Re: Commercial copy protection?
- From: "Cor Ligthert [MVP]" <notmyfirstname@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2006 14:00:58 +0100
Paul,
If what you ask was in the PC, would you think that Microsoft had used the
expensive to handle and not so customer friendly authentication system.
I warn hundred times in this newsgroup that the route you are going can lead
to very high claim damages if you don't explicitly and very clear tell in
advance to the user that a damage on a part of the hardware can mean that
the program you are selling is completely not function anymore, even despite
your program has nothing to do with that hardware to function.
Just my thought,
Cor
"Paul Bromley" <flyfisher@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> schreef in bericht
news:%235C2oRFHHHA.3540@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi Blake and all,
I have gone a long way to 'rolling my own' solution that would be adequate
for me. My main problem at the moment is trying to find a unique
identifier for a PC running XP, Win2K and shortly vista. All PCs are
connected to the internet generally with one NIC card, and most PCs will
be 'stable' - i.e. I do not need to worry about drives being re-formatted.
I would like to implement protection so that my program be licensed in 2
ways - i.e. on a site basis, or as an individual PC. On a site basis, I
can easily obtain and check the IP address of the server, as I can obtain
this IP address from a piece of software that I know all sites will be
running. My main problem is the other option of allowing licensing per
PC - I need some unique identifier for any PC - but this must cover Win2K,
XP and shortly Vista.
I have looked at the commercial offerings and I think they will not cover
the licensing schemes that I need. Also I need implementation to be very
simple - by way of my generating a serial dependant on information they
send to me relating to either the standalone PCs or the server. I think
most will go for the server option, but I also need the standalone option.
I have done all the work on the encryption and checking side etc, and as I
say I am not worried about someone cracking what I am doing as it will not
really hapen in the vertical market where these products will go. I had
looked at the commercial options to save my time, but if I can quickly
sort out a unique PC identifier, then I have sorted what I wnated to do.
Last night I came across the Machine GUID in the registry - is this
present in XP and Win2K, and will this be resent in vista. I was looking
at the IP address, but on my development machine with a fixed and wireless
NIC, I have 3 IP addresses showing. Hard disk serial number would be fine,
but is this present on every PC that I am targeting.
Any solutions to the unique PC identifier would be gratefully received. I
never thought that this would be so difficult. Note - I need to pick this
unique idnetifier up without my client base having to install anything
apart form my programs.
Many thanks,
Paul Bromley
"Blake" <blake.ackland@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1165745061.593072.168020@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Yes.
Implementing a 'Real' protection system is very very hard, if not
impossible.
He specifically stated that his intention is not to stop skilled
crackers, but rather stopping users passing around copies freely within
his industry or org.
This should be fairly trivial.
A serial based on username and/or some hardware metric. (mac address?)
would be enough to stop this type of piracy. No expensive 3rd party sw
is needed for this type of protection.
Just enough incentive to make these users spend more of their bosses
money on a key rather than just moving an exe file to another pc.
Rad [Visual C# MVP] wrote:
On 9 Dec 2006 19:06:20 -0800, Blake wrote:
If you are not worried about skillful crackers breaking your
protection
system, why don't you roll your own? It should be fairly trivial to
write a routine to validate a serial or key.
The hard part is keeping that routine away from prying eyes, but as
you've stated it is not likely that 'real' crackers will have a go at
your apps, so simply obfuscating your assemblies and including a key
validating routine should be enough right?
Implementing your own protection system is much trickier than it sounds.
I
would not recommend going along that route. You need some professionally
done system like xheo licensing
http://xheo.com/products/enterprise/licensing/default.aspx
If cost is an issue you can also check out OpenLicense
http://openlicense.tigris.org/, which is free
--
Bits.Bytes
http://bytes.thinkersroom.com
.
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