Recent Posts

61

ReHIPS / Re: HWID- computer activation managable in account settings after purchase?

« Last post by fixer on March 06, 2020, 04:03:39 pm »

When I was posting the previous answer, I tried to be less direct so I wouldn't provoke any abuse and won't be caught like "hey, you promised to renew my license for the 10th time this week". I'll be more direct now.

Graphic cards don't matter. Additional drives also don't matter as long as you don't reinstall OS changing system drive.

Online activation is possible, but ReHIPS is a completely offline solution, so we decided not to do online licensing.

For now for the whole ReHIPS lifetime we've never detected any abuse and hence never denied a license reactivation.

62

ReHIPS / Re: HWID- computer activation managable in account settings after purchase?

« Last post by toni1982 on March 05, 2020, 05:07:11 pm »

What about hard drives? And graphic cards? Hard drives are the most commonly changed part. Even a friend of mine, who usually never tinkers with his hardware, already added some drives and changed his graphics card.

Can't you automate this process? It's an online based activation and the server needs to be online all the time anyways.
I can't bear the thought that I also have to think about my software when changing my PC or buying a new one.
Computers are already enough trouble when trying to stay halfway up-to-date - there is really no need to add another layer of trouble.

And when the activation doesn't work, I have to contact support and hope for their goodwill that they give my a new activation, for probably the fifth time.
And I probably have to wait for several days to receive the activation.

I already got rid of all of my software that had used such an "support's goodwill" type of activation, and I don't plan to add a new one.

I don't think that ReHIPS is too expensive - the price tag could be even higher imo.
But the owner of the license should be me - not my computer.

Also - why do you have to "think of something"? You would just need to deactivate the old hardware-id and activate the new one. This should work as often as needed and without any limitations. If I would try to activate two computers, the old activation just wouldn't work. It's still only one computer that is activated - nothing changes for you.


Edit: I've just noticed that you wrote "if the PC is basically the same". Does this mean that it's actually meant to be re-purchased with any actual new computer??
So, if I make a mistake when upgrading my PC and break the mainboard, then I have destroyed my software aswell?
Or when the hardware manufacturer did a bad job and it becomes defective by itself?
Or when I'm just unsatisfied with the computer and buy a new one?
This is a really troubling thought.

63

ReHIPS / Re: HWID- computer activation managable in account settings after purchase?

« Last post by fixer on March 05, 2020, 08:09:28 am »

Hello, toni1982.
Don't worry, not all hardware changes will result in change of HWID. We didn't try to bind to everything, just the essential parts, so changes in sound cards or some optional cards like wireless don't affect HWID. Besides even if you changed some hardware, HWID changed, but PC is basically the same, contact us and we'll think of something

64

ReHIPS / HWID- computer activation managable in account settings after purchase?

« Last post by toni1982 on March 04, 2020, 07:49:25 pm »

I understand that you don't want people to install the software on multiple computers and I'm totally fine with this.
But what if I change something? I have modified my computer about a dozen times meanwhile...

-replaced HDDs
-replaced SSDs
-added HDDs
-added SSDs
-added m.2 SSDs
-added better sound card
-changed sound card to another one
-added wireless card for VR goggle

and so on...

Technology is developing so fast that even the most casual computer user will add or replace something eventually.
And if it's just a hard drive or two.
I already had "HWID" based software and most of them have detected *any* little change or addition as a new computer.
So far, this is not a bad thing. But it's an absolute necessity in this case to be able to remove your activation, to activate another computer. Not an additional computer -- only the "new" one. (which would be the same computer for me in the vast majority of cases - just with something changed)

How does it work with ReHIPS?

65

ReHIPS / Re: Some issues I've had while testing the demo

« Last post by fixer on March 03, 2020, 12:32:25 am »

Welcome to our forum and thank you for your interest in our product.

Thank you for your report, added to our investigate list, will post more details later.

