Protection against draining firmware from Arduino, is it necessary?

Question

Arduino

The background of the question is as follows, some time ago, I was developing a device on a microcontroller, where, among other things, it was required to provide copy protection / firmware research, as it was known for certain that the device would be tried to be copied. The situation was complicated by the fact that it was necessary to ensure the possibility of updating the firmware, and I still had to “invent” a crypto bootloader.
And then I remembered about arduino, which is also sewn through the bootloader, which means that the chip itself can be reliably protected from writing / reading / debugging by physically destroying the corresponding structure in the crystal.

Now, the actual question is, does anyone need it? At least hypothetically?
Are developers on Durin interested in protecting their intellectual property?

This can be in the form of a custom Arduino compatible board, featuring only a minor change in programming scheme, to work with both regular and secure chips.
Or scarves like ArduinoPro or ArduinoProMini with protected stones, and a special lanyard for programming.

On the one hand, Arduino is solid DIY and fun, and there seems to be nothing to protect here.
On the other hand, durin is widely used for prototyping, by non-professional hardware workers, and sometimes it even ends up in commercial products!
I myself am a hardened piece of iron, so I don’t quite understand the topic of Arduino, and I ask everyone who has a practical relationship with it to express their opinion.

Answer 1

Correctly above comrade wrote. There is native protection. If for some reason you plan to use Arduino as a platform for distributing your software with protection, then flash your bootloader identical to the original one but with cryptography support. You can, for example, add DES or AES loaders from atmel appnotes... But somehow the meaning subtly disappears...

Answer 2

“LockBit for fuse, profit” But we didn’t know that everything is so simple :-)
But I hasten to disappoint you, in Moscow reading a locked atmega will cost you five thousand rubles. No vigorous acids, lasers and microscopes, everything is much more prosaic, for twelve thousand euros you can buy such a device , well, or make it yourself on the basis of one national HV programmer ...
The funny thing is that the method is based on some kind of "logical error" , surprisingly characteristic of various chip manufacturers. In exactly the same way, lock bits are reset for PIKs, Motor Scooters, and many others. Yes, yes, it is reset, that is, the chip can then be returned to the device and it will work the same way, but with ISP, JTAG, OneWire enabled :-)

Answer 3

Well, no, please. Let's take a primitive example. ATmega8AU. Links to offices or equipment in the studio. And do not confuse - do you accidentally remove the fuse with reading the firmware? And then you can rearrange the HV programmer and fuses, only here “The Boot Lock Bits can be set in software and in Serial or Parallel Programming mode, but they can be cleared by a chip erase command only”
I do not deny that this is possible hypothetically - only I am sure that if everything were so simple, the bug would have been closed 100 years ago. Which is what they did, in fact.

Answer 4

Googled specially. I found a couple of offices that offer similar services, but I just didn’t see prices for 5tr and an HV programmer anywhere. I remember in the swag there was an article about reverse engineering with an analysis of consumption, etc., yes, it’s possible, probably, but, as I wrote above, “here is the case when removing protection will cost more than developing an analogue.”