Is there a unique computer identifier that can be used reliably even in a virtual machine?
- by SaUce
I'm writing a small client program to be run on a terminal server. I'm looking for a way to make sure that it will only run on this server and in case it is removed from the server it will not function.
I understand that there is no perfect way of securing it to make it impossible to ran on other platforms, but I want to make it hard enough to prevent 95% of people to try anything. The other 5% who can hack it is not my concern.
I was looking at different Unique Identifiers like Processor ID, Windows Product ID, Computer GUID and other UIs. Because the terminal server is a virtual machine, I cannot locate anything that is completely unique to this machine.
Any ideas on what I should look into to make this 95% secure. I do not have time or the need to make it as secure as possible because it will defeat the purpose of the application itself.
I do not want to user MAC address. Even though it is unique to each machine it can be easily spoofed.
As far as Microsoft Product ID, because our system team clones VM servers and we use corporate volume key, I found already two servers that I have access to that have same Product ID Number. I have no Idea how many others out there that have same Product ID
By 95% and 5% I just simply wanted to illustrate how far i want to go with securing this software. I do not have precise statistics on how many people can do what.
I believe I might need to change my approach and instead of trying to identify the machine, I will be better off by identifying the user and create group based permission for access to this software.
