viewtopic.php?f=100&t=272248
This topic is for ideas about possible fully-offline activation methods (if we can think of any) and related things.
I hope we'll manage to avoid flame wars with this one - though I understand if IL staff decide to insta-delete this thread anyway
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Here's what I've been thinking:
Perhaps one possible solution could be personal activation keycodes used in combination with installers and .exe files personalized for each licensee, loaded with user ID string hashed several times from user data (so that only IL could decode and trace it).
Of course, eventually crackers will intercept a copy and put it out in the wild, but:
- it'd stop the practice of sharing a .reg file that works for all copies: users distributing the app to "friends" would have to share their personal installer and keycode, with higher risk of revocation of their license
- an encrypted list of compromised keys could be included in updates, so that each new version of the app would reject already-leaked keys. The installer is nearly a gigabyte already, so a compressed list with few hundred thousand lines of encrypted keys won't add that much (?)
- the app should still try to phone home if an internet connection is available - this would reveal some of tech-ignorant license sharers, but cause no problems for legitimate users who keep their DAWs completely offline
- getting into "devious" territory: upon identification of a compromised key being used, the app would modify itself (and possibly its installer, if the path is still there) to become non-operational,
OR
the app would continue working - perhaps without alerting the user - but add a steganographic signature to everything rendered from it and played by it. If done right (signature survives lossy encoding etc.), the warezed versions and compromised keys could be identified by IL from music and streams made with them. It might also yield some interesting PR and piracy deterrence opportunities - this is more of a "pain in the nikta", but including some license-checking online components in separate executable(s) from the main app could also help. Warezers will of course know about it, but again, some percentage of low-effort sharers would fail to block it in their firewalls before it phones home.
In general, if it becomes common knowledge that shared and cracked versions must be kept offline, that in itself could nowadays act as a deterrent to some extent.
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I'm sure IL staff have thought of most of these things already, but I suppose there's no harm in listing such ideas...