[geeks] Adobe's Software Activation

[Lionel Peterson]

> From: Michael-John Turner <mj at turner.org.za>
> Date: 2005/02/22 Tue AM 05:17:09 GMT
> To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
> Subject: Re: [geeks] Adobe's Software Activation
> 
> On Mon, Feb 21, 2005 at 03:42:53PM -0500, kevin at mpcf.com wrote:
> [...]
> > Are they writing crap to the MBR or something or is
> > this just BS?
> 
> Hmm... My guess is that they generate some form of unique 'machine ID'
> based in part on MAC ID, HD firmware serial, etc. A low level format 
> could possbily change the HD serial and make the Adobe software think 
> it's a different machine?

I thought so too, but where would the "activation key" be after a system restore? It must be squirreling the key somewhere on the HD for retrieval after a system rebuild (without low-level format) - I can't imagine they have you save the key to a file/floppy...