I would like to understand what is the best way to mitigate risk of vendor lock-in for cloud-based systems.
For example, I'd like to deploy a multitude of different systems to, say, Amazon EC2 or Windows Azure, but I'd like to minimize the cost of migrating those systems to an alternative cloud vendor if/when necessary.
At the very least, it seems like the more I rely on vendor-specific solutions (like Amazon Queue Service), the more I'm inherently locked in (at least I think so), but I'd like to understand this risk better and any beyond it.
Are there architectural strategies I can use to mitigate this (e.g., rely on map reduce, since my scripts will be portable to another map reduce cloud env)? Are there O/S or stacks that are better than others (Linux, LAMP?). Is using JClouds helpful?
Ideally, I'd like to design virtual systems that can be deployed on EC2, for example, but then easily migrated to Azure or App Engine (or vice versa).
I generally write in Java, but am considering selective use of Scala and Python (or Jython) and am generally still trying to stay JVM-based. I tend to do a lot of parallel processing, and rely on both SQL and non-SQL (but not necessary NoSQL) storage and data manipulation technologies.
Thanks in advance. Hope I'm not being too unrealistic here.
In my opinion, the only architectural pattern to the problem you describe is: abstraction
Make sure to stick to using resources that are offered across various vendors,like storage, queue, etc. Create abstraction layers for each of them.
Hope this helps. I don't think its a super simple task to do, given the variability of the services across cloud providers
I agree with IgoreK - if you're doing this in code, it'll take a lot of abstraction, that's about it.
Another option is to take an IaaS cloud approach - design your application based on Virtual machine roles only. Most Cloud providers offer some form of Virtual machine role - Amazon, Azure, Rackspace etc. Migration then means far less code changes, but a bit more admin on your side.
Microsoft's Customer Advisory Team has an excellent sample on how to do that (I think I downloaded the project from here). There's a whole lot of code in it, and some really good abstractions to make things "free". Obviously, as with any abstraction, you also introduce a new layer of complexity so make sure you really all of it before applying it.
In most cases, less is more. And even though a lock-in is not something you want, it's probably not that hard to "fix" if the need arises. But ask yourself if it's important for that need to be satisfied now, or should you finish the project, and refactor later.
Honestly, your question is based on a bit of a false premise. You're looking to avoid lock-in rather than trying to take full advantage of the platform you've chosen to use.
The better way of approaching the issue is not to try to have your infrastructure be hot-swappable (e.g., avoid vendor lock-in), but to actually make a decision about the IaaS provider you want to use and leverage it as best as you possibly can.
Okay, so we have to store our clients` private medical records online and also the web site will have a lot of requests, so we have to use some scaling solutions.
We can have our own share of a datacenter and run something like Zend Server Cluster Manager on it, but services like Amazon EC2 look a lot easier to manage, and they are incredibly cheaper too. We just don't know if they are secure enough!
Are they?
Any better solutions?
More info: I know that there is a reference server and it's highly secured and without it, even the decrypted data on the cloud server would be useless. It would be a bunch of meaningless numbers that aren't even linked to each other.
Making the question more clear: Are there any secure storage and process service providers that guarantee there won't be leaks from their side?
First off, you should contact AWS and explain what you're trying to build and the kind of data you deal with. As far as I remember, they have regulations in place to accommodate most if not all the privacy concerns.
E.g., in Germany such thing is a called a "Auftragsdatenvereinbarung". I have no idea how this relates and translates to other countries. AWS offers this.
But no matter if you go with AWS or another cloud computing service, the issue stays the same. And therefor, whatever is possible is probably best answered by a lawyer and based on the hopefully well educated (and expensive) recommendation, I'd go cloud shopping, or maybe not. If you're in the EU, there are a ton of regulations especially in regards to medical records -- some countries add more to it.
From what I remember it's basically required to have end to end encryption when you deal with these things.
Last but not least security also depends on the setup and the application, etc..
For complete and full security, I'd recommend a system that is not connected to the Internet. All others can fail.
You should never outsource highly sensitive data. Your company and only your company should have access to it - in both software and hardware terms. Even if your hoster is generally trusted someone there might just steal hardware.
Depending on the size of your company you should have your custom servers - preferable even unaccessible for the technicans in your datacenter (supposing you don't own the datacenter ;).
So the more important the data is, the less foreign people should have access to it in any means. In the best case you can name all people that have access to them in any way.
(Update: This might not apply to anonymous data, but as you're speaking of customers I don't think that applies here?)
