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From: mazlack@ernie.BERKELEY.EDU (Lawrence J. &)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: copy protection
Message-ID: <11016@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Mon, 18-Nov-85 19:10:56 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.11016
Posted: Mon Nov 18 19:10:56 1985
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Reply-To: mazlack@ernie.UUCP (Lawrence J. Mazlack)
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Keywords: serial number copy protection

>	I don't want to come across as a believer in copy protection,
>I'm not.  (I also think that software houses often let greed play too
>large a role in setting their prices. They could undoubtably stop a
>lot of copying by lowering their prices.)

Actually, I think that developers should be able to have some form of
copy protection, they develop a product and should be paid for it.  What
annoys me is not being able to backup my OWN copies or transfer them to
hard disk.  How to solve this problem, I don't know.

>	Something that I have been toying with is another type of
>'soft' protection. A software company could inbed unique serial
>numbers in the software AND register these numbers at the time of
>sale. The serial number could be done in several places, each time
>encrypted in a different way. (Or better yet, linking subroutines in a
>different order in each copy, with the serial number being the order
>of the routines and linked in variables.  This would make it VERY
>difficult to erase the serial number!) It wouldn't prevent people from
>coping it. It would only make them think twice before they gave
>somebody a program that COULD be traced to them. Again, it would be
>possible to "file the engine block" in hopes of removing the tell-tale
>serial numbers, but the nagging fear that you might have missed one,
>and could be sued for damages for fathering hundreds of illegal copies
>would undoubtably stop many. 
>

I suspect that this wouldn't be very effective as I don't believe that
prosecution against or law suit against individuals is about to happen.
If it doesn't happen, such a scheme wouldn't be effective.  Sigh. Sob.

...Larry Mazlack MAZLACK@ERNIE.BERKELEY.EDU