Security

[robi]

Is there away that you can security protect your application so it can not be copyed?

[z33z]

How secure must it be?

[robi]

Secure enough so it cannot be copyed.

EG {windows cannot copy this file because it is protected}

[xyzzy]

i don't think that's possible given expensive programs would have used it yet they're pirated left and right

[z33z]

If you want control over who has the program (ie. they must "register" somehow), you could create an id based on that computer (harddisk, MAC, cpu id etc and mix it so they can't easily see it) and then send this information to you when they register, you have an application which uses the computer specific data to create a serial number.

That means that if they move the application to another computer, it won't work (the application must use the computer id to match with the serial), and the same thing if they try to install it on another computer, using the serial for the other computer, it won't work.

The only secret here is the way you create the serial number from computer specific data..

If you do it correctly it will stop some pirates at least. But nothing is secure.

[James]

And then they get a new piece of hardware and your software no longer works. It's not exactly hard to reverse engineer the program and find out how it generates the serial, either.

[z33z]

1. You combine the computer print from some sources, and say if 3 out of 4 is correct then it's ok..
And you don't change hardware that often.

2. Nope, not hard, but would still stop some of the crackers, and I'm not sure that the serious ones will find the application interesting enough to spend time on it..

[Steven]

As long as you stop 'casual' crackers you'll be fine. You'll never be able to stop people who really want to crack your app/game and it isn't worth your time either.

[Ravenius]

But when thinking about click games, I don't think it's really a problem. Just a simple serial key is enough in my opinion.

[robi]

How would I go making this sytem with serial numbers then or using other techniuqes.