*PROG* Halo 2 Map Protector - Team Apocalypse

[TfAv1228]

I have made this program to make any halo 2 map unmoddable(by program) so only hex editing would be an option. This will make it extremely difficult for someone to rip your mods and Aequitas if someone is good enough at hex editing to make the map openable and then locate the correct meta in a map editor they most likely would not want to rip the mod anyway.

The only way that encryption can be fixed is using the TF6 encryption tool which is included in the download THANKS AGAIN Iron_Forge for opening halo 2 modding.

Thanks Xbox7887 for the idea.

[Blackout360]

Yea I could use this tool in the futur.

[Hikaru]

Nice tool. Now the upcomming mod I'm working on is going to kick-ass, atleast no one can steal something from it.

Tfav, I need to ask something, your other program, "Make Bitmaps Internal", whenever I click any of the buttons I get a Runtime 339 error. Then the program immediately shuts down, why is this?

[TfAv1228]

339 error is a missing component
install this http://www.ascentive.com/support/3123InstallList.html

[xbox7887]

Hikaru-"atleast no one can steal something from it"

now is that a wager . maybe ill make a mod with this app and hold a little contest to see if anyone can rip a specified tag from it but i think ill do a little more extra also. it seems like everyones just learnin how to use all the cool programs released instead of learning where it all came from

[Aequitas]

As a test, I used this to "protect" Retainment... And I reversed it in 10 seconds (without using the original Retainment)... No lie.

It wasn't even one byte off...

maybe ill make a mod with this app and hold a little contest to see if anyone can rip a specified tag from it

Count me in. What do I win?

[Iron_Forge]

Well, first off...Kudos for thinking outside the box...

I've been working on the "protect a map" theory since Serenity was released...(Some of you may have noticed a few .serenity patches out there had some rudamentry file protection similar to what this app does)...

The sad conclusion I've come to is you can't really secure any tag that was pre-existing to a map...It's a simple cut and paste to fix them...

With the next installment of Serenity, my goal was to secure any added tags to a map, in such a way that it would require "considerable effort" to undo...Since we're governed by what the engine will actually load, any security will be reversable...Hopefully with lots of little things, some easy, some rather difficult, done to each tag, the time to "fix" the map goes from a few seconds to a few hours to a few days...And then scale this difficulty between people...As xbox7887 said, those capable of fixing it, probably aren't so interested in what your mod does...

I also wanted as much of this security to be create side as possible...Ultimately anyone who reverse engineers the serenity format will be able to remove any protection provided apply side...(Since they may alter the patch, or create their own serenity applier which leaves out the protection bits)...There is something to be said for security through obfuscation, protection by not knowing...That being said, I decided some was better than none...And all existing tags in a map will be protected by apply side theories...Though I've tried to make it as difficult as possible to reverse it without actually knowing Serenity...

So, this is where I appologize to zulu, and any others who want the Serenity format open sourced (and have been reverse engineering it to force it to that point)...The simple fact is, with what we have to work with in the map format, the only ability we have to secure mods is by not telling people how they were secured...And I know you's don't care about mod security, and believe everything should be shared for "the good of the community" (hence the open source push)...But not everyone feels that way...And I'm not going to abandon those who want secure mods and force them to not have them to simply appease the "we should all share" arguement...Hopefully you's will respect this, and develop your own open source format rather than releasing mine...

And TfAv1228, sorry if I stole your thread...But it was on protecting maps...So I figured it applied... ;oP

[TfAv1228]

yeah NP i was thinkin of makin it move the map structure a bit like u do with adding bitmaps so that offset lists wont work as easily and Aequitas u like i and xbox7887 said prolly wouldnt want a mod that this is yoused for once u revers it

[xbox7887]

Aequitas- i wouldnt let u off that easy lol.....this program isnt too hard to crack but i have plenty of other ideas although theres only so far you can go with protection.....the good thing is most people have no idea how to hex . you can externalize refelxives, which isnt too hard to extract if u get it loaded in insolence ....but then when editing you can change most float values by a small amount to throw you off if u search for hex strings or scripts....thats another thing, most scripts will completely give away whatever meta youre searching for. now again, its all fairly easy to extract but who would want to do all this work for someone elses crappy meta

[ScottyGEE]

Aequitas- i wouldnt let u off that easy lol.....this program isnt too hard to crack but i have plenty of other ideas although theres only so far you can go with protection.....the good thing is most people have no idea how to hex . you can externalize refelxives, which isnt too hard to extract if u get it loaded in insolence ....but then when editing you can change most float values by a small amount to throw you off if u search for hex strings or scripts....thats another thing, most scripts will completely give away whatever meta youre searching for. now again, its all fairly easy to extract but who would want to do all this work for someone elses crappy meta

Well this is one great APP by the way and ill use if if i think ill need it (who reall wants what i can do if i do basic things?)
As for the protection thing...When and if mr murder does release his nightwinder..im betting people will abuse his intelligence and steal that...same applies with northy's mods etc those ppl
But doesnt protecting something make it more...wantable? make people want to learn hex just to take something they want...?

But then again the best way to not have your data stolen is to not release it...or just not make it hehehe hands down...it wins...


Still as i said im gonna use this app

[Alexander]

Looks like a nice app. GJ.

[twolvesfan624]

why make soemthing like this...why...if someone makes a mod and theres something u wanna know how they did it u can jsut check

[Higharc]

cool tool i needed this to post my mods with out people stealing them