-protecting your games-

[0vidiu]

welll, how about stealing that "just a flash game" and selling it?

[tonypa]

i dont get it....

why would anybody go through all that trouble stealing flash?

can any1 tell me the possible things that flash stealers wanna do?

i mean...its just a flash game...

Stolen games are mostly used to attract visitors to their site.
More visitors = more ads shown = more money.
Worse kinds of stealer sites are having great business with the ads they show for millions of visitors. And because they have not spent anything for the content, its all pure profit.

I dont believe stealing will get reduced until the ad agencies paying to the sites start to check if the content is legal. If their income would be cut off, then stealers would not have such great interest in hacking and stealing the games anymore.

[Incrue]

I dont believe stealing will get reduced until the ad agencies paying to the sites start to check if the content is legal.

Agencies would never care about it.

[UnknownGuy]

Agencies would never care about it.

Many agencies will, IMHO.
If you are a large professional company, you wouldn't want to be any way involved in any law suits or scandals, which could potentially hurt the company badly, or destroy it forever(possibly, depending on the lawsuit). You would probably not want to play with fire.

Edit: Grammar

[yanuart]

There's no way you can protect your game !!! I just found out that one of my game has been used illegaly by somesite.com (discretion needed so that the webmaster willing to remove my game from his site).
Upon close inspection I just found out that my game has been downloaded, decompiled and the protections inside the flash has been removed, that's way beyond leeching!.
Unless you can find a way to protect your flash from being downloaded/decompiled then there's nothing you can do about it.
But I'm always lookinng and hoping for the best method, that's why I vsit this board frequently

[adit_ya_sharma]

Has Macromedia got this topic of security covered for there Flash 8?

[tonypa]

Has Macromedia got this topic of security covered for there Flash 8?

No, I dont think so.
It is very unlikely MM will ever do something about security as the swf is open format and anyone can build program to read/write/modify swf files. It has always been illegal to decompile swf files without permission of the author.

One feature I would like to see would be password protection in swf, like zip passwords for example. If you dont know the password, then you cant see the content. But I also understand it is impossible because Flash player needs to access the swf file to play it an when player can access it then any decompiler can access it too.

[Incrue]

Flash 8 ' s swfs can work inside director files?

[adit_ya_sharma]

No, I dont think so.
It is very unlikely MM will ever do something about security as the swf is open format and anyone can build program to read/write/modify swf files. It has always been illegal to decompile swf files without permission of the author.

One feature I would like to see would be password protection in swf, like zip passwords for example. If you dont know the password, then you cant see the content. But I also understand it is impossible because Flash player needs to access the swf file to play it an when player can access it then any decompiler can access it too.

Yeah i understand what you are saying. I had seen somewhere on the mm site that they were actually providing the source in the right click context menu, you just have to choose it to download the source. Funny thing was that many of the comments were in support of it and some said things like that it would help the flash community to grow and it will be like tutorials for the new people (which frankly I could'nt quite gulp). As for the password like the zip files, there are numerous zip password crackers available, goes out to show that it won't take much time for the crackers to find out the new algorithm, which will just add one more step in the thief's process.

[JamesonH]

Yeah i understand what you are saying. I had seen somewhere on the mm site that they were actually providing the source in the right click context menu, you just have to choose it to download the source. Funny thing was that many of the comments were in support of it and some said things like that it would help the flash community to grow and it will be like tutorials for the new people (which frankly I could'nt quite gulp). As for the password like the zip files, there are numerous zip password crackers available, goes out to show that it won't take much time for the crackers to find out the new algorithm, which will just add one more step in the thief's process.

You're totally right about just adding another step to the thief's process. We've received a lot of good feedback from our users on how they're happy to at least know who's stealing their Flash. There's no foolproof way to protect your files, but at least we're able to help Flash developers stay informed on what their SWFs are doing and where they end up.

[Zirclesoft]

isnt it possible that not only do companies steal flash games for their ads' growth, but also umm say that they actually own the game?

like if they ever decompile it, they can change the credits to their names
and say that they made your game...and yeah steal everything frm u

[0vidiu]

I'm just curious:

1. Anybody used FlashIncript yet? It is really that good? Please, who's using-it provide feedback...

2. @JamesonH: Why are you keep saying that "we're able to help Flash developers stay informed on what their SWFs are doing and where they end up."??? What you guys provide is a partially functionality to me(as a game dev.) be cause I can use the mochibot code to track my swf and somebody can still download-it, decompile-it and remove the code... I know that is not your fault about decompiling swf's but I have the impression that you keep pushing the mochibot product forward, under our nose like "look how owseme is mochibot.. use it, use it, use it...". Mochibot is a 20sec "about just adding another step to the thief's process".
regards.

