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From: karl@sugar.UUCP (Karl Lehenbauer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Copy protection: A marketing analysis
Message-ID: <437@sugar.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 28-Jul-87 12:35:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: sugar.437
Posted: Tue Jul 28 12:35:26 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 2-Aug-87 10:49:08 EDT
References: <8707171737.AA01789@THYME.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Organization: Sugar Land UNIX - Houston, TX
Lines: 28
Summary: market and use gizmos like satellite video distributors use the encryption box

In article <8707171737.AA01789@THYME.LCS.MIT.EDU>, atheybey@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU writes:
> Great.  So what happens in this mythical happy world where all
> software comes with gizmos?  What if I own 10 programs, each of which
> came with a gizmo, and the gizmos are unmarked?  ...

If everyone or most companies agreed on using dongles for copy protection, it
would conceivably be possible to have only one dongle per computer.  You
would send your gizmo ID number along with your payment to the company whose
software you're buying.  They then send you a copy customized for your dongle.

This is the way the Video Cipher II works.  You send HBO your VC-II number and
they send you a monthly authorization code for HBO based on your number and the
number they are downloading to all the boxes each month.

This has some obvious drawbacks, which I will go on and list along with what I
think is the amount of impact:

1)  No instant gratification.  You have to mail your payment to the company
    and wait for your special version of the program to arrive before using
    it.  (major)

2)  The company has to be able to write individually different versions of
    the disk.  This wipes out mass duplication by existing means. (major)

3)  The company has to trust that groups of the buyers don't have hacked
    dongles (with the same ID) and pass the program around. (minor)

4)  Pirates will still hack the program to run without the dongle.  (major)