I think some of that is because of the price and availability of
Flash cards, too. Moving over to masked ROM greatly reduces the
cost overhead of producing handheld devices, which allows salespeople
to drop prices to a level that allow more people to afford Palms,
etc. Flash memory is an excellent technology, though, allowing VARs
the capability to reconfigure the default ROM to whatever our customer
specs are, and allowing manufacturers the capability to easily upgrade
older stock to new versions of the OS, keeping everything fresh. I
think if the manufacturing process of Flash cards were to be refined,
much like how RAM chips were in the 90's, then you'll see that more
units (if not all) will go with the Flash cards (which means a Flash
ID, but I digress).
But in all truth, all a independant device ID could accomplish is to
provide one more piece of "unique" identification, and allow our copy
protection routines to be more robust, etc. I still like the idea of
taking as much "unique" id as possible (User name, Flash ID, Springboard
Flash ID, etc.), and interleaving it using an independantly designed
algorithm to produce as individual a number as possible. But no, providing
the capability to "track" a number remotely was and is a really bad idea,
IMO. Corporations should always respect their end user's privacy, even
if it is something that only takes on the appearance of violating their
end user's privacy (but really doesn't).
-Rus
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Bradly J. Barton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
>Sent: Monday, October 30, 2000 9:01 AM
>To: Palm Developer Forum
>Subject: Re: Sigularity of each Palm device
>
>
>Nevermind that the horse is already out of the barn on this
>one. Not only do
>no pre-3.0 Palm devices have serial numbers, but neither do
>the Visors (at
>least the first round, I don't know about the Prism or Platinum) or the
>m100. I also seem to remember hearing something about the
>early V's and the
>Sony Clie also being sans serial number.. so you are eliminating a huge
>number of existing machines if you "require" a UID.
>
>The other side of that is that we have an easily extendible, real-world
>example of what happens when you try to etch an ID number into
>something
>like a CPU.. just ask Intel about their plan to include such a
>thing in the
>Pentium III... the public at large wouldn't stand for it.
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Nesse, Rustin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: "Palm Developer Forum" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Monday, October 30, 2000 10:46 AM
>Subject: RE: Sigularity of each Palm device
>
>
>> Especially if there is the capability to track the UID through a
>> wireless internet connection. But that aside, a UID would provide an
>> easy to retrieve key for copy protection code encryption. Of course,
>> if someone else were to retrieve that UID programmatically, then
>> reapply it directly to the code...crack! (Actually a keygen, but at
>> the very least, it might give you more time to market and sell your
>> software).
>>
>> -Rus
>>
>> >Since many people ask this question, maybe this is something
>> >Palm should
>> >address. With a device made to beam information to other
>> >devices, it seems
>> >like a good idea to have a unique identifier. Of course there
>> >is the privacy
>> >issue.
>> >__________________________________________
>> >Guy Duplantier
>> >Software Developer
>> >AEC Software, Inc.
>> >703-450-1980
>> >__________________________________________
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