Frequently Asked Questions

How is ciKeep installed? Will it run on Linux? Do you support the Macintosh?

ciKeep is not a ready-to-run software product (although we do have working demonstration programs that clearly show the effectiveness of the method). ciKeep is a patent pending software and business method. The partners we are looking for probably already have extensive e-business and licensing infrastructure in place. We will work with you to implement ciKeep in your environment, including making the source code for the sample programs available to our licensees. We do not anticipate that ciKeep will be difficult to implement. There is nothing inherently platform-dependent about the ciKeep method: it could be implemented on Windows, Linux, the Macintosh – or an IBM mainframe, for that matter.

Please contact us if you have any questions, or would like to see a working demonstration.

Will ciKeep prevent every possible piracy problem?

No tool solves every possible problem. Properly implemented, ciKeep will be extremely effective in preventing consumer-to-consumer sharing of installation keys. The partners we are looking for are probably in the consumer or small business/home office markets. If consumer-to-consumer sharing of your intellectual property might be cutting into your revenue, then you owe it to yourself and your company to look into ciKeep.

What about someone who licenses our software and then cancels the credit card? Wouldn't that let them share the license key?

If we asked you to, would you be willing to cancel one of your credit cards and then send us the number? We didn't think so. Most consumers aren’t going to cancel a credit card just so they can do a friend the favor of giving them your software for free. What drives illicit sharing is that there is no cost to the perpetrator. ciKeep changes that. Even if you had a credit card that was already expired or cancelled, you wouldn't be willing to give us the number — who knows what we could do with it. You’re certainly not going to post it on an Internet bulletin board.

What about American Express Blue, Verified by Visa, American Express Private Payments, and similar “secured” or “one time use” credit card products?

We think most consumers will be unwilling to share any credit card number that might possibly cause a charge to come back to them, no matter what assurances the credit card companies might make. These and similar credit card products are in limited usage. Not all banks or credit cards offer these programs. Some of these cards require hardware installation on the user’s PC, which causes consumer resistance. We believe most consumer-oriented intellectual property will continue to be purchased with good old “regular” credit cards.  Worst case, you could not accept this sort of credit card number for your products – there are already companies that cannot accept them, for example, ISPs that charge the customer’s credit card every month.

How secure is ciKeep?

The suggested implementation uses a 256-bit "product ID," the customer's credit card number, and the National Institute of Standards Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) to generate an 80-bit license key. (Other implementations are possible.) A brute-force attack would require trying more than a trillion trillion (10²⁴) license keys. If a hacker could test a million keys per second, it would take him over 38 billion years to try that many license keys. No technology is perfect, and more sophisticated attacks might exist, but we believe ciKeep is sufficiently secure to effectively prevent the unauthorized sharing of consumer and small business software.