I will use these two terms to distinguish the two approaches, other might not agree on the two meanings I will use, but it s better to call these two approaches just A and B -) First of all I have to build a common understanding platform from where I can start the detailed discussion How a dongle works I think that this subject should be already known, and here is not the place where to explain details on specific dongles, anyway few things are required to understand the general way to approach these dongles. Where commercial applications are explicitly used, they are just for their protection, and no cracks details are given. Have phun, Shub-Nigurrath The techniques described here are general and not specific to any commercial applications. I focused on Sentinel because is one of the most requested and used in dongles. I anyway updated their techniques, tested on a recent application and changed a little the routines you can find around, because don t work anymore.Īn excellent source of material on dongles is the Woodmann s page on this subject 1.Ĭonsider this tutorial as a whitepaper on Sentinel dongles (without having the pretence of telling everything about) where I tried to clearly explains concepts, with some new contributions as well. Sentinel Emulator 2007 Software Engineering Objects.