A software licensing authorization scheme based on hardware component identifiers

Software piracy is one of the most critical concerns of software enterprises. The illegal use of software can be prevented using several methods, such as serial number protection, dongle-based protection, and online protection. Although dongle-based protection methods can protect software, these methods require additional hardware components. This paper proposes a serial number generation algorithm based on hardware component identifiers. The generated serial number can hide crucial information, such as software versions and expiration dates.