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Some forums that I regularly visit sell premium programs, and to prevent them from being leaked they use hardware-id authentication. That is, first they send you a program to run to grab your HWID, you tell them your HWID, they store it in a database, then they send you the actual program.

If your HWID isn't in the database, the program won't run. So what is Hardware-ID, and how is it generated? Why is it that my HWID is different depending on the programmer that sends me a HWID-grabber?

Rob
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  • On what device are you running these "HWID-grabbers"? Your PC?... if so then what spike says below is right. I hope you got your answer. :) – TheCodeArtist Apr 28 '10 at 03:36
  • Yes, Im running them on my PC, were I run the program... – Rob Apr 28 '10 at 03:39
  • FYI: "HWID" or "Machine ID" (with some stretch of the term) can also be applied to other things such as user-account information for per-user (vs. per seat) licensing. –  Dec 19 '10 at 01:25

2 Answers2

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A hardware ID is a (hopefully) unique identifier generated from the serial numbers present in such things as your cpu and network card. There is no standard algorithm, which is why it varies between individual developers.

A previous question discussed algorithms.

How to fast get Hardware-ID in C#?

Community
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Spike
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  • Algorithm for grabbing them? If they're already present in something like my cpu, wouldnt it be the same each time independent of the developer? – Rob Apr 28 '10 at 03:40
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    Sure, but when you have IDs from a cpu, gpu, multiple MAC addresses, motherboard and a hard drive(s), then there's a multitude of ways to combine them into a single identifier. – Spike Apr 28 '10 at 03:46
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Each program can determine in its own way how to read the hardware ID. Even more some program encrypt the ID before sending it over internet.

Here is a program (also usable as DLL) that can read and show your computer/hardware ID without encryption! http://www.soft.tahionic.com/download-hdd_id/index.html

Gabriel
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