what is a watermark??

[()whore]

Hello all,

I have just read a tute about removing watermarks from IDA. I have also heard about the recent contest to remove the watermarks from the new music encryption scheem dreamed up by the evil music industry. Can anyone explain exactly what a watermark is? Is is a form of encryption? How does it work?

Thaks
()whore

[Volatility]

Greetings,

Watermarks can come in many different forms... I'll explain a few different ways that can give you a general idea:

* Say you have an document creation program... any document you create/print with it, unregistered, displays a message "Unregistered version, blah blah"

* In the case of IDA, the actual program contains information about who owns it. If you were to distribute as warez, your personal information would still be in it.

* Say you have some type of unregistered "patching program"... unbeknownst to you, any patchers you create from it, and send out, could include your information, wether "branded" into the patcher, or just displayed when applying the patch...

Those, besides the IDA watermark, are just hypothetical, but should give you a general idea