vk2fro
0
- Joined
- Nov 30, 2009
- Messages
- 1,304
- Points
- 63
Since the demo is meant for the laserists inhouse testing only and not designed to be used in a proper production laser show environment, why not tie the demo into the PC's hardware (e.g. cpu serial, hdd serial, nic mac address etc - pick 3 so people cant just switch and swap hardware to bypass) and allow 15 or so minutes of output to a dac. A server side check is performed before the "enable output" button engages and dac output commences, to see how much time that particular demo copy of the software has had outputting to a dac; and if the demo time has expired, an error message is displayed prompting the user to register, outlining that their time trialing the output control has been used up.
Since this is a demo for evaluation, people should not have a problem having their laser show computer connected to the net to check the validity of the trial period. At worst those running a "Clean" (not normally net connected PC) show computer would simply need to install an antivirus and a firewall, only permitting spaghetti access to the net.
The demo would still run in offline mode (but no projector control), or expired mode (once again without facility to control a dac/projector). Offline is automatically set when the program cannot detect a net connection, and expired mode is a registry key. Resetting this key simply makes the software serverside check again, resulting in the key being set back to expired as the computer has used its "output" time.
Of course leaving the output routines out of the demo is the securest way of protecting your intellectual property, as including it in the demo opens up the door for the possibility of the software to be cracked.
Since this is a demo for evaluation, people should not have a problem having their laser show computer connected to the net to check the validity of the trial period. At worst those running a "Clean" (not normally net connected PC) show computer would simply need to install an antivirus and a firewall, only permitting spaghetti access to the net.
The demo would still run in offline mode (but no projector control), or expired mode (once again without facility to control a dac/projector). Offline is automatically set when the program cannot detect a net connection, and expired mode is a registry key. Resetting this key simply makes the software serverside check again, resulting in the key being set back to expired as the computer has used its "output" time.
Of course leaving the output routines out of the demo is the securest way of protecting your intellectual property, as including it in the demo opens up the door for the possibility of the software to be cracked.
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