(On a third thought: There're are probably laws to take into consideration of how you have to handle that kind of information ;)
Background
Terminals are a compination of hardware and software. Terminal's main responsibility is to
- collect data (with it's sensors)
- process and transmit collected data to data server over the Internet.
The terminal has Internet access either via WLAN or GPRS. Terminal are running embedded Linux.
Things to consider, security perspective
Transmission of collected data over the air to data server.
Remote software updates over the air (is controlled by the data server),
Local software updates
Identification and authentication of terminal and server
What else should be considered in this type of system?
My question is divided in 3 parts.
Firstly, what kind of issues should be thought about when thinking about security with this kind of system.
Secondly, what ciphers, key exchange mechanism and security techniques could be applied in different parts of the answer of the first question.
And lastly, is there any good books/resources available covering this matter. Specifically targeting this type of application area or similar with practical advice on solutions.
I know my questions are little bit out there. I'm familiar with different ciphers (symmetric and asymmetric), but have found particularly difficult to find any pratical guidance in implementing security in real world systems. I hope this questions hits some traffic. I'm sure there are many of us out there facing similar challenges.
I can provide more details, just point me out where more information is required.
The actual important question is the first part of what your question. "What kind of Issues should be thought about." Only you can really determine that, via two tools: A threat model, and a security model.
A threat model is about who is trying to attack the system: Script Kiddies? Skilled Organized Crime Hackers? The evil overlord's government?
A security model describes what you are trying to protect. Should anybody be able to read the data? Should you be able to detect injection of false data?
First come up with a plan on what your requirements are, then look for technical solutions.
What is the best way to avoid that an application is copied and used without the owner’s knowing?
Is there any way to trace the usage? Meaning periodically the application communicates back, with enough information so that we can know where it is, and if it’s legal. Next thing, of course, shut it down, if it’s not legit.
Software that "phones home" will be quickly shunned by the vast majority of your users. Just license it appropriately and sell it.
People who use your software professionally will either pay for it or they won't use it. Corporations tend to frown on potential lawsuits.
People who want to use your software without paying for it will continue to do so despite your best efforts to counteract them. Once the software is in their hands, it is out of yours. Without pissing off your users, your only recourse is a legal one.
If your product is priced reasonably, some people will pay for it and some won't. That is just something you need to deal with upfront and it should be factored into your business plan.
Don't do this, don't attempt it, don't even think about it.
This is a battle you can't win. If people want to pirate your software they will. You'll be shamed by the fact that a smart reverse engineer can write a one byte binary patch to subvert all your protection schemes.
The people who are going to pirate your software will do so and all these "security features" you build in will likely end up only inconveniencing your true supporters: the people who have legitimately purchased your software. These draconian DRM / anti-piracy schemes only build resentment among software users.
Hardware dongles are the best way if you are really concerned about piracy IMO. Check out the big industrial CAD/CAM packages worth thousands or tens-of-thousands, or the AV/Music production software, they virtually all have dongle protection. Dongles can be emulated or reversed but not without a significant investment in time, a lot more than just changing a few JEs to JNEs in your assembly.
Phoning home is not the way to go unless you are providing a service that requires a subscription and constant updates (like antivirus products, for example) as part of your business model. You need to have a bit of respect for your users and their privacy. You might have perfectly innocent intentions but what if a court ordered your company to hand over that information (like the US government is doing with Google and its search terms) - would/could you fight it? What if you some time in the future sold your company and the new owners decided to sell all that historic information to a marketing company? Privacy is not just about trusting a company not to abuse your data, it is trusting that company to go out of their way to protect your data. Which is pretty far down the list of priorities for most companies. So basically, the monitoring users thing is not really a good path to go down.
The best (and pretty much only) way to reliably prevent piracy is to have a client/server application instead of a standalone one, where a non-trivial part of the work is done by the server and users need to register. Then you can at least detect and block simultaneous use of the same account.
There are several approaches you could take, but there are three that will be vastly more effective that any of the others.
A. Don't create it.
Software that doesn't exist never suffers from unauthorized use.
B. Don't release it.
If you have the only copy, and you keep it that way, then the chances are exceedingly good that there will be no unauthorized use.
C. Give everyone permission to use it.
If you don't want anyone to use it without permission, then you can give everyone permission and there will be no unauthorized users.
