Preventing date rollback

[Stanley Friesen]

In article <357 at bria> mike at bria.UUCP (Michael Stefanik) writes:
 
>Generally speaking, I just find it hard to feel for the end user who complains
>loudly because we made it a little tougher for him to rip us off ...
>Well written copy protection is non-intrusive (unless you're busy trying
>to violate the protection) and has grace recovery for emergency situations.

Hmm, I have yet to see a truly non-intrusive scheme.  I would require the
following before I considered a scheme non-intrusive:

1. Allows backups to be made of the software, which can be used to restore
   the protected software in case of media failure.

2. Does not require any special hardware to run (the least intrusive system I
   have yet seen appears to require a network conection to the vendor!  Not
   all of my systems have any netowrk capability)

3. Does not require any user validation beyond normal login procedures.
   (e.g. no extra passwords to run the package)

4. Can be reinstalled on a new machine immediately in case of major
   hardware failure.


This is just a minimum list, I may think of several more later.
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uunet!tdatirv!sarima				(Stanley Friesen)