Databases
StackOverflow2013
Postsdbo
POBest place to hide a key in the Windows Registry?
Body
 

Note that there are some explanatory texts on larger screens.

plurals
  1. POBest place to hide a key in the Windows Registry?
    text
    copied!<p>My Delphi program has a built-in protection mechanism to check for banned license keys on the Internet and displays a message to the user if a blacklisted key is found.</p> <p>I'd like to store the blacklisted key in the registry, so if the user tries to re-enter it (and he/she is not connected to the Internet), it's not accepted.</p> <p>What is the best way to hide an obfuscated entry in the Windows registry?</p> <p>Thanks!</p> <hr> <p>Edit: You guys have some good answers there, but I feel like I need to expand the question.</p> <p>This is not mainstream software but a corporate one. Clients pre-pay one year and get a one-year license key for activation. The license key includes a machine ID and can't be used elsewhere.</p> <p>The problem is that some clients tend not to pay in time or they don't pay at all. Since I don't want to bother with shorter than one year license keys (too much administrative overhead) I need a way to disable their licenses till they pay.</p> <p>So the app now will connect to the Internet upon launch and check if their key is blacklisted. If it is, I need to disable access. In case they reinstall or block Internet access, I need to know if the key has been blacklisted.</p> <p>Thus, I'm thinking it would be best to hide it in the registry. My users are not tech-savy enough to use registry tools to monitor the registry, but if I put it under HKLM/Software/MyCompany/MyProgram, some of them might do find it. So I need a place where they can't find it afterwards that it had been created. (Noone will be expecting it!)</p> <p>Any ideas?</p>
 

Querying!

 
Guidance
An individual column

Larger individual text columns get their own page to allow for proper reading.

SQuiL has stopped working due to an internal error.

If you are curious you may find further information in the browser console, which is accessible through the devtools (F12).

Reload