Neutronium Digital Rights Management Platform

In late 2018 I started creating my own Garry’s Mod DRM to replace the terrible Lua-based DRMs created for the game. Previously developers were using ScriptEnforcer before it’s demise, so another DRM by the name of SecureGMod took its place. Unfortunately, both had severe issues, making it hard for developers to justify paying for or using them.

ScriptEnfocer

ScriptEnfocer was the first well-known DRM created by Phoenix and well used by the Garry’s Mod developer community. A few years later, the company suddenly shut down with no warning and caused a huge uproar and dislike for DRMs by the Garry’s Mod community.

SecureGMod

A few weeks later, after the demise of ScriptEnfocer, a new DRM named SecureGMod was announced to take its place. Boasting new features and better security than its predecessor, it was gaining support. Unfortunately, it had a few massive flaws that prevented it from being well adopted. One of them was Lua code would break a lot, which caused end-users and developers plenty of headaches; the other was how it handled licensing and server activations.

Neutronium

Originally I started this as a proof-of-concept and something for my portfolio; however, I decided to go all out and make it a full-blown production-ready-service with all the backend infrastructure to support thousands of servers and requests. Going this route was to test my skills and grow them while making something to replace SecureGMod since I had a few interested people.

Neutronium Digital Rights Management

I created Neutronium with a few key features in mind. It should never allow the user to capture the responses by manipulating the Lua code. It should keep the Lua scripts in memory long enough to inject it into the Lua engine, and last but not least, it needs to be dumb enough for the average end-user to understand and utilize.

Cross-Platform Compatibility

Neutronium uses a C++ Dynamic Link Library (DLL) compatible with UNIX/Linux and Windows Operating Systems to allow for Linux or Windows-based server hosting usage.

Game Resusablity

Aside from being cross-platform ready, I also wanted it to be usable with other games like Onset so that developers or end-users could use the DRM for other games.

Security & Cryptography

My lack of math skills only hinders my fascination with Cryptography. However, that doesn’t stop me from making a 500kb fort-knocks. I created Neutronium with plenty of things to make decryption or capture of the scripts hard; no DRM will ever be un-crackable, but I can sure as hell make it unrelenting and time-consuming!

Neutronium Features

Now to what makes Neutronium better than ScriptEnfocer and SecureGMod.

• Script developers can create unlimited license keys, unlimited script uploads, and script updates.
• Cryptographically protected scripts using SHA-256-CBC.
• Each developer has a unique encryption key stored on a FIPS-140 Level 2 HSM server.
• Choose from licensing or use cryptographically protected only scripts.
• Machine Hardware ID’s are used to protect from multiple unauthorized installs.
• End-User License activations are limited to 5 servers each and are user revocable to re-claim server activations.
• License keys can be suspended and re-activated.
• Verification before encryption using PGP public keys to ensure anti-tampering of published scripts.
• Hot-updates allow some game servers to get the latest Lua scripts without restarting.

V1.0 Developer Scripts Web Interface

Garrys Mod Usage

Cryptographically Protected Script instead of Licensed

Garrys Mod Server Console Output of Protected Lua