The Copy-Protected CD & The Bongle
(Hide & Seek Technologies)

History

Hide & Seek Technologies is a two-year Company, organized to bring an exciting new optical disc copy protection technology to the market. The Hide & Seek story began when a Colorado entrepreneur put veteran inventor Jerry Smith together with Dr. James Weldon, and formed Hide & Seek.

Product: The Copy-Protected CD

The Copy-Protected CD is based on HST's core technology, which enables the mass-production of ordinary CD-ROM discs that cannot be duplicated successfully on a CDR recorder. The Copy-Protected CD is the ideal medium for distribution of consumer software, as it prevents users from making unauthorized copies on CDR recorders.

Product: The Copy-Protected CD

The Bongle takes security to the Networked environment. The Bongle is a "dongle" on a CD-ROM. Dongles are devices, usually a small box that contains a chip which stores a unique serial number, which must be physically attached to the computer, usually through a serial or parallel port. The good thing about dongles is that they are hard to beat. Average users have no way around them, and even sophisticated computer users must have access to expensive and complicated data analysis equipment to crack the dongle's code. On the down side, dongles are expensive to manufacture, and users frequently complain of complications with the use of their serial or parallel ports when dongles are attached. The dongle is a good idea that is trapped behind a hardware problem.

The Bongle can provide all the security of a dongle, without the cost or inconvenience. Based on a copy-protected CD-ROM that can be mass-produced for pennies, the Bongle must be placed in a CD-ROM drive when the protected software is launched on a computer or workstation. Ideal for networked environments with shared software, the Bongle can identify authorized users, regardless of which workstation they use. Bongles are inexpensive because they're mass produced, and Bongles are secure, because they can't be duplicated on a CDR recorder.

The Bongle works because of modifications made during the CD mastering process. The result is a disc which the application software can identify as being unique. Software on The Bongle disc cannot be successfully copied onto recordable CDR discs.

How it works?

Unkown yet. Both products supposed to were released into 1998.

Price: Not avaible (at website)

Does it work in real life?

Since this protection is still at papers we don't know if it will work. :)