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7.8

What is a good algorithm for leaving "secret evidence" that a time trial application was used?

Asked by dshockey in Windows Network Security

Tags: algorithm, secret, what

Greetings!  I'm writing an application in C++ that I plan to publish and sell commercially within the next six months.  Right now, I'm working on the licensing part of it and while I have most of the algorithmic details worked out, the one area in which I can't seem to find a comfortable solution is time trial evidence.

For example, if somebody downloads a 30-day trial of my program, I need to properly record on their machine that the trial has started and when it has ended.  If they uninstall and reinstall the program, it needs to leave behind evidence of this trial that's difficult to trace.  Finally, while the time trial is going on, it needs to track major date changes to the system to prevent somebody from cheating on the time trial by constantly rolling their system clock back.

I've seen several sites that make broad statements like "you should leave at least 3 or 4 pieces of evidence behind" or "don't put this evidence under the main registry configuration piece for your software since somebody could delete that tree and start the trial all over again", but I'm not finding anything specific about what sorts of areas are good to use.

Does anybody have any insight on *specific implementations* of good time trial license algorithms?
[+][-]12/20/04 01:43 AM, ID: 12865135Accepted Solution

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Zone: Windows Network Security
Tags: algorithm, secret, what
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Solution Provided By: Caeser_Augustus
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Solution Grade: A
 
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