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From: paul@wa1omm.UUCP (Paul MacDonald)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re:  Dongles to defeat piracy
Message-ID: <paul.5014@wa1omm.UUCP>
Date: 24 Dec 90 09:05:33 GMT
References: <910@macuni.mqcc.mq.oz> <9Baeu1w163w@kennels.actrix.gen.nz> <49025@sequent.UUCP> <654@cbmger.UUCP> <26039@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU>
Lines: 37

>In article <26039@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> pm0@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Patrick Martin) writes:
>
>I agree.  Dongles are a major pain in the butt.  I have only had one
>program that used a dongle and while it did defeat alot of the piracy,
>it was a major pain for us.  It fit into the joystick port 2 and it
>seemed like I could never find it when I needed it.
>
>Just what does a dongle do?  It seemed that there was nothing to this
>thing.  There were some of the holes which matched the prongs which were
>covered in metal and others which were not.  Is there some kind of
>integrated chip in there which contains information vital to the program
>or is there nothing to it?

I always looked at the dongle as a method for ensuring that users
registered their software. Precision is a popular manufacturer of
software that uses dongles. However, they will provide a "non-dongle"
version of their products for about $10 (Superbase products). Of course
for the $10, your name and address are encrypted into the code and
appear everytime you start the application.

I think companies that go to that effort must assume the additional
responsibilities of license transfers, and so on. I wonder how effective
those policies are at preventing piracy.
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