There is a possibility to trace the usage. You can accomplish this by letting phone your tool home and send the information you need. The problem with this is, that first nobody likes software that phones home for this purpose and second with a simple application-level gateway you can block the application to phone home! What you describe in your question is a common problem of software-distributors and it's not an easy one to solve!
There's another thing I haven't seen mentioned yet : You could add loads of settings to the applications' configuration file, and start with ridiculous defaults. Then do the installation & configuration personally, so no-one but you is able to figure out how everything should be set. This can be a mayor put-down for people that are just trying out if a copy is enough. (Be sure to add settings that depend on all sorts of system-settings, like OS-version related DLL-versions that should be loaded, etc). Not very user-friendly tho ;-)
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I am curious about how do you protect your software against cracking, hacking etc.
Do you employ some kind of serial number check? Hardware keys?
Do you use any third-party solutions?
How do you go about solving licensing issues? (e.g. managing floating licenses)
EDIT: I'm not talking any open source, but strictly commercial software distribution...
There are many, many, many protections available. The key is:
Assessing your target audience, and what they're willing to put up with
Understanding your audience's desire to play with no pay
Assessing the amount someone is willing to put forth to break your protection
Applying just enough protection to prevent most people from avoiding payment, while not annoying those that use your software.
Nothing is unbreakable, so it's more important to gauge these things and pick a good protection than to simply slap on the best (worst) protection you are able to afford.
Simple registration codes (verified online once).
Simple registration with revokable keys, verified online frequently.
Encrypted key holds portion of program algorithm (can't just skip over the check - it has to be run for the program to work)
Hardware key (public/private key cryptography)
Hardware key (includes portion of program algorithm that runs on the key)
Web service runs critical code (hackers never get to see it)
And variations of the above.
Whatever route you go, charge a fair price, make it easy to activate, give free minor updates and never deactivate their software. If you treat your users with respect they'll reward you for it. Still, no matter what you do some people are going to end up pirating it.
Don't.
Pirates will pirate. No matter what solution you come up with, it can and will be cracked.
On the other hand, your actual, paying customers are the ones who are being inconvenienced by the crap.
Make it easier to buy than to steal. If you put mounds of copy protection then it just makes the value of owning the real deal pretty low.
Use a simple activation key and assure customers that they can always get an activation key or re-download the software if they ever lose theirs.
Any copy protection (aside from online-only components like multiplayer games and finance software that connects to your bank, etc.) you can just assume will be defeated. You want downloading your software illegally, at the very least, to be slightly harder than buying it.
I have a PC games that I've never opened, because there is so much copy protection junk on it that it's actually easier to download the fake version.
Software protections aren't worth the money -- if your software is in demand it will be defeated, no matter what.
That said, hardware protections can work well. An example way it can work well is this: Find a (fairly) simple but necessary component of your software and implement it in Verilog/VHDL. Generate a public-private keypair and make a webservice that takes a challenge string and encrypts it with the private key. Then make a USB dongle that contains your public key and generates random challenge strings. Your software should ask the USB dongle for a challenge string and send it up to the server for encryption. The software then sends it to the dongle. The dongle validates the encrypted challenge string with the public key and goes into an 'enabled' mode. Your software then calls into the dongle any time it needs to do the operation you wrote in HDL. This way anyone wanting to pirate your software has to figure out what the operation is and reimplement it -- much harder than just defeating a pure software protection.
Edit: Just realized some of the verification stuff is backwards from what it should be, but I'm pretty sure the idea comes across.
The Microsoft Software License scheme is crazy expensive for a small business. The server cost is around $12,000 if you want to set it up yourself. I don't recommend it for the feint of heart.
We actually just implemented Intellilock in our product. It lets you have all of the decisions for how strict you want your license to be, and it is very cost effective as well. In addition it does obfuscation, compiler prevention, etc.
Another good solution I have seen small/med businesses use is SoloServer. It is much more of an ecommerce and license control system. It is very configurable to the point of maybe a little too complex. But it does a very good job from what I have heard.
I have also used the Desaware license system for dot net in the past. It is a pretty lightweight system compared to the two above. It is a very good license control system in terms of cryptographically sound. But it is a very low level API in which you have to implement almost everything your app will actually use.
Digital "Rights" Management is the single biggest software snake-oil product in the industry. To borrow a page from classic cryptography, the typical scenario is that Alice wants to get a message to Bob without Charlie being able to read it. DRM doesn't work because in its application, Bob and Charlie are the same person!
