floppy disk-based O8 is assumed, hereinafter referred to as AO8.

Table 1 Table 1 shows the area allocation on the disk by AO8. A
After reset, the machine running O8 reads the cold start loader in track 0 sector 1 and passes control to it. The cold start loader initializes input/output devices, loads the system program, and starts the system.

Table 2 Table 2 shows the area allocation on the software supply disk according to the embodiment of the present invention. All odd-numbered tracks after track 15 are defective tracks. The installation program loader starts operating by inserting the discs shown in Table 2 into the machine where A○S operates and resetting it. The install program is exclusive-ORed with the shell for each byte and stored in eight sectors 1 to 5 of one rack. This is restored and read by the install program loader to start the install.

The install program first destroys the install program loader area.

Next, each byte is subjected to an exclusive OR operation and the supplied software stored in sector 3 of track 22 and thereafter is restored and stored again in sector 1 of track 2 and subsequent areas.

At that time, the machine reads out the read-only storage means related to the present invention that the machine has, performs an exclusive OR with the result, and places it at the 1286th byte from the beginning of the supplied software. Furthermore, a directory is created in track 1 and the supplied software is registered.

The supplied software will now be visible from the AO8 as a normal file.

At the start of execution, the supplied software reads out the read-only storage means related to the present invention that the machine has, takes the view and exclusive logic, and compares it with the 1286th byte from the beginning of itself. If these match, execution will start; if they do not match, execution will be abandoned.

The underlined values in the following sentences are arbitrarily set by the supplier of the supplied software, so the supplied rough 1 software starts execution with values that only the supplier of the supplied software knows. In reality, it is extremely difficult to try to avoid such checks.

The read-only storage means according to the present invention can be constructed at low cost by using a defective mask ROM or the like.

(Effects of the Invention) According to the software unauthorized copying prevention method of the present invention, the rights and interests of both the copyright holder and the legal user, which were traditionally sacrificed to one or the other, can be preserved by adding a relatively simple procedure. effective.

Claims (1)

[Claims] A set of non-volatile read-only storage means for storing codes that are not necessarily the same in each set is installed in advance in the device, the software to be supplied is protected by a copy prevention method and supplied together with the install wool means, and the software is supplied together with the install wool means. is used to convert the supplied software into a form that can be copied and that recognizes the code stored in the storage means of the machine that performs the installation, and converts the supplied software into a form that recognizes the code recognized by the supplied software. A method for preventing unauthorized copying of software, in which execution of the supplied software is started only on machines having the storage means for storing the same code.