Re: Uniquely identify my computer

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From: ECL (reply_at_group.for.all)
Date: 05/15/04 

Date: Sat, 15 May 2004 17:02:43 GMT

The company I work for is small and has been facing these issues for over a
year now, i.e. hackers cracking the licensing scheme. Mostly sites based in
China...now, we don't bother anymore. The owner says we should consider it
advertising, since we're paying for the services to make the software
available, but some months as many as 80% of all downloads are not
registered. Pretty expensive advertising.

On product price vs. hacking interest we find little or no correlation. Our
$20 utilities are hacked if not more often than the larger suites worth a
couple of hundred.

> LicenseKey
> Featured in the July-2001 Visual Basic Programmers Journal.
> http://www.killervb.com/Classes.aspx
>
Use this only to learn about doing what you need done. We tried this in the
beginning, and we were hacked within a month, even though we'd made changes
to the original code here.

Another alternative is something like ESellerate.net or someone else in that
business. They will process the sale and they have many options available
for selecting a licensing/activation model that suites your needs.

But hey, what do I know, I'm just an old man learning new tricks

Edwin C Lloyd
"Ken Halter" <Ken_Halter@Use_Sparingly_Hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:eeL%23AgEOEHA.1392@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> Debbie wrote:
> > Rich
> > Playing the devil's advocate here.
> > Wouldn't you like to know that others are not getting for free the same
> > software that you have paid for.
>
> That's a good point... similar to a situation I was in a while back. I
> tried and tried to get a PO for a certain control library. Just before
> it was signed, the author gave up and released the stuff as freeware.
> I'm thinking that he ticked a lot of people off that recently paid $750
> for the library (but I got over it when I got it for free <g>).
>
> > Its like saying honest people have to pay and then have to tolerate
people
> > who do not pay and use copied software because it is just too much
trouble
> > or whatever the reason to protect the honest people.
>
> Protecting your app against the casual pirates seems like the best way
> to go. There's nothing fool proof enough to protect it against all
> hackers. It *is* the honest people that really have to deal with the
> protection so make it as easy on them as possible. (I need a bit more
> work on my protection scheme to make that happen but it's fairly smooth)
>
> WinZip is a good example of a great program with minimal protection
> that's easy to deal with. You register the program to get rid of the nag
> screen and they email you a license key. Of course, there's nothing
> keeping people from simply supplying that key to all of their friends
> (or posting on a crack/serials site) if their friends don't mind the
> registered owners name popping up everytime they launch the app.
>
> > You guys are correct, there is really no 1 solution here.
>
> You might want to start with something like this. Since the source comes
> with it (and it's free), you can modify its behavior at will.
>
> LicenseKey
> Featured in the July-2001 Visual Basic Programmers Journal.
> http://www.killervb.com/Classes.aspx
>
>
> --
> Ken Halter - MS-MVP-VB - http://www.vbsight.com
> Please keep all discussions in the groups..

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