Time Limited Demo

[Richmond]

Thanks both; I found out how to set up a time-limited demo from a fairly
old postiing on the RunRev Forums.

My problems now are:

1. I would rather the initiation time were the time the end-user 
downloads the thing rather than
some absolute time.

2. The problem you talk about below: how to stop people returning for 
'second helpings'.

3. Given the chance I would love to do the whole thing inside Livecode.

On 01/11/2011 06:16 PM, Alex Tweedly wrote:
> As Bob says, every scheme can be got around somehow; you just need to 
> make your scheme strong enough to protect your demo.
>
> You could do something like:
>
> 1. Make two programs - an 'installer' and the actual demo.
> 2. Users download the installer; the installer downloads and decrypts 
> the demo.
>     (NB always in one step, don't allow the demo to be downloaded by 
> other means and then decrypted).
>
> This ensures that the installer will always operate with an internet 
> connection to do the download, therefore it can also do any checks you 
> want it to do.
>
> 3. The installer gathers some info from the machine (say, all MAC 
> addresses it can find, maybe public IP address).
> 4. It then uses a cgi program on the server to upload and compare 
> these against a list of previous downloading machines.
> 5. If not found - add them to the list of machines, and proceed with 
> the download.
> 6. If already there - give user a message saying that this appears to 
> be a repeat of a previous download, and invite them to send a manual 
> request for permission. If they have a good reason (and there might 
> well be some cases of this), you can then remove the machine from the 
> list and they can then download successfully.
>
> It goes without saying that any info about their machine that you 
> intend to gather and upload must be described in the T&C and should be 
> as 'non-personal' as possible (i.e. MAC address but not the machine's 
> hostname or workgroup name), and for completeness I would suggest 
> giving them the option of viewing the info before you upload it, and 
> requiring them to give permission to proceed with the upload.
>
> -- Alex.
>
>
> On 10/01/2011 22:50, Bob Sneidar wrote:
>> Only way I can think of is to put a file in some normally 
>> inaccessible place a user would not think to look that tells you the 
>> user has exceeded his allotment. There is nothing foolproof however, 
>> as we learned in High school, where if you build a better mouse trap, 
>> mother nature will build a better mouse. That is to say, all copy 
>> protection is by nature doomed to fail.
>>
>> Bob
>>
>>
>> On Jan 10, 2011, at 2:21 PM, Richmond wrote:
>>
>>> Is there a way to implment a time-limit
>>> within a Livecode standalone?
>>>
>>> AND . . .
>>>
>>> Is there a way to "poison someone's machine"
>>> so that they cannot just carry on downloading
>>> time-limited demos everytime one expires?
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>
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