Hardware ID to prevent software piracy
View Patent ↗In one embodiment, the invention is a 64 bit hardware ID (H/W ID) for tying a software product to a particular computer to prevent software piracy. The 64 bit hardware ID represents ten different components of the user's computer: the CD-ROM device, the disk adapter, the disk device, the display adapter, the first drive serial number, the MAC address, the processor serial number, the processor type, the RAM size in Mb, and the SCSI adapter. Each time the software product is opened, the expanded H/W ID is compared to the hardware on the computer to determine whether a predetermined minimum number of components match. In one embodiment, the expanded H/W ID allows for expansion of the user's computer because so long as the component originally listed in the expanded H/W ID can be found on the computer, then that component matches the expanded H/W ID. Typically, seven out of ten components in the expanded H/W ID must match the computer before the software product will fully operate.
1. A detection system for use with the Internet for generating information related to pirating of a software product, comprising:
a server in communication with said Internet, a database associated with said server;
said software product being associated with a product id that identifies said software product;
a software program stored in a plurality of customer computers utilizing said software product, said software program generating a hardware id for each of said customer computers so as to uniquely identify each of said plurality of customer computers,
said software program automatically transferring said product id and said hardware id over said Internet to said server,
said server receiving and storing in said database said product id and said hardware id for each of said plurality of customer computers,
said software program being installed on said plurality of customer computers along with other program modules, including an operating system or network communication; and
an activation unit utilized by said server for determining if said product id is associated with more than one of said plurality of customer computers.