This review allowed us to draw an interesting conclusion - it turns out that the majority of site visitors are not at all concerned with how to easily copy someone else’s content (in this case, the contents of a CD), but with how to protect themselves from such actions. Therefore, the second part of my review will be devoted to how to make a copy-protected disk yourself at home.

There are several programs that (even without the necessary skills) allow you to create your own copy-protected discs. For example, TZCopyprotection (current version 1.11), which works with a disk image created using CDRwin. This adds additional dummy tracks, and using Nero, Easy CD Creator and CDRwin, such a 1:1 disc cannot be copied. But the worst thing is that by opening a CD using Windows Explorer, you can copy its contents to your hard drive without any problems. FreeLock (version 1.3) works in a similar way - a disk image cannot be created, but erasing all the data from it is not a problem.

I think that such “protection” is unlikely to satisfy any of our readers, so let’s move straight to the program with which we will work. This is CD Protector, a free program, but at the same time quite effective. Version 4 has been announced on the developers' website for a long time, but since there is no link to it, we will use CD Protector 3.0. It works with Nero (I tried using it with Nero 5.0.0.9, 5.5.1.1 and 5.5.2.4), I can immediately disappoint fans of Easy CD Creator - discs recorded with it are completely non-functional. CD Protector is not universal in terms of protection - it protects the executable file, so it is suitable for those who distribute their programs on CD. True, you can also protect self-extracting archives, although this is not entirely convenient. But, for all its limitations, it is the only non-commercial program I know of that can actually make it difficult to copy your own disc.

After this short introduction, let’s move on directly to examining how the program works. (I recommend using a CD-RW, which can be erased in case of failure).

1. For ease of use, copy the files that you are going to include in the disk you are creating into one folder.

2. Launch CD Protector, in the File to encrypt field specify the location of your main executable file, for example, Setup.exe.

• In the "Phantom Trax" directory field, specify the folder in which the wav file will be saved, which will later be used when burning a CD (the location of this file on the hard drive does not matter, the main thing is that you do not forget where it will be saved).
• In the Custom Message field, enter the text of the message that anyone who dares to try to copy your hard-created disk will see. Don't be shy in your expressions.
• (Note: It's a shame that this message is not always displayed.)
• In the Encryption Key field, enter any 2 characters from the keyboard, they do not matter (for some reason, when entering, you cannot enter any letters, for example, you cannot enter X).
• Click ACCEPT! and wait until the process finishes.

If everything went well and your exe file did not raise any objections from CD Protector (which sometimes happens), you can move on to the next stage. By the way, if you open the folder into which you copied files for the CD at the 1st stage, then You may notice some changes, namely: some files have been added to it (_cdp16.dat, _CDP16.DLL, _cdp32.dat and CDP32.DLL), and the size of your exe file has changed.In addition, in the directory you specified for Phantom Trax the file Track#1-Track#2 Cd Protector.wav appeared.
Now, by clicking Help, you can view all the instructions for further work with the disk, and if you are sure that you understand everything, you don’t have to read the continuation of this article (although I recommend reading it to the end - help CD Protector, despite the apparent clarity , contains some inaccuracies).

3. Launch Nero (if you are using Wizard, close it - it is not very convenient).

• From the File menu, select New, in the New Compilation window that opens, select Audio-CD from the left vertical column, then set the following parameters:
• In the Audio-CD section, uncheck the Write CD-Text box, and in the Burn section, be sure to disable Finalize CD and Disc-At-Once:

• Click New

4. Now, using the File Browser, select the directory that you specified for Phantom Trax, find the file Track#1-Track#2 CD Protector.wav there and add it to the still empty Audio-CD:

5. In the file menu, select Write CD, and in the Write CD window that appears, open the CDA Options section and check Cache the Track on harddisk before burning and Remove silence at the end of *.cda tracks.

Now burn the audio track to CD by clicking the Write CD button.

6. After the message that the recording was successful (Burnprocess done successfully), repeat step 5 (do not forget to check the CDA Options - in Nero 5.0.0.9 they are constantly reset).

