> Because all of the software that we're now developing will be > from this point > on internet based, and because unique ID numbers do prevent > piracy, we're > building all of our software to register itself using the MAC > number of the > NIC card in the PC, which is a very similar number to the HPSUSAN. If, like Microsoft's software licensing program, you plan to go easy on this, this sounds like a pretty good idea. Off the top of my head, two wrinkles come to mind. Some NAT solutions also provide MAC address spoofing, which is not as bad as it sounds. AT&T Broadband has, so far, and on this coast, been fairly willing to get along with all those who use such solutions. And I understand that they as a cable vendor, along with the DSL vendors, are all trying to sell to small businesses. AT&T, for whatever reason, does require that registered MAC address for their solution to work, even though one is allowed to use their own NIC, if they wish. Which brings me to my second puzzlement. NICs are cheap, and come in many forms. While I have no idea what AICS's next software offerings will look like, I know what my toy network looks like, and it is a mess. I have a couple of NICs in the family PC, only one of which is in use. I plug my wireless USB adapter into my toy server, to talk wirelessly to and from my handheld PC. I wonder what MAC addresses are visible to what software, from which system. Greg Stigers http://www.cgiusa.com * To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, * * etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *