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From: slerner@sesame.UUCP (Simcha-Yitzchak Lerner)
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: what's wrong with this protection?
Message-ID: <231@sesame.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 30-Jul-85 23:37:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: sesame.231
Posted: Tue Jul 30 23:37:02 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 1-Aug-85 07:52:33 EDT
References: <785@aluxe.UUCP>
Organization: Lotus Development Corp
Lines: 32

> I think that instead of wasting their(software companies) money on some
> doo-dad the family Rover will inevitably chew up, they should have put their
> money into developing a small (2 inch maybe) removable optical disc(YES a CD
> ROM!) Transfer rates at winnie rates, cheap(look at your local record store),
> not reproducible(at least not yet!) and relatively immune to environmental
> factors(dogs excluded!).

I have a few problems with this.  First, a key ring (the equivilant of
the CD player) will cost <$25 in bulk.  Some vendors may give them away
so that people will be able to run their protected software.  I don't
see many PC's with CD players yet, and a vendor sure as #$&^ won't be
able to give those away.  Therefore, the cost becomes prohibitive until
CDs become common in the marketplace...

A more serious problem, at least in terms of technical corectness:
The software _theif_ doesn't need to copy the CD onto another CD, he
can just copy the software onto a floppy.  (Don't say that we could
encrypt the CD to avoid this, you get into the same jamb that you 
have now.  How do you multi-task if you spend all your time switching
CDs?)


-- 
Opinions expressed are public domain, and do not belong to Lotus
Development Corp.
----------------------------------------------------------------

Simcha-Yitzchak Lerner

              {genrad|ihnp4|ima}!wjh12!talcott!sesame!slerner
                      {cbosgd|harvard}!talcott!sesame!slerner
                                slerner%sesame@harvard.ARPA