Welcome to the Hardware Copy Protection, Licensing and Dongle "viewpoint" site.
The world of computing is very cyclical.
Often, you will find concepts from yesteryear recycled and repackaged. The idea of centralized computing, for example, which emerged with the mainframe, lost favour when client/server developed, only to find fortune again in the era of thin client computing and
shared applications.
Facilities houses and computer bureaus were a thing of the past until someone coined the term ‘hosted services’ and the whole cycle began again.
And so it should be. The world of computing is built on solid ideas that we should not forget, but the real innovation comes with taking those old ideas and adapting them to add value and to adapt to modern conditions.
The dongle is a prime example of this. A technology from the early 1980s, it was clunky, expensive, and beset by many problems, limiting it to niche applications for very expensive software. But there is an element of usefulness in physical copy protection that we should not lose.
This, the latest in a series of white papers from Nalpeiron offering new insights into copy
protection concepts, explains how the concept of physical protection is being modernized, fused with digital licensing technologies to create a whole new product category.
This new product provides a dramatic reduction in operating overheads for software vendors thanks to the use of inexpensive, industry standard components, and gives new meaning to the term 'copy protection'.
Henry Roberts
CTO, Nalpeiron
To learn more, start with our article on:
A history of dongles
Contact us now for a free 20 minute obligation-free consultation (normally $100) to discuss your project and to get impartial advice on the best solution for you. Email us now at consult@nalpeiron.com with your contact details and we will schedule a call with a consultant.
About the Author:
Henry Roberts helped develop one of the first general purpose computers at Monroe Calculator in the 1970s. The thesis for his MSc at the University of South Carolina's graduate school in Computer Science helped Apple Computer to adapt its own copy protection system. Henry’s thesis was responsible for defeating Locksmith, a technology that was known for being able to circumvent any copy protection
technology on the Apple platform.
After obtaining his MSc in 1981, Henry worked on further Apple copy protection technology at Sensible Software. In 1983 he started his own company, AST, to create custom copy protection solutions. He is one of the most well respected and knowledgeable people in the World in relation to Software Copy Protection with over 25 years of hands-on experience with every type of operating system and development platform.
In 2002 Henry devised a new copy protection technology that led to the development of PRO-Tector™ and its Pat. Pending Protect-n-Forget (PnF) technology™. AST and Nalpeiron worked together to produce the new products until 2004, when Nalpeiron acquired AST.
