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Subject Author Date
Purchase Q2008 Premier on Ebay Les 10-18-2007
Posted by John Pollard on October 21, 2007, 8:14 pm
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 Scott Lindner wrote:
>> Those files originated on the CD. :)
>
> Agreed. What I was intending to draw attention to is that
> some
> protection mechanism take advantage of ways of storing or
> garbling
> data that will not show up as a regular file. I haven't
> tested it,
> but would it work to have put the CD into the drive on my
> wife's
> computer, copy the files to a thumb drive, and install? For
> some
> programs this will not work because there is information that
> is not
> in the files. Make sense?

I don't claim any knowledge of the underlying process. My only
reason for replying was that someone here suggested it would be
difficult (impossible?) to include a unique identifer with each
CD manufactured. I think it would be trivial to do so.

What is then required of the user with respect to that unique
identifier is up to the manufacturer.

I already knew that Intuit was not trying to prevent users from
having Quicken installed on more than one of their pc's ... and
I guess that was as far as I was thinking.

In the case of Quicken, it appears that Intuit was not trying to
make it impossible to have Quicken installed on multiple pc's
... without having the physical CD present on each pc.

But I'm just guessing.

--
John Pollard
First initial underscore Last name at mchsi dot com
Please reply to newsgroup



Posted by Scott Lindner on October 22, 2007, 7:02 am
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> I don't claim any knowledge of the underlying process. My only reason for
> replying was that someone here suggested it would be difficult
> (impossible?) to include a unique identifer with each CD manufactured. I
> think it would be trivial to do so.

I gotcha. That would require a significant manufacturing change, but they
may have made it. I've long wondered when they would allow for the same low
cost "pressing" of CD/DVDs but allowing for the tailoring of even small
portions of the content. The last time I dug into how they mass produce
CDs/DVDs with the same content, they truly were identical. It isn't too
much different than taking a metal die that has the little 1s and 0s on it
and stamping the aluminum foil repeatedly.


> What is then required of the user with respect to that unique identifier
> is up to the manufacturer.
>
> I already knew that Intuit was not trying to prevent users from having
> Quicken installed on more than one of their pc's ... and I guess that was
> as far as I was thinking.
>
> In the case of Quicken, it appears that Intuit was not trying to make it
> impossible to have Quicken installed on multiple pc's ... without having
> the physical CD present on each pc.

Agreed, I had no problem doing it. I wasn't even trying to circumvent any
protection. I buy the boxed media every year and pay a premium because
until reading this thread I always bought from stores like CompUSA. Next
year I'm buying from eBay! It was just the situation I'm in the facilitated
a greater discussion on Intuit media authenticity. It would be very easy to
make a forged CD that would work. That being said, it may not work for very
long or many users during the registration step if they are truly
"authenticating" based on some number of installs for that unique CD.

Scott



Posted by bjn on October 24, 2007, 5:36 pm
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wrote:

>Scott Lindner wrote:
>>> Those files originated on the CD. :)
>>
>> Agreed. What I was intending to draw attention to is that
>> some
>> protection mechanism take advantage of ways of storing or
>> garbling
>> data that will not show up as a regular file. I haven't
>> tested it,
>> but would it work to have put the CD into the drive on my
>> wife's
>> computer, copy the files to a thumb drive, and install? For
>> some
>> programs this will not work because there is information that
>> is not
>> in the files. Make sense?
>
>I don't claim any knowledge of the underlying process. My only
>reason for replying was that someone here suggested it would be
>difficult (impossible?) to include a unique identifer with each
>CD manufactured. I think it would be trivial to do so.
>

Please explain the process, since you have already figured it out and
determined that it is trivial to do.


Posted by bjn on October 24, 2007, 5:35 pm
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wrote:

>> Those files originated on the CD. :)
>
>Agreed. What I was intending to draw attention to is that some protection
>mechanism take advantage of ways of storing or garbling data that will not
>show up as a regular file. I haven't tested it, but would it work to have
>put the CD into the drive on my wife's computer, copy the files to a thumb
>drive, and install? For some programs this will not work because there is
>information that is not in the files. Make sense?


Not really.

Posted by bjn on October 24, 2007, 5:33 pm
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>
>> I would be interested in how Intuit customizes each CD that is stamped
>> out with a unique serial number that can be read programatically.
>
>That may be known to some, but I would guess that it is some sort of trade
>secret. There has to be a way to give each CD a "serial number".

Why?

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