Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!umich!samsung!sdd.hp.com!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!haven!udel!mmdf
From: kosma%human-torch@stc.lockheed.com (Monty Kosma)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: games & multitasking
Message-ID: <21407@snow-white.udel.EDU>
Date: 7 Jun 90 20:14:51 GMT
Sender: mmdf@udel.EDU
Lines: 26


   Bottom line..  I won't buy products that are protected, but if I had to make a
   choice between a dongle and any other form of protection, including disk copy
   protection, I would NOT choose the dongle.

   -larry

I agree 100%...but with this question for you, Larry: what's your opinion
on the "word in the manual" or codewheel types of protection?  Do you
buy those kind of products?  This seems to me to be the most reasonable
form of protection:  it doesn't really interfere with my work or using
a program (at least if it's done right, and I only have to give it the
word once per execution, AND it's not something that I have to execute
separately many times a day (like, I leave it running for a long time)),
and while it may not prevent a person from giving a copy to their friend
along with a xeroxed manual, it DOES prevent a faster, more widespread
distribution of the program--at least, as long as some pirate doesn't 
manage to eliminate the codeword stuff from the disk.  I don't have
any idea how hard this is to do with typical codeword algorithms (you
can encrypt stuff on the disk, but if somebody can watchdog the code
with a debugger, they might be able to crack it), but I would guess that
this has as good a chance if not better at staying uncracked as does
disk-based protection.


monty