Anyone know how the token USB's work?

**gospeed.racer** · 12-09-2005, 05:42 PM

A program that our shop uses (we own it) has a Token key, looks just like a USB thumbdrive, to unlock it. It is very inconvienient and clumsy to have a device sticking out of the laptop while using it in car. Does anyone have experience with these "USB Token" keys to know if the program can potentially be unlocked, or at least if we could somehow copy (again, dont know if it IS a thumbdrive, or just looks like one!) it to a smaller thumbdrive?

**c5ragtop** · 12-09-2005, 06:15 PM

It's called a dongle and the software is written specifically to make sure you don't use it on more than one PC at a time by requiring this device. I'd say NO.

**mushin** · 12-09-2005, 06:19 PM

It's not a standard flash drive (unless they're really dumb...) Probably uses a challenge/response system, where the program sends the USB key a random number, a chip in the key hashes it using a private encryption key, and sends back the result. Can it be unlocked? Sure, crack the program to disable querying the key - crackers do this all the time to pirate software. There's no legitimate way of getting around it though.

**DarquePervert** · 12-09-2005, 06:42 PM

The software we sell uses a similar dongle. It's made by Aladdin.
There are ways to crack the protection that I have heard of. I don't know what they are and I've never researched it, only heard of it.

Now, the dongle for the software we sell may very well be different, as Aladdin isn't the only manufacturer of these licensing keys.

**tj!2k4** · 12-09-2005, 06:45 PM

If you let us know what app it is, perhaps someone can provide you with a more detailed answer to your question..

**gospeed.racer** · 12-09-2005, 08:53 PM

If you plug it in to a pc without their software on it, xp has no idea what the device is, and when looking online for drivers it cannot find them. Only on the machine that has the software is it recognized...Geeze, i figured if it LOOKED like a thumbdrive, it would BE a thumbdrive

On the pc with the software, it loads as a "token" devide, so its definately not a storage device.

I would rather not say what the software is, and I am quite sure nobody on here would know it anyway. Just dont wanna get yelled at if they happen to do a google search and find people trying to crack it.

Oh well, thanks for the replies!