The Activation and the Validation process work hand in hand to protect the software from piracy and ensure the licensing terms are respected by the user.

Validation is the 2nd barrier to piracy in the software_DNA solution. Validation is a background process triggered by the Software at any time, and at multiple and random times throughout the code of the Software. Typically, the main or first Validation is done at start-up of the Software.

Validation is a 2-step process which includes Local (offline) CDM-Validation and DNA Server-Validation. The local (offline) CDM-Validation will authenticate the CDM on the user’s device / browser for the Software (i.e. verify signature, machine ID, etc.) and verify the license rights and conditions (such as expiry period). The DNA Server-Validation will query the DNA Server to do a complete verification against the piracy protection rules for the Software and return a new encrypted CDM License file.

The Validation process differs depending on the software_DNA Validation Level chosen for the Software:

• when possible Server-Validation will occur if there is an active connection to the Internet when the validation is requested. Limited to once per day.

• when required Server-Validation is used with Level 3 Protection and forces a Server-Validation, within a defined period of time since the last successful validation.(ex: every 30 days). If the validation period is exceeded, then the validation will fail. A warning can be provided "x" days ahead of time by software_DNA and passed on to the user.
  See Level 3 Validation  

All communication between the software, the DNA Client and the DNA Server are encrypted using secure PKI algorithms.

Information exchanged during the Validation process

Corporate customers may have inquiries about the type of information exchanged during the Validation process.

During the Validation process, the software_DNA License file (the CDM file) is transmitted to the DNA Server using the standard web browsing communication port 80. Typically, if a web browser has access, then communication with the DNA Server for validations will be successful.

The ’CDM’ file is typically less than 2K Bytes. The CDM file contains information required for the software_DNA service such as:

• License Activation or Evaluation Code
• activation dates and other dates used for the protection rules
• protection level and specific counters
• a <machine_ID> which is a hash (created locally) of several elements of information from the user’s computer, and is used as one part of the protection solution.
• the Computer Name

There is no possibility of deriving any specific information about the user’s computer from the <machine_ID> Hash code or reconstructing any such information. Aside from the Computer Name, no private information about the computer or the user is communicated at any time to the DNA Server during the Validation process.