Software Piracy Detection and Prevention Using Sift Algorithm with Two-Way Authentication Mechanism

Abstract

Software industry contributes to the world’s economy growth and development by advancing society through technological innovations. Software is an intellectual property and piracy of software which is an unlawful duplication of copyrighted computer software has been a major setback in software industry over the years and this has hampered the revenue generated with the high cost of investment in developing such software. Despite, the diversity of technical measures against illegal duplicating of software, most existing protection methods failed in protecting software. This study proposed image splitting system with two-way authentication techniques to validate security details before installation can begin on host computer. This activation algorithm uses image of the activator that is split into half and secured on different servers compared with the current image of the activator captured to generate an authentication key that will be required during installation and activation of the software. In addition, the host machine details will be extracted and tied to the image generated. The proposed system guarantees better security.