WHY USE
dongles
A study, conducted by information-technology research firm IDC, found that roughly one out of every three copies of personal computing software installed in 2005 was pirated. While the rate of piracy has fluctuated from country to country, globally it has remained steady since 2004.
The Business Software Alliance claims that software piracy has resulted in the loss of some $34 billion worldwide in 2005, a $1.6 billion increase over 2004. Software piracy occurs when a person
· installs an original copy of a computer program onto more than one computer,
· installs or uses software from disks other than the originals,
· makes disks or CDs and distributes them to other users, or
· allows access to software over a local area network (“LAN”) or the Internet without authorisation.
The most secure solution to piracy prevention is the hardware lock commonly known as the dongle. The mechanism involves a hardware key that plugs into a USB port on a computer. The protected software application accesses this key for verification before continuing to run; special registration numbers are loaded into the dongle by the software publisher before shipment.
Because dongles are external hardware devices, they are not susceptible to the same level of hacking as software protection solutions. For this reason this technology is more secure that software key options. In addition, dongles offer a higher level flexibility over other forms of copy protection because they are not limited to a single PC. Similarly, dongles are more conducive to recovery after a system crash, or PC replacement or upgrade.
