that is the most ridiculously insecure scheme of generating an unlock code I've ever heard. unbelievable.

I've got a better story than that.

A few years ago, we bought Cheyenne's "Arcserve 6.0" for server tape backups. (Great piece of software, by the way, and Cheyenne has since been bought by Computer Associates and the product has been renamed to ArcserveIT.)

We bought two copies of the "Single Server Edition", to run on two servers. That way we were in license compliance with the software. I just stuck one of them on the shelf, thinking I would never need to open the box. Just use the one CD I had in my hand to install it on both servers.

To my surprise, it wouldn't let me install the second copy on the second server. Seems it goes checking on the network to compare its CD key with any other running copies it finds on the network. Nice little protection feature, bravo Cheyenne. Score one for your team.

But get this...

Since the second box was already retired to the software library shelf in a different area of the building, I decided I would do the second install later. Without getting up out of my chair, I happened to be browsing the Arcserve software manual. (Remember those? They used to come printed and bound in the box with the software.) In the "installation" section of the manual, there were very detailed screen shots of each stage of the installation procedure. One of the screen shots was of the CD-key entry screen. With a complete CD key typed into the boxes on the screen.

"What the hell," I thought. I typed in the CD key that was shown in the installation screen shot (as opposed to the real CD key I had been supplied).

Not only did it work, but it unlocked the software so that it was now the full Enterprise edition instead of the limited Single Server edition. Now I could install as many copies of the software as I wanted, using that Enterprise key. Not only that, but a bunch of great new features were unlocked in the software, too.

I wonder if anyone got sacked over that one?