CompuServe Messages

Hardware Locks?

    23-Mar-94 12:03:58
Sb: #92717-Hardware Locks?
Fm: Syndesis 76004,1763
To: Dale Good 71053,2007
When you have the source code to a 1 meg executable, it's easy to confound dongle-crackers. Think about it: you could pepper the code with various checks. You could make life a living hell for someone who actually tries to *use* the program, by making the program die a million ways because the program realizes that one of the million checks failed. The average pirate cracker won't work the program hard enough to find each and every check. The casual pirate will decide it's not worth it, and either stop using the cracked program, or buy a regular copy.