Re: DDJ Article on "Secure" Dongle

Joseph Ashwood wrote:
> I will disagree with a huge amount of what has been said. It depends on what
> purpose the dongle serves. The original article is rather an extreme (but
> very common) case on only one side, where the dongle does nothing but
> attempt to verify that you are a rightful user, I will agree this is bad. At
> the other extreme are things like the ATI and NVidia device drivers, here
> the "dongle" is the point, it provides a great deal of value, and in truth
> they give away the software that goes with the dongle for free. In between
> is a wide range of possibilities for the dongle's purpose. Building from the
> view that the dongle is a part of the value of the system, as opposed to the
> dongle protecting the value of the system, leads to useful dongles and
> increased value for the users.

That's a rather naive view of it though. Part of the cost of your
$200, $300, etc video card is [among other things] development of the
drivers. So they're not "free" but more or less accessible.

Tom
Received on Sat Oct 15 04:38:35 2005