Microcosm, the software copy protection experts
With over 30 years experience in the software protection industry, Microcosm offers a range of copy protection solutions that delivers the perfect combination of security and ease of use. In this post we outline our history and describe our current software protection solutions.
Early Days
Microcosm has been developing innovative, award-winning computer software since the 1980s. We produced the first commercially available RAM disk in 1981 and the world's first disk cache for microcomputers in 1982.
Microcosm's first software protection product, CopyControl, was released in 1989. CopyControl protected software on floppy disks but was later expanded to protect software distributed on any media.
Over the subsequent 30 years we have honed our skills in this field to develop some of the most secure, flexible and user-friendly solutions on the market.
Dinkey Dongle: Hardware-based Copy Protection
We developed the Dinkey Dongle system to augment CopyControl's software-based protection with a hardware-based copy protection system. Dinkey dongles were small hardware keys that were attached to the user's computer in order for their protected software to run. Initially for parallel port and then subsequently for USB, the innovative design of our Dinkey dongles meant they were much smaller and more cost-effective than the dongles offered by competitors.
CopyMinder: Intelligent Software Protection
Next came the evolution of our software-based copy protection offering with CopyMinder, a software copy protection system that primarily uses the Internet to provide intelligent security. Using intelligent, adaptive techniques CopyMinder is able to keep your software secure against theft while coping with real-world situations for your genuine users. CopyMinder also supports traditional offline activation methods for scenarios where Internet access is not possible.
A suite of web-based APIs also allow you to integrate CopyMinder into your back office workflow and improve the customer experience by automatically issuing licences, extending subscripions and enabling additional features within their installations.
Dinkey Pro/FD: Next Generation Software Protection Dongles
Dinkey Pro/FD took over from Dinkey Dongle in 2009. Dinkey Pro and Dinkey FD USB dongles use smart card chip technology to provide the highest security against hacking. Smart card chips are used in applications where the highest degree of security is required such as credit and debit cards for banking.
Dinkey Pro and Dinkey FD dongles are driverless software protection dongles that include onboard cryptography and secure storage for your sensitive data. The communication between the protected software and the dongle is protected by public-key cryptography to ensure strong security in this crucial, yet often ignored, area.
Why Choose Microcosm?
Today Microcosm offers some of the most comprehensive, secure and user-friendly copy protection systems on the market. Our solutions keep your software secure on a wide array of platforms and facilitate many different licensing models.
Both CopyMinder and Dinkey Pro/FD feature strong anti-debug techniques and both static and dynamic (runtime-based) protection against reverse engineering.
Support is an area where we excel. Our customers appreciate our fast response times and the fact that they have direct access to the technical support team via phone and email.
In a Nutshell…
- Over 30 years experience in the industry
- Reverse-engineering protection
- Strong anti-debug techniques
- Licensing features - one-off purchase, subscriptions, trials, network-based (to name a few)
- Support - direct access to technical support team; no ticketing
- Free software updates
Our Software Protection Solutions
USB dongle-based software protection and licensing system
- Hardware-based security
- Driverless
- Multi-platform support
Software protection and licensing system with cloud-based intelligent monitoring
- Flexible licensing
- Intelligent monitoring
- Web-based administration