Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ucbvax!UCSCB.UCSC.EDU!lupin3
From: lupin3@UCSCB.UCSC.EDU (-=/ Larry Hastings /=-)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: An Idea for Hardware Protection
Message-ID: <8801110748.AA08867@ucscb.UCSC.EDU>
Date: 11 Jan 88 07:48:19 GMT
References: <8801090958.AA20842@ucscb.UCSC.EDU> <559@gethen.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: lupin3%ucscb.UCSC.EDU@ucscc.UCSC.EDU
Organization: Uncle Charlies Summer Camp (UC Santa Cruz)
Lines: 57

+-In article <559@gethen.UUCP>, farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren) wrote:-
+----------
|
| In article <8801090958.AA20842@ucscb.UCSC.EDU> lupin3%ucscb.UCSC.EDU@ucscc.UCSC.EDU writes:
| >  The upshot?  You get your new computer home, stick in the dongle, close the
| >door.  Click through all the System Requesters it wants, as above.  You buy
| >a neat new game, stick it in, imprint it with your serial #.  Play a while,
| >decide you want to show this neat new game to your neighbor, who has also
| >bought one of these new computers.  You take out your disk, and also take
| >out your dongle.  Go over, and stick your dongle on to the end of his, and
| >you're set to go.
| 
| How about this upshot, instead:  you take out your disk, and take out
| your dongle.  In the process, one of the pins on the dongle gets damaged
| (as it will, invariably, if you do the old in-out-in-out enough).
| When you get over to your friends, you try and insert your dongle into
| his computer.  It seems to go in o.k., but the pin you've previously
| damaged has shorted the five volt supply directly to an input pin on
| his computer's dongle port, burning it out.  The next time he tries
| to use his own dongle, nothing happens.  He then comes over to your
| house with a ten-pound sledge hammer, which he proceeds to apply to
| your computer, with enthusiasm.
| 
| Dongles:  just say "Jeez, what a STUPID idea!"
|
+----------

  I was thinking the dongle would be on a 9 pin serial, the male end being
in the computer... you know, like the mouse and joystick ports on the Amiga?
I have never run into any pins getting damaged on those (in my years of using
Atari 2600s, C-64s, Atari computers, Amigas....)
  Also, how often would you be taking out your dongle?  Not all that often;
besides, what I would do (if these hypothetical computers came with 2 dongles,
like they should) would be leave one in the computer all the time, and take
the second one over to my friend's...
  And I like the idea of dongles better than the idea of having software
companies spending money to try to protect software, and it all being for
naught...

+----------
|
| Michael J. Farren             | "INVESTIGATE your point of view, don't just 
| {ucbvax, uunet, hoptoad}!     | dogmatize it!  Reflect on it and re-evaluate
|         unisoft!gethen!farren | it. You may want to change your mind someday."
| gethen!farren@lll-winken.llnl.gov ----- Tom Reingold, from alt.flame 
|
+----------
-- 
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     ^v^v^vBoy, I'm glad I don't live in an alternate universe!^v^v^v
Disclaimer: All original text above was pointless & random, & it makes me proud.
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