On Thu, Mar 27, 2014 at 12:38 AM, Ed Jaffe <[email protected]>wrote:
> On 3/26/2014 9:20 AM, Charles Mills wrote: > >> Right. Good input. Thanks. I have shipped software with a hard-coded >> expiration date. What I am looking for is a "floating" expiration date >> that >> would be 30 days after installation, whether installed today or a year >> from >> today. >> > > Our trial software expires "n" days after download. The key is stored in a > load module. It would not be difficult to use the SHSCRIPT function of > SMP/E to create a module in a z/OS UNIX directory with expiry date relative > to install date. Food for thought for the future. :) > > However, I really don't like the idea of an expiry date relative to first > execution. Implementation could get "messy." > Much easier to have an expiry date relative to the download date. What occurs to me to do is have a customized module. The web site asks the person for the CPUID of the z machine. This is used to encrypt one of the CSECTs. The CPUID is also recorded on the vendor's site so that the application cannot simply be downloaded multiple times (limit to something like "n" times from the date/time of the first download for a maximum of "n" days, then deny another download for the same CPUID after those "n" days. The code would decrypt the CSECT at execution time using the running system's CPUID. Then validate some offset in the CSECT to make sure it has the proper eye catcher to validate that the decryption gave back the proper information. A different, worse?, way would be to distribute that CSECT as object code. At execution time decrypt the object code and invoke the Binder API to convert it on-the-fly into executable code. I don't know if the Binder API can do a "load and go" like this or not. > > -- > Edward E Jaffe > Phoenix Software International, Inc > 831 Parkview Drive North > El Segundo, CA 90245 > http://www.phoenixsoftware.com/ > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > -- There is nothing more pleasant than traveling and meeting new people! Genghis Khan Maranatha! <>< John McKown ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
