"Kirk Bailey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote >I aam writing some software which calls for some unreadable code >in > it to let me secretly set a registration key- it is to be > shareware.
You don;t need to use a registration key for shareware. Other much easier options are: 1) Rely on the honesty of your users. 2) Provide good quality documentation in pa[per only format to buyers Of course nothing is foolproof and whatever you do will be hacked and free copies will become available so ultimately you will always rely on honesty. That is the nature of shareware... > I know this can be done, but have not the foggiest clue of how todo > it. There are lots of options, some dont even require you to distribute a key since the key can be an encrypted form of the users email address or user name (which is usually obtainable via an environent variable...). Another option is to use the checksum of the file itself, or the MAC id of the computer. Another option is to have an open key in the distribution and your web site generate a secondary key based on the open key and the users download credentials (a sequence number and time usually). This is somewhat similar to public key encryption protocols like RSA... But there are many ways to do it which do not involve writing obscure code which is probably the least secure technique. But ultimately they can all be bypassed its only a matter of time and effort.. -- Alan Gauld Author of the Learn to Program web site http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
