Subject: Copying GENDATA Diskettes Date: July 25, 1988 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!! NOTE: This problem has been fixed in later releases !!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PROBLEM: With the v2.11 release, Novell has also relaunched the favorite summer game of European hackers: Illegal copy. It has been found that the GENDATA diskette may be copied with a special add-on board called "COPY-II-PC" and appropriate software (not the well known COPYIIPC). This board by-passes the normal BIOS and does funny things to floppy drives. You can buy this board everywhere for peanuts. As far as protection is concerned, there's no interest to copy the software if you have not the correct Keycard or DCB. But, think about all the v2.0a installations still running in Europe, and you can imagine the problem. This information came from a distributor/reseller channel. We will have such a board in house soon to confirm the problem, but we know that a GENDATA diskette has already been copied and used to solve a problem of wrong serial numbers. SECOND PROBLEM: In two weeks, we've received three requests for new GENDATA diskettes: Overwrite by a wrong DISKCOPY command, bad serial number specified at installation, corrupted GENDATA. What is the official procedure to replace the GENDATA diskettes? We have only ten of those here. Sending the complete software back to USA with an RMA takes approx. 4 weeks from Europe.