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From: Joe Greco <jgreco@brasil.moneng.mei.com>
Message-Id: <199609262121.QAA10456@brasil.moneng.mei.com>
Subject: Re: Licensing Software
To: terry@lambert.org (Terry Lambert)
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 16:21:45 -0500 (CDT)
Cc: jkh@time.cdrom.com, terry@lambert.org, wollman@lcs.mit.edu,
        jgreco@brasil.moneng.mei.com, jhs@freebsd.org, current@freebsd.org,
        commercial@freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <199609261638.JAA08330@phaeton.artisoft.com> from "Terry Lambert" at Sep 26, 96 09:38:36 am
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> > > There is inherent locality associated with the license server.
> > > 
> > > I can reuse a license in your scenario if I can make equiavelent
> > > servers -- the same license may be checked out from both simultaneously.
> > 
> > Piddle and tosh.  It's an easy thing to make a license manager check
> > for duplicates and either work cooperatively or shut down again.
> > 
> > This also assumes that your LM also doesn't require an admin password
> > on startup - another way of making sure unauthorized types don't start
> > their own copies.  This is a non-problem.
> 
> What if I create false static routes between the license servers?

Guys.

It is simple.

When you have source - you do what you want.  (Even to something where
you don't have the source - such as a license manager).

Example: Linux emulation.  I don't think the Linux binaries were meant
to run on FreeBSD.  Yet apparently we can make a FreeBSD box look enough
like a Linux box to do so...

There is NOTHING stopping you from going to some effort to circumvent a
license manager.

It broadcasts?  Separate them with a router.  Use IPFW to make them
deaf to each other.  Etc etc.  A hundred things you can do.  Is your
LM software smart enough to think of all the things I can do to break
it, if I really want to?  No.  I guarantee it.

It tries to ID your hardware?  Circumvent it.  Trap it.  Code around it.

It tries to check your IP address?  Code around it.  That is lame and
stupid anyways.  Too many people do not have constant addresses.  or
switch hardware.

Anything you can do to protect your license server can be worked around,
on a PC platform, without the addition of specialized hardware.  And the
odds are that a legitimate licensee may end up having to break your
security in order to get a product working.

I'm not even going to answer Terry's messages that seem to assume it is
fine to wire in things like network addresses...  that is pure c***.
Anybody who has ever had to run a LM that does any of that hokey stuff
knows it.  You invariably run into a problem.

... JG