Server side reversible hash for telephone-based licensing mechanism

• US 8,266,062 B2
• Filed: 06/27/2007
• Issued: 09/11/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Mishra, Prashant
• Primary Examiner(s): Obeid, Mamon
• Assistant Examiner(s): MANDEL, MONICA A
• Application Number:
  US11/769,210
• Publication Number:
  US 20090006260A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,903 Days
• Field of Search: 705 50- 51, 705/59
• US Class Current: 705/59
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/56 Financial cryptography, e.g. electronic payment or e-cash
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3236 using cryptographic hash functions

Abstract

A system and method are disclosed relating to authenticating software licenses associated with a software product. During an installation process, a purchaser of a software product may contact a vendor representative via a telephone connection and verbally relay a data packet, which may be an installation ID. The vendor server creates a reversible hash from the data packet, a known seed value and additional information relating to the software product or license. The server encrypts the hash to generate a confirmation ID, and sends the confirmation ID to the software product purchaser.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method of authenticating a license for the use of a software product, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) providing the software product, the software product initially being un-authenticated and incapable of being used without authentication;

(b) verbally receiving an installation ID from a user attempting to authenticate the software product, the verbal installation ID received by a human representative associated with an authentication server;

(c) forming a reversible hash from two or more of a first data string, a second data string and a third data string via a hashing algorithm, the first data string in part obtained from the installation ID verbally received in said step (b), the second data string being data included in the software product, and the third data string being data associated with the software product;

(d) concatenating the reversible hash formed in said step (c) to the first data string;

(e) encrypting the concatenated hash and first data string formed in said step (d);

(f) signing the encrypted string formed in said step (e) using a digital key;

(g) outputting from the authentication server the signed and encrypted string for forwarding to a client device as a confirmation ID for activating the software product; and

(h) transforming the un-authenticated software product to an authenticated software product which may be used upon entry of the confirmation ID output in said step (g).

2. The method recited in claim 1, wherein said step (c) of forming a reversible hash from two or more of a first data string, a second data string and a third data string comprises the step of retrieving the second and third data strings from memory in the authentication server.

3. The method recited in claim 1, wherein the third data string in said step (c) is information relating to the software license.

4. The method recited in claim 1, wherein the first data string in said step (c) is includes root data used to form the installation ID, the root data including a product ID that is unique to the software product, and a hardware ID related to the client device.

5. The method recited in claim 1, wherein the second data string in said step (c) is information relating to a seed value.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the software product is an instance of multiple copies of the software product, the seed value is an identifier that is common to the multiple copies of the software product.

7. A computer-readable storage medium capable of programming a processor to perform a method of authenticating a license for the use of a software product, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) verbally receiving an installation ID from a user attempting to authenticate the software product, the verbal installation ID received by a human representative associated with an authentication server;

(b) generating a first data string from the installation ID received from a client device where attempt to authenticate the software product is being made;

(c) retrieving from memory of the authentication server at least one second data string, the at least one second data string including a data string that is a seed value included in the software product;

(d) forming a reversible hash from the first data string and the at least one second data string via a hashing algorithm;

(e) concatenating the reversible hash formed in said step (d) to the first data string;

(f) encrypting the concatenated hash and first data string formed in said step (e);

(g) outputting from the server the encrypted string for forwarding to the client device as a confirmation ID for activating the software product; and

(h) activating the software product using the confirmation ID.

8. The computer-readable storage medium recited in claim 7, wherein said step (b) of generating a first data string from the received installation ID further comprises the step of processing the installation ID, said step of processing the installation ID including the step of decrypting the installation ID using a private key corresponding to a public key used to encrypt the installation ID at the client.

9. The computer-readable storage medium recited in claim 7, wherein the software product is one of multiple copies of the software product, the seed value is common to all of the multiple copies of the software product.

10. The computer-readable storage medium recited in claim 7, wherein said step (c) of retrieving from memory at least one second data string comprises the step of retrieving from memory information relating to the license for the software product in addition to the seed value.