Registration Keys

[HSalim]

Hello All:

Sorry for disappearing for the last few months. Fortunately, the Access
forums are as lively as ever.

I am looking for suggestions and comments from people who have implemented
some sort of registration mechanism in their applications. I am designing a
small application and would like to incorporate copy protection features.
This will be an add-on for Quickbooks.

I'm thinking of using a hash of the "site name", the ethernet MAC address
and a password to generate a registration key. As I see it, the weakness of
this approach is that:

1. It requires an ethernet device be present in the target machine. With
ethernet cards being so ubiquitous, I doubt it will be a major problem.
(It is possible that a machine may have more than one ethernet device, -
thanks to the growing acceptance of wireless technologies, so I realize I
must plan for that as well)

2. Registration keys can be generated only after the buyer installs the
software and contacts us for the reg keys.

3. In the unlikely event that the customer replaces the ethernet card, a new
registration key will have to be generated. This is such an infrequent
occurance that I do not think it will pose a great administrative burden.

Yes, we may lose business from customers who refuses to install an ethernet
card in their system, but so be it.
(I realize they are small businesses and may object to additional expenses).

Your thoughts/ ideas/criticisms are most welcome.

Regards
HS

 

[HSalim]

Thanks for the input.
Yes, I'll agree that it can be irritating, and we'd rather not have
disgruntled customers.

We are trying hard to keep the retail price very low - which means we are
going to have to sell a lot of units to recover initial development and to
continue to support the product.

I'll consider not using the MAC address if I can find another way to
minimize piracy (the more enterprising pirates will surely find a way to
hack it, anyway).

Our thougts were that the ethernet card is replaced rather infrequently.
The customer may never have to
re-register the product, and if they ever do, we'll be happy to send out new
reg keys at no cost...

Regards
HS