7. Click File>New, in the New Compilation window that opens, select CD-ROM (ISO) from the left vertical column, in the Multisession section, check Start Multisession disc, and in the Burn section, make sure that the Finalize CD option is disabled:

8. Add your files to the currently empty CD (the encoded exe file should be in the “root” of the disk), then select Write CD from the File menu. Once recording is complete, your protected CD is ready for use. If you now select View Track from the CD-Recorder menu, it will look something like this:

Now let’s check whether our disk is considered write-protected by the programs designed to find such protection and which we discussed in the first part of the review. Copy Protection Detection will not detect any protection, but Clony will display the following message:

Now check the functionality of the disk and, if everything is fine, you can try to copy it using methods known to you. CDRwin 3.8 will refuse to copy this disc, Nero 5.0.0.9 (even with Ignore Illegal TOC installed) and Easy CD Creator 5.0 will simply freeze.
If you protect a self-extracting archive in this way, then it is possible to access the files from it by copying the contents of the CD to your hard drive. To do this, right-click the _cdp32.dat file, select "Open with" and try setting an archiver, for example, WinRAR, as the opening program. If the archiver program supports this type of archive, then you can easily extract its contents. But, since no one knows about this trick except you, we will assume that the CD is reliably protected.

You can download CD Protector version 3.0 from the CD Media World website (CD Protect Utilities section), size - 2.01Mb. Perhaps the promised version 4.0 will soon appear on the CD Protector developer website.

Developers have long tried to protect their creations from unauthorized use. Recently, protecting CDs from illegal copying has become especially important. After all, now a CD-RW is not much more expensive than a regular CD-ROM, so everyone who is not too lazy is involved in recording discs. So the developers are trying to prevent those who are not too lazy from copying discs with their products. Below is a minimum of tasks that, in my opinion, good CD protection should solve:

1. Do not simply copy the disk “one to one” onto the matrix.
2. The protected disk should not operate in a “virtual form”, i.e. when a disk image is written to a hard drive and, using a special driver, all CD-ROM operations are emulated.
3. The code that implements the first two points must be protected from examination and modification. Those. it is necessary to make it difficult to use debuggers, disassemblers, etc.
4. Do not interfere with the user's work with the CD: the disc must be readable by all CD-ROMs and, if it is an AudioCD, by all CD players.

Let's look at some popular CD copy protection. Let's start with protection for data drives.

CD-Protect

This protection is based on low-level disk operation. Bad sectors are created on the disk, which are determined by the protection system. Based on these bad sectors, you can divide disks into yours/someone else's. According to the developers, an attempt to copy data from such a disk to a hard drive will cause the system to crash. Attempts to copy a protected CD using special programs (CDClone, CDRWIN, etc.) will also not give positive results. This is one of the few protections that can actually protect a CD.

SafeDisc v3

The latest version of "advanced" protection from Macrovision Corporation. SafeDisc v3 was used to protect most popular games released after November 2003. The main module of the protected program (EXE or DLL) is encrypted using a certain key. Then, in accordance with this key, a digital signature is written to the disk, which takes from 3 to 20 megabytes (depending on the degree of protection). The authentication of the disc occurs within 10-20 seconds. SafeDisc v3 even supports virtual disks, i.e. After successful identification of the CD, you can continue working with the virtual disk. The only way found to remove the protection is to fix the encrypted module.

LaserLock

This protection, in addition to encrypting files, places a unique laser mark on the surface of the disk. Because For this purpose additional equipment is used, it is almost impossible to copy a disk with such protection. In theory. In practice, there are several ways to “deceive” LaserLock. The simplest is to use the BlindRead program (www.blindread.com), which will allow you to copy a protected disk. You could see LaserLock used on discs of (legal) games such as Fallout 2 or Metro Police.

Now let's move on to protections for music CDs.

Key2Audio

This protection prevents the CD from being played on a computer, while no problems arise when listening to the disc in home CD players. Key2Audio does not affect the quality of the music in any way. The essence of the protection is as follows: when a disc is recorded, several unique signatures are placed outside the music data area, which can be compared to human fingerprints. These signatures, according to the developers, cannot be duplicated by any CD recording device. As a result, it turns out that you can easily make an analog copy of music, but with digital there is a problem. But, as it turned out, the CDClone program, with the appropriate settings, allows you to get a working copy of the CD. Key2Audio was used to protect promotional copies of Michael Jackson's single "You Rock My World".

BayView Systems

This protection is designed to prevent the appearance of compositions on the Internet before the official release of the CD. To do this, only part of the music is recorded on the disc, and the rest is transmitted via the Internet to CD sellers and radio stations on the day the disc is released.

We have looked at several popular commercial CD protections, and now a few words about programs that will allow you to “bypass” these protections. CloneCD (www.elby.de) is most suitable for copying discs. This program really does a lot, but each CD protection system requires its own settings for CloneCD. Therefore, additional programs are used to determine the type of protection of a given disk and transfer the corresponding settings to CloneCD. An example of such a program is ClonyXL (www.cdmediaworld.com/cgi-bin/dlcmw.cgi?ClonyXLFinal_eng!zip). The program is free, 271 KB.

Now let's look at programs that do not “break” protection, but do the exact opposite - protect CDs.