[JamesonH]

I'm just curious:

1. Anybody used FlashIncript yet? It is really that good? Please, who's using-it provide feedback...

2. @JamesonH: Why are you keep saying that "we're able to help Flash developers stay informed on what their SWFs are doing and where they end up."??? What you guys provide is a partially functionality to me(as a game dev.) be cause I can use the mochibot code to track my swf and somebody can still download-it, decompile-it and remove the code... I know that is not your fault about decompiling swf's but I have the impression that you keep pushing the mochibot product forward, under our nose like "look how owseme is mochibot.. use it, use it, use it...". Mochibot is a 20sec "about just adding another step to the thief's process".
regards.

I say, "we're able to help Flash developers stay informed on what their SWFs are doing and where they end up", because that's exactly what we're doing. We provide information about your SWFs. Nowhere do I mention anything about preventing your SWFs from being stolen or decrypted because that's not what we do. Any SWF that is encrypted can be decrypted and we're not making any claims that MochiBot is a solution for protecting your game. It's only an informational tool.

I think MochiBot is awesome. We've spent a lot of time building it and we're very proud of what we've accomplished. Excuse me if you are offended by my enthusiasm.

[0vidiu]

hey..!

don't get me wrong..!! I dont't say that mochibot is not an AWESOME service!! I really don't.(I own an acount and check it almoust daily.. ) I just had the impression that you presenting it in a little beat twisted manner.. For example in your homepage.. that text with "never worry about flash pirates again...".
Please excuse me if I did not sayit in a propper manner in my above post.
Have a good day and KEEP UP..!
regards.

[JamesonH]

hehe, ok that Flash Pirate phrase may be a bit of a stretch. However, you really don't need to worry about Flash Pirates because if someone really wants to steal your Flash then they will regardless of whether you're using MochiBot or FlashIncript or any other security tool. The point I'm trying to make is that people should spend less time worrying about someone stealing their work and more time on creating better content. Worrying gets you no where.

Thanks for using MochiBot! I think you're our first Romainian member.

[0vidiu]

I think you're our first Romainian member.

Cool!!

if someone really wants to steal your Flash then they will regardless of whether you're using MochiBot or FlashIncript or any other security tool.

Can protection offered by tools like flashIncript be "cracked"? PLZ, can someone provide feedback?

[tonypa]

Can protection offered by tools like flashIncript be "cracked"? PLZ, can someone provide feedback?

Anything can be cracked. Nothing is 100% secure. Even big companies like MS or MM cant secure their products and they spend lots of money on the security. The FlashMX2004 protection was cracked before the program was officially released.

But if it takes too much time and effort then it is possible cracker gives up. If you dont use any protection on your Flash game, then it is very easy to copy/paste the file into other sites. Including even simplest _url check will make sure most people dont start to distribute your game around. Yes, the swf decompilers/editors are easy to use and provide simple way to change any code you have, including protection code, but it still requires cracker to have some knowledge of actionscript and some idea what he is doing with the code.

Actionscript encryption is one step further, it makes your code harder to decompile and also harder to understand for possible thieves. But it doesnt make it completely secure, if the cracker is willing to spend months in editing swf in byte-code, he will succeed finally. By including protection in your game, you mostly achieve that crackers who are basically lazy and dumb wont bother with your game, they just take another Flash game which doesnt have enough protection.

If you want to be completely sure your game wont be cracked then dont put in the web and dont let anyone play it, but if you do release it to the wild world then at least make sure you make the life of those stupid thieves harder.

[thehumanchimp]

I was just messing about with how the .swf is embeded in HTML, and came across quite a cool little effect. Have a look here: http://www.humanchimp.fdns.net/secure/ - now the actual .SWF isn't particuarly secure, I have found a number of ways in which it can be found and downloaded, but it may confuse the amateur game stealers. Have a look at the source code and you'll see what i mean

[0vidiu]

I managed to obtain the swf... but is obfuscated?

[thehumanchimp]

"but is obfuscated?" what do you mean? The code inside the swf isn't obfuscated.