You would be better off asking the inverse question, which is "How do I get people to buy my software instead of stealing it?" And that is a very broad question. But it generally starts by doing research. You figure out who buys the type of software you wish to sell, and then produce software that appeals to those people.
The additional prong to this is to limit updates/add-ons to legit copies only. This can be something as simple as an order code received during the purchase transaction.
Check out Stardock software, makers of WindowBlinds and games such as Sins of a Solar Empire, the latter has no DRM and turned a sizable profit off a $2M budget.
There are several methods, such as using the processor ID to generate an "activation key."
The bottom line is that if someone wants it bad enough -- they'll reverse engineer any protection you have.
The most failsafe methods are to use online verification at runtime or a hardware hasp.
Good luck!
Given a little time your software will always be cracked. You can search for cracked versions of any well known piece of software in order to confirm this. But it is still well worth adding some form of protection to your software.
Remember that dishonest people will never pay for your software and always find/use a cracked version. Very honest people will always stick to the rules even without a licensing scheme just because that is the kind of person they are. But the majority of people are between these two extremes.
Adding some simple protection scheme is a good way of making that bulk of people in the middle act in an honest way. It is a way to nudge them into remembering that the software is not free and they should be paying for the appropriate number of licenses. Many people do actually respond to this. Businesses are especially good at sticking to the rules because the manager is not spending his/her own money. Consumers are less likely to stick to the rules because it is their own money.
But recent experience with releases such as Spore from Electronic Arts shows that you can go to far in licensing. If you make even legit people feel like criminals because they are constantly being validated then they start to rebel. So add some simple licensing to remind people if they are being dishonest but anything more than that is unlikely to boost sales.
Online-only games like World of Warcraft (WoW) have it made, everyone has to connect to the server every time and thus accounts can be constantly verified. No other method works for beans.
Generally there are two systems that often get confused -
Licensing or activation tracking, legal legitimate usage
Security preventing illegal usage
For licensing use a commercial package, FlexLM many companies invest huge sums of money into licensing think they also get security, this is a common mistake key generators for these commercial packages are prolifically abundant.
I would only recommend licensing if your selling to corporations who will legitimately pay based on usage, otherwise its probably more effort than its worth.
Remember that as your products become successful, all and every licensing and security measure will be breached eventually. So decide now if it is really worth the effort.
We implemented a clean room clone of FlexLM a number of years ago, we also had to enhance our applications against binary attacks, its long process, you have to revisit it every release. It also really depends on which global markets you sell too, or where your major customer base is as to what you need to do.
Check out another of my answers on securing a DLL.
As has been pointed out, software protection is never guaranteed to be foolproof. What you intend to use depends largely on your target audience. A game, for instance, is not something you are going to be able to protect forever. A server software, on the other hand, is something far less likely to be distributed on the Internet, for a number of reasons (product penetration and liability come to mind; a large corporation does not want to be held liable for bootleg software, and the pirates only bother with things in large-enough demand). In all honesty, for a high-profile game, the best solution is probably to seed the torrent yourself (clandestinely!) and modify it in some way (for instance, so that after two weeks of play it pops up with messages telling you to please consider supporting the developers by purchasing a legitimate copy).
If you put protection in place, bear two things in mind. First, a lower price will supplement any copy protection by making people more inclined to pay the purchase price. Secondly, the protection must not get in the way of users - see Spore for a recent example.
DRM this, DRM that - publishers who force DRM on their projects are doing it because it's profitable. Their economists are concluding this on data which none of us will ever see. The "DRM is evil" trolls are going a little too far.
For a low-visibility product, a simple internet activation is going to stop casual copying. Any other copying is likely negligible to your bottom line.
Illegal distribution is practically impossible to prevent; just ask the RIAA. Digital content can just be copied; analog content can be digitised, and then copied.
You should focus your efforts on preventing unauthorised execution. It's never possible to completely prevent the execution of code on someone else's machine, but you can take certain steps to raise the bar sufficiently high that it becomes easier to purchase your software than to pirate it.
Take a look at the article Developing for Software Protection and Licensing that explains how best to go about developing your application with licensing in mind.
Obligatory disclaimer & plug: the company I co-founded produces the OffByZero Cobalt software licensing solution for .NET.
The trouble with this idea of just let the pirates use it they wont buy it anyway and will show their friends who might buy it is twofold.
With software that uses 3rd party services, the pirated copies are using up valuable bandwidth/resource which gives legit users a worse experience, make my sw look more popular then it is and has the 3rd party services asking me to pay more for their services because of the bandwidth being used.
