Re: [Rubycocoa-talk] [Slightly OT] Licensing

[Jon B. <jo...@gm...>]

I was subscribed to #macsb mailing list for a while and the  
conversation *always* seemed to come up (I think that is where the  
post by Allan generated from as well) and there were like a few dozen  
good ideas.  You might have more luck subscribing + posting this  
question to their mailing list ...

http://macsb.ironcoder.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://macsb.ironcoder.org/wiki/WhoIsWho

I have not thought about it yet but from what I have read your idea  
is pretty much like what the Aquatic Prime key generation does.

http://www.aquaticmac.com/

- Jon

On Aug 27, 2007, at 12:04 PM, Tim Perrett wrote:

> Hey all
>
> Firstly, I apologize that in this post I ramble on a bit, but please
> bear with it :)
>
> I've been thinking about ruby latly, and how people cope with
> releasing live, production code, in a commercial manner that protects
> systems (and code) from abuse. We all are probally well aware that
> languages that can be compiled (java etc etc) can be un-compiled, so
> things like Ruby2C are still vulnerable to de-compilation techniques.
> Which then led me onto to think, well, if anything that can be
> compiled can be un-compiled, compilation as a method of protection of
> the code base is fairly pointless; as is obfuscation of code (as it
> can be tidied very simply).
>
> So then, a kind of licensing scheme would probably be the best method
> to protect commercial systems from abuse? Whilst no license key
> encryption is impregnable - as I write this i believe 512bit can be
> factored fairly easily, and the security of 768bit is questionable,
> leaving only 1024 bit with any kind of industrial strength - it would
> seriously hamper most would-be-attackers would it not? I just
> wondered how (if at all) anyone had dealt with managing there ruby
> systems licensing and how they had gone about it considering the code
> base is easily readable? In our RC apps all one need do is browse
> into Contents/Resources and the source files are free for all to see.
>
> I was just intrigued to see how people, if anyone, had either thought
> or implemented anything like this for an RC app, or even a rails app
> for that matter? I read this article with interest:
>
> http://macromates.com/sigpipe/2004/09/05/using-openssl-for-license- 
> keys/
>
> I totally understand that NO system would ever be safe, as there is
> always someone who has either (or both) the inclination and/or time
> to hack it.
>