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From: wetter@tybalt.caltech.edu (Pierce T. Wetter)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.misc
Subject: Re: Copy protection and the consumer
Message-ID: <5255@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Date: 20 Jan 88 23:07:38 GMT
References: <4663@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <3823@husc6.harvard.edu> <1319@looking.UUCP>
Sender: news@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu
Reply-To: wetter@tybalt.caltech.edu.UUCP (Pierce T. Wetter)
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Lines: 47


  > Stuff about Hardware keys...
>
>The only thing it stops is running the same software on multiple machines.
>The only legitimate reasons for this are:
>	a) One machine is replaced, either due to upgrade or hardware failure,
>	   or a user changes machines
>	b) A user wishes to use the same package at home or at work, or in
>	   two offices
>	c) A consultant wishes to use the software at a large variety of
>	   sites.
>
>As for A and B, as long as the vendor is reasonable, this does not present
>a problem.  Most vendors would be glad to handle machine upgrade for free,
>and dual machine use for a minor fee, if not free.
>
>Part C is the only problem.  Either vendors must be willing to grant
>special licences to such users, provide portable hardware serial numbers
>(dongles) for such special cases, or come to some other arrangement with
>that small group of customers.

   Actually, part A+B, in my experience, are real problems. There is a package
for the PC called CC which requires a hardware key. The problem is that the key
which hangs off the serial or parallel port (two versions) doesn't work with
certain configurations.  In other words it does something special to the serial
card which only works for certain serial cards/clones/unix coprocessing boards.
Because of this they have sent us over five differnt keys. To this day, the
program will occasionally get confused and refuse to go on having mis-read the
key. (sigh)

 As for just reading a serial number out of rom or os/2 two or whatever,
have you seen the statistics for pc failures? Or the time-span between dos
versions?

  Pierce Wetter

Basically, Hardware keys suck.

Parkinson's Fifth Law:
	If there is a way to delay in important decision, the good
	bureaucracy, public or private, will find it.

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wetter@tybalt.caltech.edu

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