Secure Key Generator



  • Please forgive me if my English writing is not perfect as this is not my primary language. 
    The company I work for does computer-telephony integration. We have a couple software that we sell to connect different telephony hardware, 
    like a Nortel switch to an Aspect IVR, etc.
     
    I was assigned the task to generate a key for one of our adapter that was written by a former employee. I was looking through his files searching 
    for the key-generator but it seems it was missing. So I gave a look at his support documentation and I finally found how to generate the key :
        you have to call the connector exe with some parameters !  WTF?
     
    So, all our customers have the actual key generator. Beside, the program is written in .NET which can be easily decompiled.
     
    This is a classic "security through obscurity" 
     
    I wonder why we don't get that many business with that connector :)


  • It's strangely not that uncommon with business applications, especially when software is coupled to work with specific hardware. Thank 'due diligence' for that, the fact the many larger businesses are simply 'unable' to run unsupported software, therefore the electronic licence is neither here nor there.

    It does however make you wonder why they bother with a licence key at all. 

     



  • [quote user="Walrus"]

    It does however make you wonder why they bother with a licence key at all. 

    [/quote]

    Some PHB said "Microsoft have license keys, so we must have them too, or our software won't look expensive enough".

    I have, sadly, encountered this attitude before. PHBs think of user annoyances as being a sign of high-end software (rather than, say, a bug).
     


Log in to reply