WinLock

This is a very simple program that works in conjunction with CDRWin (www.goldenhawk.com). The whole job of WinLock is to compile a cue file, according to which CDRWin, after recording the necessary data, will add several dummy tracks with music and data to the CD. These paths do not contain anything useful, and their size is kept to a minimum. However, they will not fit into the logical structure of the disk, so some CD copying programs will refuse to copy such a disk. But there should be no problems with recording a disc to a hard drive.

Easy Audio Lock

This program is used to protect AudioCD. After using Easy Audio Loc, the music disc cannot be listened to on the computer. This is achieved by placing incorrect data in the TOC (Table of Contents).

TZcopyprotection

This program can do more than the previous ones. It also allows you to create dummy tracks, but you can put the necessary files in one of them, without which the CD will be useless. So copying only the main track will become pointless. In addition, TZcopyprotection allows you to make the size of a file on disk equal to 2 GB (if the initial settings are not changed), which makes it difficult to store the CD image on the hard drive. However, in this case you need to select a file for which a checksum is not calculated.

Unfortunately, I was unable to “reach out” to the home pages of these free programs, so I posted them on the page www.IvanFDC.narod.ru/download.html.

It only remains to add that even very expensive disc copy protection systems do not always cope with their responsibilities, so you should not hope for absolute protection of your CD. In my opinion, it is better to simply encrypt secret files with a reliable algorithm.

In the age of information technology, the development of methods for storing and protecting information is becoming a particularly relevant topic of research for scientific teams and individual enthusiasts. Not only software products require protection, but also works of art recorded and stored on disks, and personal information of citizens.

How to protect a disk from copying? There are programs to protect disks with information from copying. For example, CD-Protect, which creates special bad areas on the disk that are recognized by the protection system. According to them, the disks are divided into friend or foe. Copying a protected disk to a hard drive will cause the system to crash. This is one of the programs that really protects disks.

SafeDisc v3 encrypts the main program module using a specific key. A digital signature corresponding to this key, ranging in size from 3 to 20 megabytes, is applied to the disk. The authenticity of the protected disk is recognized in 10-20 seconds, and you can then work with it. To remove protection from such a disk, you need to change the encrypted module.

LaserLock encrypts files and laser marks the disk using additional hardware. In theory, it is impossible to copy a protected disk. In fact, several ways have been found to bypass this program.

Several copying techniques

If there are problems of protecting a disk from copying, then methods have already been invented to solve the exact opposite. Protected disks are successfully copied, using the information for their own purposes.

One of the most common programs that allows you to copy protected DVDs is Alcohol 120%, which is a CD/DVD emulator. The program creates an image of a protected disk on your computer's hard drive with all the information that other programs can access. The image is taken as a normal disk located in the drive. The program can work simultaneously with 31 images and allows you to copy disks protected with SafeDisc, LaserLock, Securom.

Another program for copying protected disks is Blindwrite. With its help, you can create identical copies of CD/DVD discs, remove information from protected discs of various formats, even if there is mechanical damage (scratched and worn). The developers regularly update this program.

Experts in the field of programming and information technology come to the conclusion that there is no absolutely reliable way to protect disks from copying. After all, the more carefully a protection method is developed, the more difficult it is to come up with programs for reading and copying protected disks.

TrusCont DVD Protection Toolkit is free software developed by TrusCont for burning TrusCont Enhanced DVD-R discs. The application combines the functions of recording a disc and protecting its contents. The software has a clear user interface. Compatible with Windows 2000 - Windows 7.

Download for free

• Download TrusCont DVD Protection Toolkit User Manual (3.4 MB, Russian)

Download TrusCont Secure Flash Drive burning software

TrusCont TSFD Protection Toolkit is a free software developed by TrusCont for recording TrusCont Secure Flash Drive. The application combines the functions of recording and protecting its content. The software has a clear user interface. Compatible with Windows 2000 - Windows 8.

Download for free

• Download TrusCont TSFD Protection Toolkit User Manual (6.5 MB, English)

Download CD-RX burning software

Autolock Wizard

Autolock Wizard™ is free, user-friendly software, developed by Hexalock for burning CD-RX discs. The application combines the functions of recording a disc and protecting its contents. The software has a clear user interface, which is designed in the form of a sequential series of prompts that appear during the disk preparation process

The copy protection system requires direct access to the local CD/DVD drive of the PC in order to authenticate CD-RX discs. In Microsoft Windows 2000 and XP operating systems, applications are prohibited from directly accessing read drives unless the PC user has local administrator rights. This limitation prevents the security system from checking the authenticity of the protected disk. The solution to this problem using the Remove & Restore Rights utilities is described in the documentation for Autolock Wizard.