How to protect applications in Progress

[Xavi_qsoft]

Good morning.

Some time ago I'm thinking of possible methods of protecting a Progress application and prevent other customers from copying or illegal use of it.

First I thought about using a USB dongle security, the application will not run when the usb was not inserted in the pc but this solution is not to my liking.

Then i thougth better that when try to start the application create a validation of a file where the encoded and encrypted information that pc (MAC, id hard disk ...) and thus only work on that pc.

Which methods you use you? or that's your security experience ...

PD: Excuse me for my inglish...:awink:

 

[TomBascom]

The best protection is to provide excellent value for the money.

 

[D.Cook]

Your second option might be a good solution. Maybe instead of keeping this encoded information in a file, you could store it in the database. This might make management of the whole thing a bit easier.
If you have a yearly licence or something like that, you could build a date into the encoded string and validate that against the system date, to prevent them using it if they don't pay their fees.

But of course if implementing these security features causes any new headaches for the clients (eg having to update many files/codes for lots of computers), the value for money that Tom's talking about starts to drop..

 

[TomBascom]

Personally I think that it is generally sufficient to have a splash screen which announces who the application is licensed to and to display that name on important output. That will keep most people honest without getting in their way.

 

[RealHeavyDude]

Many years ago I was involved in the Y2K compliance effort of a big company. Apart from other strange findings we found one piece of software for interfacing with a robot which was not working anymore when we had to patch the OS (which was practically a new install). Unfortunately the vendor already went bankrupt. It turned out, that the consultant from that vendor had marked one block of the hard disk as a bad block and hard coded the address of that block in the software, compiled the software ... and off he went ...

You can imagine that, if the vendor would still exist and try to sell something to the company, what response he would get ...

Regards, RealHeavyDude.

 

[dragonsei]

Most of the methods used to protect application has some draw backs. A dongle may fail and it will cause unnecessary hardship to your customer. You will lose your goodwill.

You may consider leasing instead of permanent license. In that way you can officially set expiry date and have send them a program to extend the expiry date when they renew. In this, everything is above board and mutually understand. No hidden items. That how McAfee, Norton Antivirus are doing.