CompuServe Messages

The inner workings of hardware locks are pretty much secrets of the manufacturer, but it basically invovles giving the hardware lock a password and seed value(s), it then returns recongition values that are checked by the program.. if they match, away you go. Considering that a hardware lock is sitting on a printer port, it would not be wise to put any kind of computational hardware into the lock itself. The hardware lock is needed on PCs because, unlike workstations, their is no unique machine ID that can be used for software locking–many schemes have been tried, but few are bulletproof… Memory-managers generally screw up most of them. Many people cling to 'horror' stories of hardware locks, but the are fairly reliable now (particurlarly if you go with a big-name lock manufacturer). There are problems, but any locking scheme will have problems. Software locking works ok, but thanks to the problem noted above, it seldom is 100% compatable with all systems. 3D Studio Release 2 and 3 use the hardware lock… Release 1 got pirated pretty badly.