Copy protection serial number stuff

[TomC]

Sofar as I can test now it lags the whole plugin, instead of using the Ticker 100, I changed it with a Ticker 25 (and of course it wil take ages then to re-authorise the plugin everytime you load it) but still everything is jerky. All my knobs seems to be stepped now....heheh.

That's strange, because it's green data only, so once the computation is done it needs zero CPU time. Either you have
your own wireless trigger receiver with the same name somewhere else in you schematic (so it gets my triggers as
well), or something else is broken in your code.
BTW, how many MAC addresses show up on your PC?

Tom

[TomC]

First time, when I created the serial and saved it to disk it used this as MAC address:
8C-43-20-52-41-53.20-41-53-59-4E-FF.00-17-F2-0F-DE-C4.00-17-F2-0F-DE-C5.00-16-CB-25-91-23

This is the new MAC after reboot ( notice the first 4 characters )
3C-E7-20-52-41-53.20-41-53-59-4E-FF.00-17-F2-0F-DE-C4.00-17-F2-0F-DE-C5.00-16-CB-25-91-23

This is something neither malc nor I can fix.

Normally(!) each network card on this little planet has its very own and unique MAC address.

The bad thing is, a lot of (intellectually challenged) network card manufacturers allow to change the
MAC address, and therefore a lot of (even more brain-dead) driver developers actually do this.

With this network card you'll run into problems with every authorization software that uses the
MAC address, IOW you're fucked.

You can still use the hard disk serial number (just diconnect the MAC2int module), but we have to
ask malc which serial number he provides. There's one which is generated by Windows(tm) during
a format (and therefore changes with each format) which can be read be the GetVolumeInformation
API of windows. Not good.

There's another one which comes directly from the drive. You have to read the IDE/SATA registers of
the drive to get this number. Much better, but not as easy.

Hello malc? Are you listening?

Of course the chance of 2 systems having the same serial is much higher this way.

Tom

[aliasant]

Thanks TomC

Im gonna try a couple more reboots and see what numbers I get.

Weird thing is that I think this used to work. Before the new betas. Also. If the driver changes the numbers shouldnt it change them all and not just the 4 first?

[AngularMomentum]

I directly copied your module into the schematic, the old one was fine, if I delete the ticker everything is fine. I do not have anything named Masterclock as well. Very strange.

I always get the same MAC.

[TomC]

Thanks TomC

Im gonna try a couple more reboots and see what numbers I get.

Weird thing is that I think this used to work. Before the new betas. Also. If the driver changes the numbers shouldnt it change them all and not just the 4 first?

No, that's quite usual. The manufacturers request a address range and use the last couple of numbers in a static
way (so they can always recognize their own cards by the address suffix) and change only the prefix.

Weird is that the change does not always results in the same prefix. Is it possible that you sometimes change
the drivers (e.g. by booting a different OS like Linux on the same PC)?

Tom

[TomC]

I directly copied your module into the schematic, the old one was fine, if I delete the ticker everything is fine. I do not have anything named Masterclock as well. Very strange.

I always get the same MAC.

If you like I can send you my email address so you can send me your schematic and I can have a look at it.


Tom

[aliasant]

Is it possible that you sometimes change
the drivers (e.g. by booting a different OS like Linux on the same PC)?

Tom

Hmm. Yes.
Im running Win7 on a MacPro and on every restart it first boots as a mac does, then recognizes that it is set to boot from a windows drive and jumps over to that. Or something similar. But it used to work. Maybe its something with Win7 on a mac.

[AngularMomentum]

Just a sidenote. When I dual booted win7 (not a RC) and XP my NIC died on me in XP...

I am testing at the moment the mod SunSynth did, and it seems to work fine on both my laptop with win7 and on my old Athlon64 2800+ PC with XP when exported to VST.

Although the green data should only take CPU when calculating, and I understand it supposed to do that only once, the ticker doesn't seem to shut off. For instance, the expected serial I can't even copy from the string element, it seems to keep firing the expected serial in at ticker rate. With the old schematic I could copy it. Maybe that is a clue?