66

ReHIPS / Some issues I've had while testing the demo

« Last post by toni1982 on March 02, 2020, 05:47:21 pm »

1. Some programs won't start anymore with Sandboxie.
I've already tried the fix from the other thread, but it didn't work for me.
As long as ReHIPS is installed, most sandboxed applications won't start anymore.
For example both of my browsers - Vivaldi and Chrome - and my email client Mailbird.
Their processeses appear in Task Manager, but they won't start.

 I've tried anything:

- setting them to "allow" inside ReHIPS,
- disabling ReHIPS,
- terminating ReHIPS,

but nothing helped.
Only uninstalling ReHIPS makes them start in a sandbox again.

2. The program "Rambox Pro" doesn't work with ReHIPS isolation. This is unrelated to Sandboxie. It just says that it was unable to start the program. Rambox is one of my most important programs and at the same time one of the programs which I would like to run only isolated.


3. I had to disable the virtual desktop, because it freezed/crashed repeatedly. Basically anytime one of ReHIPS's own dialogue popups appeared while being on the virtual deskop, it froze. I couldn't click any oft the buttons in the dialoge window. Pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del to get back to the regular desktop, revealed what the problem was - the button for switching the desktops became white/unresponsive. I had to kill the process manually ever time.
After disabling the virtual desktop, I hadn't any issue with freezes anymore.
Question: is the "normal desktop-mode" less safe? I don't need it to be visually seperated im such a manner. If it's just that.


4. When installing/uninstalling ReHIPS, any popup dialogue that's coming from the installer appears *behind* the installer window. When clicking on it, the "locked" sound plays, that occurs when you try to click a window that is locked by a dialogue box.
But there's no way to bring the dialogue box into foreground. Pressing enter to confirm whatever the dialoge box says doesn't work.
The only solution is to open Task Manager and kill the process of the dialogue box - then the install/uninstall process continues. This is highly disturbing. Now I have no idea what the dialogue box said / what the uninstaller did to my computer.
I have installed/uninstalled ReHIPS 4 times within my testing period, and this issue happened every time.


5. There was a myriad of popups. For example when opening a new tab in a browser that runs within ReHIPS, the demo popup appeared about 30 times simultaneously. Sometimes even more. My fingers already started to hurt from all the clicking after some hours with the demo.


I greatly like the idea behind ReHIPS and I'd purchase it immediately, but unfortunately it caused all that problems and felt very unstable and unreliable.
Looking forward to try it again eventually, when the problems have been fixed.


Ps. The only security software I have installed is Malwarebytes and GlassWire.

67

ReHIPS / Re: Ask Questions Here - ReHIPS Features & Unexpected Behaviors

« Last post by fixer on February 28, 2020, 11:03:42 pm »

1. Yup, by default ReHIPS shows alert in a top-level window. But if other top-level windows come into play, you can't make your window toppest of all in a nice way, there is a somewhat funny blogpost about it here https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110310-00/?p=11253 So yeah, sometimes alerts can be in the background.
Try to allow it in current session and see if it still keeps hanging. That's unexpected, ReHIPS doesn't do something messy, so everything should work.

2A. If there is any way to reproduce the issue, I'd be glad to look into it. As it's quite hard to troubleshoot without having the issue happening.

2B. Yup, that's a known bug, will be fixed.

2C. Should be working in the upcoming version.

P.S. There is blogposts section which is already quite big. It covers Windows bugs that can affect ReHIPS. But current ReHIPS bugs aren't covered, you're right here. Hopefully there aren't that many of them and they should be fixed in the upcoming version.

