Commercial copy protection?

[Paul Bromley]

Not sure if I can ask the question in this forum - please let me know if it
is better elsewhere. Does anyone know of a reasonably priced good copy
protection program that will protect software on either a machine only or
network range basis?? I have just found Shareguard that looks reasonably
priced. My applications are for vertical market and are not likely to be
cracked, BUT users are likely to pass working versions around if not
licensed. I have tried the option of releasing full products with requests
for contributions, but out of a fairly large user base, only a couple of
kind souls have made any contribution. Willing to pay a reasonable amount
for the right product.

Best wishes


Paul Bromley

 

[Guest]

You might look at Software Passport (formerly known as Armadillo) at
http://siliconrealms.com/armadillo.shtml.

Bob Flenniken

 

[Blake]

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?

 

[Rad [Visual C# MVP]]

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

 

[Blake]

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.

 

[Paul Bromley]

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

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.

 

[Cor Ligthert [MVP]]

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

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

 

[Paul Bromley]

Hi Cor,

I am not sure what you mean by this. I am not doing anything malevolent that
would cause any damage. Can you clarify this? I assume from your first
paragraph that there is no unique identifier, although the hard disk serial
number is sufficient for me if it is available from XP, Win2K and Vista.

Paul

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

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

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

 

[RobinS]

I think he means that if you base the licensing on something in
the hardware, and they change the hardware, and your program
no longer works, you could be liable for damages, unless you
tell them about it up front.

Kind of like Microsoft's program disabled Windows on lots of
machines after they pushed out that program to check for
validity.

iTunes does this, too -- their DRM is based on something in
the hardware. When my drive crashed and I had to replace it,
the next time I tried to play some of my purchased music,
I had to register the computer as a new computer.

Cor, do I have that right?

Robin S.
-----------------------------------

Hi Cor,

I am not sure what you mean by this. I am not doing anything
malevolent that would cause any damage. Can you clarify this? I assume
from your first paragraph that there is no unique identifier, although
the hard disk serial number is sufficient for me if it is available
from XP, Win2K and Vista.

Paul

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

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


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

 

[Paul Bromley]

Ok Robin and Cor,

I understand where you are coming from with this one now. They will be fully
informed. Better still I will be more than happy to give them a new serial
if this is the case - I have no intention of taking their money and then
stitching them up. Just the opposite as for the last 3-4 years the users
have been using my software for nothing. I am selling to sites that are
likely to install on 10 - 20 machines and do not want them buying one copy
when they should be buying more or a site licence. Until now I have been
producing time-limited software free of charge requiring the users to use a
new exe file every 6 months or so. This was to allow them to try it out and
for me to sort out the problems in the beta stage. These users are now
saying that they are more than happy to pay rather than keep messing about
with new exe files.

Paul Bromley

I think he means that if you base the licensing on something in
the hardware, and they change the hardware, and your program
no longer works, you could be liable for damages, unless you
tell them about it up front.

Kind of like Microsoft's program disabled Windows on lots of
machines after they pushed out that program to check for
validity.

iTunes does this, too -- their DRM is based on something in
the hardware. When my drive crashed and I had to replace it,
the next time I tried to play some of my purchased music,
I had to register the computer as a new computer.

Cor, do I have that right?

Robin S.
-----------------------------------

Hi Cor,

I am not sure what you mean by this. I am not doing anything malevolent
that would cause any damage. Can you clarify this? I assume from your
first paragraph that there is no unique identifier, although the hard
disk serial number is sufficient for me if it is available from XP, Win2K
and Vista.

Paul

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" <[email protected]> schreef in bericht
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


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

 

[Guest]

Not sure if I can ask the question in this forum - please let me know
if it is better elsewhere. Does anyone know of a reasonably priced
good copy protection program that will protect software on either a
machine only or network range basis?? I have just found Shareguard
that looks reasonably priced. My applications are for vertical market
and are not likely to be cracked, BUT users are likely to pass working
versions around if not licensed. I have tried the option of releasing
full products with requests for contributions, but out of a fairly
large user base, only a couple of kind souls have made any
contribution. Willing to pay a reasonable amount for the right
product.

You may want to obfuscate your code too - .NET code is rather easy to
reverse engineer (even for someone that is not skilled).

VS.NET comes with a free limited feature obfuscator.

 

[Paul Bromley]

Thanks - I have not done this - will look into it.

Paul Bromley

 

[Paul Bromley]

Forgot to say, but backtracking a little, if I could just find a foolproof
way of determing the ACTIVE IP address of the PC on the network in XP, Win2K
and Vista, then this would solve my problem. Unfortunately even on my test
site, I have not been able to achieve this.

Best wishes

Paul Bromley

Ok Robin and Cor,

I understand where you are coming from with this one now. They will be
fully informed. Better still I will be more than happy to give them a new
serial if this is the case - I have no intention of taking their money and
then stitching them up. Just the opposite as for the last 3-4 years the
users have been using my software for nothing. I am selling to sites that
are likely to install on 10 - 20 machines and do not want them buying one
copy when they should be buying more or a site licence. Until now I have
been producing time-limited software free of charge requiring the users to
use a new exe file every 6 months or so. This was to allow them to try it
out and for me to sort out the problems in the beta stage. These users are
now saying that they are more than happy to pay rather than keep messing
about with new exe files.

Paul Bromley

I think he means that if you base the licensing on something in
the hardware, and they change the hardware, and your program
no longer works, you could be liable for damages, unless you
tell them about it up front.

Kind of like Microsoft's program disabled Windows on lots of
machines after they pushed out that program to check for
validity.

iTunes does this, too -- their DRM is based on something in
the hardware. When my drive crashed and I had to replace it,
the next time I tried to play some of my purchased music,
I had to register the computer as a new computer.

