02
Sep
image

Now We're Talking - Google's Latest Follow-up To The License Verification Fiasco Showcases 4 Methods To Make Pirates' Jobs Much Harder

Posted by in Apps/Games, Development, News

Update: Tim Bray responded in our comments letting us know Trevor Johns, a hands-on guy in the Android back-rooms, was the author of the post.

After we blew the faults behind Google's License Verification Library out of the water last week, Google's Tim Bray promised us some tips for protecting our applications against piracy, and in the latest post at Google's official Android blog he delivered them. Tim's article is loaded with easy to follow sample code, and advice that just makes sense. Mr. Bray covers several protection methods including:

  • obfuscation,
  • customizing the Licensing Library,
  • making your application tamper resistant (with a code sample that is nearly identical to what I published a week ago),
  • and using a secondary server for added protection.

23
Aug

[EXCLUSIVE] Report: [UPDATED] Google's Android Market License Verification Easily Circumvented, Will Not Stop Pirates

Posted by in Development, Exclusives, Videos
Last Updated: June 5th, 2012

[Update: 8/24/10 @ 7:45 PM EST by Aaron] Tim Bray responded to Justin's article, but seems to have misunderstood the goal. Thus, Justin has written a follow-up article here.

Preface

This article was not written to teach people how to pirate or ridicule Google's Android License Verification Library (LVL) that handles communication with Google's Android Market Licensing Service.

I am very much against piracy, and very much pro-Google. I have spent more time researching copy protection for my applications than development of the applications themselves.

I would like to thank:

  • the author of Star Hunt for allowing me to use his application in my demo video
  • the author of Tasker for allowing me to use his application, which has the best implementation of LVL I found, in this article

Both of these applications are available in the market - I highly suggest you give them a try.