[sunsynth]

Hmmm,

MACs in Win7 are cryptic 4 me:

I've the same results after reboot with the first 4 chars...
I have no background info why it has 3 Mac-Adr. and the last is the physical one!

On my XP the 1st is the physical and the second a virtual one generated by VirtualBox...
strange...

[aliasant]

Hmmm,

MACs in Win7 are cryptic 4 me:

I've the same results after reboot with the first 4 chars...
I have no background info why it has 3 Mac-Adr. and the last is the physical one!

On my XP the 1st is the physical and the second a virtual one generated by VirtualBox...
strange...

I tried 4 times and different 4 first every time. I simply hacked away those 4 first. That, at least, lets me load my own plugins without regging them again.

[TomC]

[...]it seems to keep firing the expected serial in at ticker rate. With the old schematic I could copy it. Maybe that is a clue?

That's a GOOD idea

I remember malc that told me that triggers can cause severe CPU load, even when SynthMaker's CPU
meter shows a very low load (mine shows 0.3%).

I now do switch off all the triggers when the calculation is finished. Maybe it solves your problem.

Download link

Tom

[TomC]

Hmmm,

MACs in Win7 are cryptic 4 me:

I've the same results after reboot with the first 4 chars...
I have no background info why it has 3 Mac-Adr. and the last is the physical one!

On my XP the 1st is the physical and the second a virtual one generated by VirtualBox...
strange...

Try this.

Maybe when you change it yourself it stays the same...

Tom

[aliasant]

Well. =)

Not sure what good that would do TomC.

I believe that I might have customers that has the same problems I have so whatever solution I have should
be one that is universal. Right? Or maybe you had something else in mind?

[aliasant]

TomC. I followed that link and found an app that helps you to locate, change MAC addresses and other things.
Its a free app and it is very interesting to use.
http://www.technitium.com/tmac/index.html Scroll down to the bottom to download it.

I was planning to upload in image here showing my various MAC addresses compared to what SM reports but the upload refused to finish.
I guess I have to tell you instead.

When i run MAC in SM it reports 5 different MAC Addresses separated by a comma.
2C-8A-20-52-41-53,20-41-53-59-4E-FF,00-17-F2-0F-DE-C4,00-17-F2-0F-DE-C5,00-16-CB-25-91-23

The first 2 Im not sure were they come from but I have something called "Virtual CloneDrive" that is running.
Maybe 1 of them comes from that app. Maybe both. But that doesnt sound very likely. Does it?

The 3rd one is my first "Local Area Connection". It is not active.
4th is my active "Local Area Connection 2"
The last one is my Bluetooth Network Connection. Its not active.

So. Me and Sunsynth noticed that after every restart the 4 first numbers in this series changed.
Maybe that is because they arrive from that Virtual Clone Drive app or a similar app.

Maybe we should only use the last reported MAC? The one after the last comma?

Would be nice to see others test this to see if the real network ports are always last or if this is completely random.

[AngularMomentum]

I am getting more convinced that I should replace the HDD and MAC primitives with just the Username and CustomerID (or maybe extra plugin ID), this way I avoid having troubles as much as possible. Everything else TomC (and Sunsynths mod) did seems to work rock solid now. I know for sure that there are a lot of dodgy PC configurations out there, and if I start my PC for instance in safe mode I find in XP not just one wireless connection setup, but all the wireless connections on every USB port I ever put the dongle in.

Anyhow, this way I could also precalculate serials and send them automatically along with the purchase. I remember getting a version of Ableton along a serial number with my soundcard, and could not be bothered using it because of the response challange after I keyd in the serial. I do need some sort of "copy protection" but I guess this is getting too intrusive as well for my taste.

If you need me for testing anything just ask, and I will. I think though for me everything will work just fine now. Thank you both and especially Tom for all your hard work on this stuff, I won't forget!!

The new update you did works just fine for me now, I can even copy the serial now after the calcualtion is done. Excellent work Tom!