Xref: utzoo comp.sys.mac.programmer:21077 comp.protocols.appletalk:5170
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer,comp.protocols.appletalk
Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!bnrgate!bwdls61.bnr.ca!bwdls56!fortinp
From: fortinp@bwdls56.bnr.ca (Pierre Fortin)
Subject: Re: Idea for painless copy protection
Message-ID: <1991Jan28.234133.27281@bwdls61.bnr.ca>
Summary: NOT on my network...
Sender: usenet@bwdls61.bnr.ca (Use Net)
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
References: <1991Jan27.144523.20674@phri.nyu.edu>
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 91 23:41:33 GMT

In article <1991Jan27.144523.20674@phri.nyu.edu>, roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) writes:
> 
> 	When the program starts up, it installs something which listens for
> broadcast packets to a specific port (my knowledge of appletalk is sketchy,
> but this is easy to do in IP and I'm assuming AT has some similar
> mechanism).  The program then sends out a broadcast packet to that port and
> listens for any responses.  The responses it would get back would contain
> the serial number of other copies of the program installed elsewhere on the
> same AT network.  If any S/N matched that of this copy, it would refuse to
> run.
> 
This is just the kind of solution which unfortunately will not scale...
Any product which goes out and searches our entire network of 230+ zones and
nearly 3000 Macs for duplicate serial numbers will not be accepted (read:
allowed) on our network.  We have already classed at least one such application 
as "personna non grata"...

If your application is a super-duper whiz-bang program that everyone will want,
then think about site licensing for big networks.

> --
> Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute


Cheers,                      
Pierre Fortin       fortinp@bnr.ca         (613)763-2598