Software Licensing
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I am considering the infrastructure for the licensing of applications. I do not want to use hardware devices such as dongles as I would like users to be able to download the software. I am interested in using a Web Service to validate registered/paid users. I have so far detailed the following procedure and appreciate any feedback. All comments are welcome especially ideas on improving or circumventing similar techniques. The procedure is as follows: A user supplies registration details when downloading software from a server. The details are stored in a database and a registration code generated. The user is sent a copy of the details along with a registration code to the email address supplied during the registration procedure. The user enters the registration details including registration code into the application. The client application gathers system specific information which could include MAC Address, Hard Disk Size/Serial Number, Windows Serial Number. This information is used known as a client profile. The client application generates a new Public Key to be used by the server when responding to an activation request. This key is then appended to the data and encrypted using the Servers Public Key. The application attempts to connect to the server to request an activation code and passes the encrypted data. The server decrypts the data using its Private Key and validates the details against a database. The validation routine checks the following conditions: 1) Has the software already been activated? 2) Has the client profile changed? 3) Are the relevant subscriptions up to date? The server encrypts a reply using the Clients Public Key and responds to the activation request. If a positive reply is received from the server, a licence is generated on the client PC by the client application and is encoded with the activation date/time and license number. The client application periodically checks the validity of the licence by querying the server. As I said, any comments apreciated. Regards Wayne Phipps ____________ Time is the greatest teacher... unfortunately, it kills all of its students LearnVisualStudio.Net