Cheat Engine

[daspamer]

Hey guys.
I tested the os.time function...
Checking and messing around..

[Mohsen]

Not very useful to set expire date for trainer, unless it's not a trainer but some type of crack.

OnTopic :
You can easily create a file when your trainer is expired, or keep track of how many times it's executed in that file.
You might want to apply some encryption to file structure too.

Check LUA file library for more information or be more specified on topic.

[Gniarf]

@Mother of hack:

[daspamer]

@Gniarf your thoughs are right .

Also, I know it works.
I just say it can be bypassed easily..
Like if you put your date to 14 April 2013 00:01 it will close.

But if for example today is 14 April 2013 00:01, the promo has ended.
He can set his os time to 13 april 2013 23:59 and he will be able to use it again.

What I want is, if it possible to block that method to bypass it.
Like no matter what, he won't be able to use it after promo...

[mgr.inz.Player]

@Mother of hack, if trainer works without Internet connection the answer is: nope.


All "trial applications" can be bypassed, by removing: files, registry entries, etc.

[daspamer]

@mgr.inz.Player
Is it possible to use internet connection for it?
And yes all trial applications can be bypassed, but people won't spend lots of time to bypass it;).

[TsTg]

@Mother of hack, i don't think it's a good idea to make a "Trial-based promo trainer" via time detection, as Mohsen mentioned, it's useless.

and yes, it's too easy to bypass by just changing the date of your system.

If you want to make a promo trainer, most of those types of trainers are on the internet, giving one cheat only for testing, while the others are 'if you want them, buy the full version trainer', when somebody buys it, you give him the complete cheat trainer(so you make another trainer containing the full cheats, so no worries about getting the promo file cracked).

If you still want to make the promo trainer expire for non-advanced users, you can try packing it with cryptor (Armadillo, ASProtect, VMProtect,.....etc).

[mgr.inz.Player]

Ok, here we go (it's easy protection).

Fact 1
All CE trainers are extracted to Temp folder (X:\temp\cetrainers)

Fact 2
If generic CE6.2 trainer works, you have full access to Temp folder
X:\temp\Cheat Engine

Fact 3
You can create your own folder inside:
X:\temp\Cheat Engine

inside this folder, there are already many temporary folders...





Steps.
1. check if Temp folder have your "trial" file. If not exists go to step 2, otherwise step 4

2. check current time os.time(), convert it to integer, you can encrypt it if you want
3. create file ( io.open , write, ), skip step 4

4. read file, calculate diff time, if bigger than 10 days -> expired


You can add more options, like detecting date changing - your trial file contains both informations "start date" and "days remains". If "current date" - "start date" is different than "days remains", user probably changed date.

[TsTg]

[mgr.inz.Player]

@TsTg, but which one
If someone uses, for example, "aobscan" LUA command...
there are many many temporary folders inside X:\temp\Cheat Engine


+ "Mother of hack" wrote:
"And yes all trial applications can be bypassed, but people won't spend lots of time to bypass it"


+ I wrote:
"it's easy protection"

[Gniarf]

It's borderline off-topic, but did you consider free trainers with advertisement? There is a built in function for that after all: supportCheatEngine(...) which actually displays YOUR ads.

I myself am wondering if I should use that. I don't quite know how people will react...

@mgr.inz.Player:

[TsTg]

[Gniarf]

[mgr.inz.Player]

You can always create mixed protection:
+ file inside temp folder
+ file inside temp\cetrainer folder
+ file inside "temp\cheat engine" folder
+ registry entries


For registry entries you probably will need modified cheatengine-i386.exe and/or cheatengine-x86_64.exe which will have new registered Lua functions.


File names, and registry key names will be generated. So for example for windows7 it will be different, for winxp it will be different.





Anyway, any user with little effort
- can extract your EXE file (created with CE6.2) - download lazarus, download CE source, compile it, run in debug mode, set breakpoint, .... that person will get protected (simple xor) CET_TRAINER.CETRAINER file, ....,

- decrypt cetrainer - another lazarus/breakpoint trick....
or changed CE source, so it will save as unprotected CT file just after opening protected file


Conclusion:
CheatEngine is not designed for making trial/promo trainers.

[TsTg]