Many casual wouldn't dream of cracking the sw themselves but if there is an easy assessible crack on a site like piratebay they will use it, if there wasn't they might buy it.
This concept of not disabling pirated software once discovered also seems crazy, I don't understand why I should let someone continue to use software they shouldn't be using, I guess this is just the view/hope of the pirates.
Also, its worth noting that making a program hard to crack is one thing, but you also need to prevent legit copies being shared, otherwise somebody could simply buy one copy and then
share it with thousands of others via a torrent site. The fact of having their name/email address embedded in the license isn't going to be enough to disuade everyone from doing this, and it only really takes one for there to be a problem.
The only way I can see to prevent this is to either:
Have server check and lock license on program startup every time, and release license on program exit. If another client starts with same license whilst the first client has license then it is rejected. This way doesn't prevent the license being used by more than one user, but does prevent it being used concurrently by more than one user - which is good enough. It also allows a legitimate user to transfer the license on any of their computers which provides a better experience.
On first client startup client sends license to server and server verifies it, causing some flag to be set within the client software. Further requests from other clients with the same license are rejected. The trouble with this approach is the original client would have problems if they reinstalled the software or wanted to use a different computer.
Even if you used some kind of biometric fingerprint authentication, someone would find a way to crack it. There's really no practical way around that. Instead of trying to make your software hack-proof, think about how much extra revenue will be brought in by adding additional copy protection vs. the amount of time and money it will take to implement it. At some point, it gets to be cheaper to go with a less rigorous copy protection scheme.
It depends on what exactly your software product is, but one possibility is to move the "valuable" part of the program out of the software and keep it under your exclusive control. You would charge a modest fee for the software (mostly to cover print and distribution costs) and would generate your revenue from the external component. For example, an anti-virus program that is sold for cheap (or bundled for free with other products) but sells subscriptions to its virus definitions update service. With that model, a pirated copy that subscribes to your update service wouldn't represent much of a financial loss. With the increasing popularity of applications "in the cloud", this method is becoming easier to implement; host the application on your cloud, and charge users for cloud access. This doesn't stop someone from re-implementing their own cloud to eliminate the need for your service, but the time and effort involved in doing so would most likely outweigh the benefits (if you keep your pricing model reasonable).
If your interested in protecting software that you intend to sell to consumers I would recommend any of a variety of license key generating libraries (Google search on license key generation). Usually the user has to give you some sort of seed like their email address or name and they get back the registration code.
Several companies will either host and distribute your software or provide a complete installation/purchase application that you can integrate with and do this automatically probably at no additional cost to you.
I have sold software to consumers and I find this the right balance of cost/ease of use/protection.
The simple, and best solution, is just to charge them up front. Set a price that works for you and them.
Asking paying customers to prove that they are paying customers after they've already paid just pisses them off. Implementing the code to make your software not run wastes your time and money, and introduces bugs and annoyances for legitimate customers. You'd be better off spending that time making a better product.
Lots of games/etc will "protect" the first version, then drop the protections in the first patch due to compatibility problems with real customers. It's not an unreasonable strategy if you insist on a modicum of protection.
Almost all copy-protection is both ineffective, and a usability nightmare. Some of it, such as putting root-kits on your customers' machines becomes downright unethical
I suggest simple activation key (even if you know that it can be broken), you really don't want your software to get in your users way, or they'll simply push it away.
Make sure that they can re-download the software, I suggest a web page where they can logging and download your software only after they paid (and yes they should be able to download as many times they wish it, directly, without a single question about why on your part).
Thrust your paid users above all, there is nothing more irritating that being accused from being a criminal when you are a legit users (DVD's anti-piracy warnings anyone).
You can add a service that checks the key against a server when online, and in case of two different IPs are using the same key, popup a suggestion to buy another license.
But please don't inactivate it, it might be a happy user showing your software to a friend!!!!
Make part of your product an online component which requires connection and authentication. Here are some examples:
Online Games
Virus Protection
Spam Protection
Laptop tracking software
This paradigm only goes so far though and can turn some consumers off.
I agree with a lot of posters that no software-based copy protection scheme will deter against a skilled software pirate. For commercial .NET based software Microsoft Software License Protection (SLP) is a very reasonably priced solution. It supports time-limited and floating licenses. Their pricing starts at $10/month + $5 per activation and the protection components seem to work as advertised. It's a fairly new offering, though, so buyer beware.