Why netseal is useless.

[El!teHax0rPr0 Banned Posts:81 Threads:9 Reputation 15]

A few days ago I was chatting with a friend who wanted to use netseal to license their programs. I was explaining to him why it was useless, figured I would make a thread explaining why.  Of course you can always pack your code, but that would lead the false positives and nobody wants to download a phishy program.

Visual studio comes with a developer tool, called ildasm. It allows you to output the ilcode of the program. Whats ilcode? Basically it's used by the .NET framework to generate machine independent code as the output of compilation of the source code written in any .NET programming language.

To use ildasm, you just have to load it through visual studio developer console located here: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\Tools\VsDevCmd.bat"

So basically what we do is, we look for where netseal is instantiated and then we remove the ilcode as well anything that uses the object.


Steps:
- run ildasm
- open program in ildasm
- dump ilcode
- open .il file in notepad
- look for and remove instantiation of netseal as well as anything uses it's object.
- save
- recompile with ilasm


ilcode that instantiates netseal as well as load the license.

Code:

IL_0000:  nop        // no-operation
IL_0001:  newobj     instance void License::.ctor()              // creates object
IL_0006:  stloc.0   //pops value from top of the stack and stores it in local variable 0. Takes the value of newobj and stores it here.
IL_0007:  ldloc.0  // loads the value from stloc.0 onto the stack  -- loads the object onto the stack.
IL_0008:  ldstr      "246G0000" //loads string "246G000"
IL_000d:  callvirt   instance void License::Initialize(string) // string "246G000" is then passed into the function and called.

If you're looking for any other uses of the netseal object, you would ctrl + f "License::" and remove that ilcode aswell. Note: It might not always be called License, you might have to do some extra digging.
I made a video real quick for it.




I did write this on another forum first, a simple Google search will find it.

[El!teHax0rPr0 Banned Posts:81 Threads:9 Reputation 15]

While it's easy to get around, it's certainly not "useless".

Most people won't go to the extremes / don't have the knowledge to actually do that. Most people like using the most updated version of things, I don't mind paying $20 for something knowing I'll get all future updates and won't run into issues using it on another machine.

Most people don't have to, it only takes one or two knowledgeable people to release a patched version. It's literally just as easy as removing the object and related items and presto!. I just showed the ildasm example because it already comes with Visual Studio but there are several .Net reflection programs that you can do this 10x easier.

It only takes one person to buy it and receive the updates to consistently release patched versions with the creator none-the-wiser. It maybe a worthy investment in your eyes, but it's not. Something this easily patched is border line useless if not completely, no matter what way you look at it.

[yums DF Member Posts:684 Threads:44 Reputation 34]

Jesus, that was easy.

Off-topic, but hey, didn't know it was you, Bon. Good to see you here.

[El!teHax0rPr0 Banned Posts:81 Threads:9 Reputation 15]

Jesus, that was easy.

Off-topic, but hey, didn't know it was you, Bon. Good to see you here.

Yeah man, a few other people brought it to my attention after you did. Figured I would give it a shot.

[yums DF Member Posts:684 Threads:44 Reputation 34]

Jesus, that was easy.

Off-topic, but hey, didn't know it was you, Bon. Good to see you here.

Yeah man, a few other people brought it to my attention after you did. Figured I would give it a shot.

Did you use my referral link? :-3

I know Skeleton (mysteriousgrim) used it, but I'm not quite sure who's the other one. I think it's Hisoka.

[El!teHax0rPr0 Banned Posts:81 Threads:9 Reputation 15]

Jesus, that was easy.

Off-topic, but hey, didn't know it was you, Bon. Good to see you here.

Yeah man, a few other people brought it to my attention after you did. Figured I would give it a shot.

Did you use my referral link? :-3

I know Skeleton (mysteriousgrim) used it, but I'm not quite sure who's the other one. I think it's Hisoka.

MVT3 is who turned me onto it again, I literally forgot about it until a few days ago.