Dongle

Primarily, Dongles are used today by software manufacturers to prevent software piracy. Software that is run with Dongles is often expensive and is aimed usually at small and specific market niches. For most, the aim is copyright protection where a single license could amount to several thousands of dollars. Examples of software that typically need copy prevention and are run with Dongles are Digital Audio Workstations, Computer Aided Design and Drafting, translations memory packages, MICROS systems, and most printing and prepress software. Some game consoles also use Dongles when they want to be assured that it is only connected to their officially licensed cartridges

There have been several attempts in the past by software manufacturers to Dongle security into their programs. This was, however, resisted by consumers because of the inconvenience of having an extra hardware in their computers. While software manufacturers for specialized markets can not do much to protect and track their products without this, computer users are not. This resulted to a decline in the sales of software programs that use a Dongle and some were able only to penetrate the market when they came out with the programs that do not require the device.

It is not really known how the Dongle originated though it has been around since the 1970's. Then, the Dongle is only a simple device that supplies the data and is attached into a computer's external port. When the protected software is being loaded the computer checks for the Dongle. When it detects the Dongle, the computer loads. If the computer does not detect the dongle, the operation is terminated. This early system, however, was open to cracking as the values in the presence of the hardware could easily be detected by a programmer. All the programmer has to do is set the Dongle to exist.

From there, Dongles evolved into an active device that contains serial transceivers. A dongle variant was also equipped with its own microprocessor to enable it to transact with the host through a parallel interface. However the most popular of Dongles today are those that adopt the USB interface.

Dongle comes in with strong built-in encryption. Its memory retains the information even when it is not connected to a power source, making them secure crypt processors. Even so, Dongles are not entirely foolproof even when the algorithm and key are encoded; the cipher could still be breakable if another user knows the algorithm, the key and the cryptographic ciphertext.