Finally, something I can offer some advice to !!
Dan I agree with the sentiments of the other respondees to your
question, but you've gotta do something to slow down some of the
pirates, don't you ?
We don't do many shrink wrapped apps, but recently I was talked into
producing a custom wine labelling thang that was going to be sold
on-line (down-loadable) and in stores (via CD). We used a scheme that
seems to have had some success for us over the years, without putting
too much hassle on the customers, although it's far from "NATO" secure!!
We use embedded code to get the drive serial number the app is loaded on
(running from) and scramble it via an algorithm to generate a "challenge
key", which we then ask the customer for when registering the product.
We then have a little app in-house that generates the unlock key from
the challenge key, this app is also a database that keeps track of whom
has got what keys. If it's a downloaded copy we know who purchased it
and will log the challenge and resulting unlock keys in case somebody
"looses" their unlock key. With the CD version we print a randomly
generated CD Key label (stuck /*inside */the case) and ask the customers
for that, along with their challenge key, before we will issue an unlock
key. The CD Key also gets logged in the db along with customer details.
We only sell CD's to distributors and have no idea who the end customer
is until they call us for an unlock key, so in essence, the CD Key is
proof of purchase of the CD.
An added benefit for us is that by keeping track of who is using the s/w
allows us to contact them should there be an update. Of course we
/*never */have bugs, so that's not a problem ;-)
We feel that the casual pirate will think twice before trying to get a
new unlock key from us, although we fully expect to allow people to move
drives/PC's by giving them a limited number of unlock keys.
I'd willingly let you have a copy of the code/stacks (minus the
encryption algorithm !!) but unfortunately it's written in Perl. We did
have a version written in ToolBook OpenScript some time ago, so it can
be done in a script-based language with no problem.
HTH, Bob...
Has anyone come up with a decent way to deal with piracy? I'm getting
ready to release a commercial application and wondered if there is
anyway to stop someone from just giving it to a friend. [I would like
my application to function off-line. So, doing a look-up via the web
is out.] Any thoughts, ideas or solutions out there? Thank you in
advance, Dan
--
Robert J. Earp - Ashford Training Technologies*
*18059 21A Avenue, South Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. V3S 9V7
T:(1)604 541 1662 Cel:(1)604 612 6688 F:(1)604 541 1686
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