L I C E N S I N G
CodeMeter vs. Blockchain
Germany’s federal government recently released its “Blockchain Strategy” to great fanfare. Judgement is still out on whether
this strategy will become part of the great IT success story of the new federal ID or the electronic patient’s card. One thing is
sure: Blockchain has become such a hype that even the slow-moving world of federal politics is taking note. No wonder, then,
that more and more software developers or other owners of digital assets, such as the IP in 3D printers, are asking us about
Blockchain and its potential.
Does CodeMeter use Blockchain
technology?
CodeMeter is a DRM system for software and
digital contents tried and tested by millions of
users since its launch in 2002. By comparison,
while research into the cryptographic protection
of blocks has been going on in some form since
1991, Blockchain has only recently become
a practical, viable technology. This makes
CodeMeter its older brother. It also relies on
related cryptographic processes and even uses
mini-block technology in some aspects: Both
technologies developed in parallel and share
some family traits from their origins.
What is Blockchain?
The special idea behind Blockchain is that the
data (all data) is not kept at one central loca-
tion like a bank vault but spread out across the
Internet on a so-called distributed ledger on
many computers.
A member of the chain can then enter a trans-
action into the ledger. Since all other members
on all links of the chain have to have the same
Blockchain, the end product is an unalterable
consensus log.
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Data in Blockchain cannot be altered at a later
point, making it essentially forgery-proof. environmental standpoint, as it wastes masses
of energy by design.
The data is also visible to all members, making
the Blockchain transparent. There is also an
option to encrypt data, but this is not the
standard practice. Blockchain for checking licenses?
How do we establish consensus?
One very popular consensus method is called
the “proof-of-work”. It relies on solving a crypto-
graphic operation that needs a certain amount of
time. For cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, so-called
miners” do this job. After the task has been
accomplished, the new block is added to the
chain. If there are several Blockchains to choose
from, the longer chain wins the race. A miner
who holds more than 50% of the computing
power in the chain could, in theory, manipulate
the chain after the fact.
Solving cryptographic tasks is a computing-
intensive challenge. What makes it even worse
is that many miners will be working in parallel
and only the first past the post will have the
right to add a new block. This type of con-
sensus stands on very shaky ground from an
Let us imagine how Blockchain could be used
for licensing purposes. This is the home turf
of Wibu-Systems with our solution that is
favored by thousands of publishers (Indepen-
dent Software Vendors, or ISVs) and millions
of users.
Let us now use Blockchain for CodeMeter.
Blockchain would be kept in identical copies
at all ISVs. Company “A-CAD” could, for
instance, see how many licenses company
B-CAD” has created. Even if the data is kept
in encrypted form, this would not be a good
idea, as every member of the chain would, at
the very least, see the number of transactions
happening around them and draw their own
conclusions. Let us ignore the problem of the
sheer amount of data that all ISVs and their
users have to keep and keep updating.
The imaginary scenario obviously takes us
nowhere. Let us instead imagine a scenario with
one Blockchain per ISV. Again, one end user – say,