Preventing date rollback

[Robert E. Van Cleef]

** enter soap box mode**

The sad thing about all of these copy protection schemes is that they serve the needs of the vendor, not the needs of the client. 

We recently invoked the "roll back the clock" function to allow the continued execution of one protected program because the update the vendor gave us to restore functionality required us to install an OS software upgrade that we aren't ready to install...

Software protection schemes that are tied to system hardware numbers, such as ethernet addresses or CPU ID numbers are just as bad - all it takes is a visit from your friendly hardware field engineer to break everything. 

Software protection schemes may appear to be necessary from a business perspective, but you need to take the needs of the customer into consideration.

Recently we almost returned four software licences (at $5k each) to the vendor because it was so difficult to install. The difficulties were caused by their copy protection scheme.

Remember what the PC world found out the hard way. Without customers you don't have a business! Installing the worlds smartest and most sophisticated copy protection system will not sell one package. You are a lot better off spending you time and energy building a loyal customer base that wouldn't even consider cheating on you because they believe that they get top value for their investment.

**exit soap box mode**

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Bob Van Cleef 			vancleef at nas.nasa.gov
NASA Ames Research Center	(415) 604-4366
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Perception is reality...