Cor, do I have that right?

Robin S.
-----------------------------------

Hi Cor,

I am not sure what you mean by this. I am not doing anything malevolent
that would cause any damage. Can you clarify this? I assume from your
first paragraph that there is no unique identifier, although the hard
disk serial number is sufficient for me if it is available from XP,
Win2K and Vista.

Paul



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" <[email protected]> schreef in bericht
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


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

 

[Cor Ligthert [MVP]]

Right,

I think he means that if you base the licensing on something in
the hardware, and they change the hardware, and your program
no longer works, you could be liable for damages, unless you
tell them about it up front.

Kind of like Microsoft's program disabled Windows on lots of
machines after they pushed out that program to check for
validity.

iTunes does this, too -- their DRM is based on something in
the hardware. When my drive crashed and I had to replace it,
the next time I tried to play some of my purchased music,
I had to register the computer as a new computer.

Cor, do I have that right?

Robin S.
-----------------------------------

Hi Cor,

I am not sure what you mean by this. I am not doing anything malevolent
that would cause any damage. Can you clarify this? I assume from your
first paragraph that there is no unique identifier, although the hard
disk serial number is sufficient for me if it is available from XP, Win2K
and Vista.

Paul

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" <[email protected]> schreef in bericht
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


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

 

[RobinS]

You can always put it in the EULA that pops up when we all install
software that none of us read but are legally bound by. For all we
know, we've given permission to Microsoft to come to our houses
for Christmas dinner.

Robin S.
-----------------------------

Ok Robin and Cor,

I understand where you are coming from with this one now. They will be
fully informed. Better still I will be more than happy to give them a
new serial if this is the case - I have no intention of taking their
money and then stitching them up. Just the opposite as for the last
3-4 years the users have been using my software for nothing. I am
selling to sites that are likely to install on 10 - 20 machines and do
not want them buying one copy when they should be buying more or a
site licence. Until now I have been producing time-limited software
free of charge requiring the users to use a new exe file every 6
months or so. This was to allow them to try it out and for me to sort
out the problems in the beta stage. These users are now saying that
they are more than happy to pay rather than keep messing about with
new exe files.

Paul Bromley

I think he means that if you base the licensing on something in
the hardware, and they change the hardware, and your program
no longer works, you could be liable for damages, unless you
tell them about it up front.

Kind of like Microsoft's program disabled Windows on lots of
machines after they pushed out that program to check for
validity.

iTunes does this, too -- their DRM is based on something in
the hardware. When my drive crashed and I had to replace it,
the next time I tried to play some of my purchased music,
I had to register the computer as a new computer.

Cor, do I have that right?

Robin S.
-----------------------------------

Hi Cor,

I am not sure what you mean by this. I am not doing anything
malevolent that would cause any damage. Can you clarify this? I
assume from your first paragraph that there is no unique identifier,
although the hard disk serial number is sufficient for me if it is
available from XP, Win2K and Vista.

Paul



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" <[email protected]> schreef in bericht
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


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

 

[RobinS]

I don't think you can do that, because of DHCP. You can assume
it won't change, but you know what assuming does to you.

Robin S.
------------------------------------------

Forgot to say, but backtracking a little, if I could just find a
foolproof way of determing the ACTIVE IP address of the PC on the
network in XP, Win2K and Vista, then this would solve my problem.
Unfortunately even on my test site, I have not been able to achieve
this.

Best wishes

Paul Bromley

Ok Robin and Cor,

I understand where you are coming from with this one now. They will
be fully informed. Better still I will be more than happy to give
them a new serial if this is the case - I have no intention of taking
their money and then stitching them up. Just the opposite as for the
last 3-4 years the users have been using my software for nothing. I
am selling to sites that are likely to install on 10 - 20 machines
and do not want them buying one copy when they should be buying more
or a site licence. Until now I have been producing time-limited
software free of charge requiring the users to use a new exe file
every 6 months or so. This was to allow them to try it out and for me
to sort out the problems in the beta stage. These users are now
saying that they are more than happy to pay rather than keep messing
about with new exe files.

Paul Bromley

I think he means that if you base the licensing on something in
the hardware, and they change the hardware, and your program
no longer works, you could be liable for damages, unless you
tell them about it up front.

Kind of like Microsoft's program disabled Windows on lots of
machines after they pushed out that program to check for
validity.

iTunes does this, too -- their DRM is based on something in
the hardware. When my drive crashed and I had to replace it,
the next time I tried to play some of my purchased music,
I had to register the computer as a new computer.

Cor, do I have that right?

Robin S.
-----------------------------------
Hi Cor,

I am not sure what you mean by this. I am not doing anything
malevolent that would cause any damage. Can you clarify this? I
assume from your first paragraph that there is no unique
identifier, although the hard disk serial number is sufficient for
me if it is available from XP, Win2K and Vista.

Paul



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" <[email protected]> schreef in bericht
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


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

 

[HKSHK]

Dear Robin,

You can always put it in the EULA that pops up when we all install
software that none of us read but are legally bound by.

In Germany, this EULA would only be legal binding if the user knows it
before installing the software. So it must be on the box...

Best regards,

HKSHK

 

[RobinS]

That must be nice. Here in the U.S., you don't get to see
it until you've paid for the software, and then if you don't
agree with it, you can't return it because you opened the
package. How's *that* for a Catch-22?

Robin S.
----------------------------------------

 

[Blake]

Here, in Australia, contract law dictates that no conditions can be
applied after a sale, so the bits of paper inside the box or a click
thru screen agreements on boxed sw should technically be non-binding.

It's never been court tested to my knowledge though.

 

[Cor Ligthert [MVP]]

HKSHK,

I was in doubt if I would write this yesterday, however this is one of the
good laws created by the EU, it is not special Germany.



Cor