68

ReHIPS / Re: Ask Questions Here - ReHIPS Features & Unexpected Behaviors

« Last post by winuser on February 27, 2020, 11:36:05 pm »

Alright, It makes sense. Thanks for the reply, I really appreciate it. I also wanted to report:
1. A serious bug:
When I run "MS Office Powerpoint 2016" in isolation, it works fine but if I put it in slide show mode (F5) everything freezes so I have to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete, only then I realize Rehips has an alert in the background. It says powerpoint.exe is trying to run wisptis.exe. I have no idea why the alert window doesn't stay on top! ok, after allowing that (with allow only for once option), Powerpoint still remains hanged!
Edit: I have modified the "default.rdb" database before installation (shrinking the list to Windows pre-installed apps only) and added office apps to isolated apps list later. Maybe the default "default.rdb" file Allows the operation and such problem never happens there but still I wonder why the alert window doesn't show itself on top of other windows causing the issue.
Edit-2: I tested this on another computer and everything works fine. Apparently there is a problem with this computer. I'm so sorry, please ignore this till I find out what is going on.
2. A few minor bugs:
A) When running full-screen applications (like a full-screen youtube video in a browser) , the isolation taskbar sometimes stays on top and sometimes it doesn't and I'm not sure why.
Edit: I think I'm getting the hang of it. With a few clicks on isolation taskbar and isolated app/video, it hides. so probably not an issue here. sorry.
B) In the Allowed section (tab) of Rules Database, I can not change the "ignore file modification" state of any of the programs listed. It always reverts back to "checked" state no matter what! This is actually a cool feature and I think unchecking that option makes Rehips compare sha512 hashes. BTW, The option works fine with programs listed in the Isolated tab!
Edit: OK, it seems it's behavior is dependent on the current protection mode. I'm a bit confused.
C) For some reason On-Screen Keyboard (osk.exe) can not run in isolation! It's a windows accessibility app and might be important for some users.

That said, your software is awesome 

ps: Don't you think the forum needs a "known issues" section, with descriptions and links to original posts. Users (like me) could have a quick look at that post before reporting here.

69

ReHIPS / Re: Ask Questions Here - ReHIPS Features & Unexpected Behaviors

« Last post by fixer on February 26, 2020, 11:28:59 am »

1. UAC is not a security boundary. In other words, it's for usability/foolproofing, not for real security. So it's bypassable and it may not even be considered a bug. ReHIPS on the other hand relies on security boundaries. And if they somehow are bypassed, it's considered a serious bug (usually with CVE) and will be patched by MS in a prioritized manner. And even successful exploits for unpatched OS sometimes get caught by ReHIPS trying to spawn additional processes. As an additional anti-elevation measure ReHIPS can block spawning elevated processes by isolated ones. To further tighten the security ReHIPS has second and third protection echelons, but they're for corporate environments.

2. Doesn't really matter. It'll be visible enough when an isolated program requests elevation. If you don't expect it to do so, just deny. It's more of a usability thing than security. Showing the prompt increases number of questions OS asks the user on one hand, but on the other hand it won't block something silently leaving the user wondering why it doesn't work.

70

ReHIPS / Re: Ask Questions Here - ReHIPS Features & Unexpected Behaviors

« Last post by winuser on February 25, 2020, 09:26:57 pm »

Hi, two questions about Rehips isolation

1. Considering both Rehips and Windows with default settings:
Isolation is mostly based on OS built-in access management, right? So what if an isolated malware bypasses those restrictions? Remember NotPetya malware?! That malware could bypass standard user account (SUA) restrictions with no UAC prompt and could gain administrative privilege. I just mentioned that malware as an example so you guys better understand what i mean here.
Imagine a malware (capable of bypassing SUA) running in Rehips isolated user account. Here is my question: What does Rehips do to prevent elevation of that malware? Does it have any mitigation technique to stop privilege escalation?


2. Should I change the following Group Policy setting:
"User Account Control: Behavior of the elevation prompt for standard users"
To:
"Automatically deny elevation requests" ?
Does it make Rehips isolation safer? Or am i just being paranoid?


I have to use an admin user account and that's why i use Rehips isolation in the first place. Any help would be greatly appreciated.