The typical, generally incorrect way of cracking a Copylocked game was to get the serial key, modify the header of the Copylock to put the correct serial key into register D0, and then bypass all the reading and decoding process. This would mean the "special case" code in the Copylock would never be executed, which would mean the game would not work by using the serial key alone.
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There were two types of Copylock routine of the earlier series. In the internal type, the Copylock Serial Key for that particular software is passed in hardware register D0 and stored at memory address $24. Inventive programmers could use this serial key for specific purposes to force the would-be cracker to have to remove the additional checks in the game. However, on many early titles, programmers typically just performed a check for the serial key, which was easy to find in a program and therefore to disable.
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Series 2 was an evolution of the internal Series 1 routines, which again made early versions easy to circumvent, since many programmers only implemented a simple protection check that read the serial key from the Copylock Serial Track and checked that it was correct. Crackers often did not even need to inspect the encoded Copylock routines, because the check for disk authenticity was implemented in such as way that they could clearly see what the serial key was from the code that checked for it. Therefore, whilst many people understood how Copylock worked, very few had taken the time to work out how to actually decode one. By now, however, Copylock had evolved to allow parameters to be passed to it before execution, which meant that Copylock could now write not only the serial key, but also specific game-related values into the contents of registers passed to Copylock, or simply write values to a list of predefined addresses, which would make the game operate correctly.
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Red Alert 3 included SecuROM until February 19, 2009, when it was removed from the Steam version. Non-Steam editions still include SecuROM.Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3#SecuROM Despite this, every serial key can only be activated up to 5 times, and activations could be revoked for individual systems through the game's auto-run feature as of patch 1.05.
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An online beta test was available in Japan, Europe and North America. 3,000 players were allowed into the Japanese beta test from August 20 to September 3, 2007. The beta test for North America (serial key only) and Europe (no restrictions) lasted from April 25 to May 11, 2008. On March 14, 2011 Konami shut down Metal Gear Onlines Japanese servers indefinitely in order to conserve power after the Japanese 2011 earthquake.
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The use of copy protection has been commonplace throughout the history of video games. One of the most typical means of doing this is to assign a serial key to the particular copy of the game, so that it can only be activated by entering the serial. However, this is often circumvented via software cracking, or through the use of a keygen. More recent attempts to hinder piracy have included DRM tools.
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MacSweeper could be downloaded through KiVVi software's (the company that makes the "rogue") website, as a drive-by download, or silently downloaded with another application. Once automatically installed, MacSweeper scans the computer and informs the user that many applications on their computer (such as iCal or Dashboard, safe pre-installed Apple applications) are "fat binaries or trash" and must be slimmed immediately. When the unsuspecting user tries to "Remove Objects", they are told that the trial version downloaded cannot delete the supposed trash. Then the user must provide credit card details to the company for a $39.99 "lifetime subscription serial key".
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A Copylock-protected floppy disk contains one long track, known as the Copylock Serial Track, which can be read on a standard floppy drive but is impossible to write without a sophisticated disk duplication machine. The disk contains a special loader which is heavily encrypted and can read and decode the Copylock Serial Track. The encrypted code verifies that the disk has the correct Copylock Serial Key, which is uniquely generated for each game. On the machine language level, Copylock works by using the Motorola 68000 trace mode, which causes the processor to execute a specific trace vector before each instruction in the main program.
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