>Not lost in all this, of course, is that if Microchip's disabling of ICSP or >disabling of internal reads can be undone, then the chip is never secure >anyway, regardless, making all this effort a waste of time. Does anyone >know of any way to crack the code protect options on this chip? Let's hope >microchip did their homework. If your code is really that valuable, then some one will get a programmed chip, and remove the epoxy so they can get at the bare chip. It would then be a reasonably simple process to erase the code protect bits and read your code. Especially if the person(s) involved are in any way familiar with the Microchip die layouts. Even if they were not familiar, it would not be too hard to figure out likely places to bombard with alpha particles to clear the relevant protection bits. Information on how to remove the epoxy has been on this list in the past - look for references to fuming nitric acid if I remember correctly. If this has already been covered by others, I apologize, but have just read this message while catching up after a holiday weekend, and busy week. -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.