This is a draft document and RFC (request for commentary) regarding Pace AP® InterLok and iLok products.
Corrections or additions are welcome. Email address is on the main website page, I don't want them here to make it a little harder on the spam farmers.
PACE is actually the name of a company, Pace Anti Piracy. Their products allegedly "protect" software from illegal copying and distribution. These products are available for Windows and Macintosh systems. There are two primary products. Interlok, and it's functional twin, InterLok Pro are software-only products. iLok is a software/hardware combination that uses a programmable USB dongle to store authorization keys for software that uses it.
Many audio processing software companies use Pace for their DAW and plug-ins. These companies clearly think that without the "protection" provided by Pace, that audio engineers are recording studios will not pay for the software. They have probably learned this the hard way. Which is very sad, since the whole point of using audio processing/recording/editing software is to make great music, which is itself software. If anyone in the universe should understand that theft of software is bad, it should be musicians and audio engineers. Sigh.
The dongle based product, iLok, when combined with Internet networking delivery of the software, can be an elegant solution. In theory, the user would just take their iLok to a studio, plug in the dongle, and all of the licensed plug-ins would just work. And for users who don't have the dongle, the software will simply not work.
Users of DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) software on Microsoft® Windows® systems have mixed experience with Pace. Some users are very happy and report no problems. Others have had many problems, including repeated crashes of the DAW software, system reboots, blue-screens-of-death, and other bad things. So far, we don't have a good basis for deciding why this happens to some users or some systems. Perhaps we'll learn more as this FAQ becomes more mature.
While the dongle-based product has potential, all software only solutions suffer from a common flaw: They attempt to uniquely identify the specific machine without a machine-specific identifier. Intel's Pentium III processors (actually the support chips) had a Processor Serial Number, but they did a poor job of marketing why it was a good thing, and the media convinced users that it was a bad thing. Intel has dropped support for the Processor Serial Number on later processors, so there are no unique numbers that identify a machine.
To invent a number, vendors rely upon a generated number. They can look at the CPU, motherboard, disk drive, memory and other characteristics, and generate a number. Which works as long as you don't change anything. Pace AP is not the only vendor to do this, Microsoft uses this exact approach in Windows XP® with their "Activation" program.
Some large customers of Microsoft have refused to allow "Activation" in their networks. The US Department Of Defense is one small example. For these customers, Microsoft has a special version of Windows XP, without activation.
If you can accept either the dongle or the activation approach, then you are set until you trigger the Pace protection system.
A reasonable licensing system will not allow the DAW or plug-in to work on an unlicensed system. All other software on the system should continue to work, unaffected by the license for the plug-in. When Pace decides that the system is unlicensed, it can go far beyond this -- it can cause the system to spontaneously reboot. Preventing the whole computer from working, and preventing the user from using software, such as Microsoft Word or Cakewalk Sonar because Pace thinks that one plug-in is unlicensed is a highly questionable action.
The Pace "copy protection" claim is absurd. The words are plastered all over the top and left side of the Pace AP website, as if the product could deliver. You can not prevent copying and distribution of electronic goods. Any claims to the contrary betray a lack of understanding of how computers work, and raise questions about the intellectual honesty of the entire effort. The only thing that a DRM (digital rights management) product can do is prevent the protected digital goods from being used.
I (pfarrell) will make a three much stronger claims:
Pace AP has a general overview of what their "technology" does and how it works that is available at: http://www.paceap.com/technical.html
Briefly, InterLok® and iLok® install kernel-mode drivers on a Windows operating system, effectively becoming an extension of the operating system. A software application "protected" by InterLok or iLok communicates with the driver, and in the case of iLok, the dongle, by extension, to determine if the software has been "authorized" to run on the computer. In theory, if the driver cannot determine authorization, it will prevent the "protected" application from running. Pace InterLok and iLok also contain aggressive anti-debugging code which can prevent Pace applications from installing if certain debuggers are present on the system and also reboot the machine spontaneously if a debugger is running.
In their technical documentation in the URL referenced above, PaceAP says:
This "under the surface" technology is as large a part of the InterLok system as the many features already described here. We wish we could say more about it, but we can't. Trust us. It's in there, it's very good, and it works.
And
The challenge/response and serial number authorizations use a variety of cryptographically secure technologies to ensure their robustness, including algorithms from RSA Data Security and Internet standards such as S/Key.
One of the fundamental concepts of cryptographically secure technologies is that the security lies solely in the keys. The algorithms must be declared, and based on peer-reviewed code. Anything else is simply snake oil. As this year's ACM Turing award winner (and the R in RSA) Ron Rivest writes, "Do cryptography in public." Slide 15, Turing Award presentation.
And no, I won't just trust them (Pace AP) or anyone else. I strongly recommend simply refusing to purchase anything that relies upon "trust us" security.
Q: I picked "Try". Launched Sonar3, pulled up a project, tried to insert the
plugin in a track in Console view, and it rebooted the machine!!!!
After reboot, XP reported a serious error had occurred and prompted me to forward
the report to MS. I did.
A: This is a known problem for XP with older Pace drivers. Uninstalled Auto-tune, updated the PACE Interlok drivers (per their website's solution for reboot\hang problems under XP), reinstalled Auto-tune, and now it will successfully apply to a track in Sonar.
Go to the Pace website, http://www.paceap.com/ and get them.
Uninstalled Auto-tune, updated the PACE Interlok drivers (per there websites solution for reboot\hang problems under XP), reinstalled Auto-tune, and now it will successfully apply to a track in Sonar. Now let's see if it'll do the magic.
Pace installs the following Registry key trees:
HKEY/LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet001/Enum/LEGACY_TPKD/
HKEY/LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet002/Enum/LEGACY_TPKD/
HKEY/LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/TPKD/
HKEY/LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Services/LEGACY_TPKD/
There may be more.
Pace installes the following files:
On a Windows 2000 Professional system:
C:\WINNT\Tpkdboot.reg
C:\WINNT\System32\Drivers\tpkd.sys
At a more fundamental level, Pace delibrately makes your system unstable if you change any of the items listed above. As it stands, PACE is not designed to allow your software to continue functioning, if the developer who wrote your software goes out of business. Or if PaceAP goes out of business. Admittedly, Microsoft's Activation that is included with Windows XP has exactly the same problem, but most of us believe that Microsoft will not go out of business anytime soon. Vendors of DAWs, audio packages, plug-ins, and similar items have been failing and merging out of existance at a high rate over the past couple of years. Some of these were great companies, such as Syntrilliam, Sonic Foundry and Ultrafunk.
Problems known to be related to PACE:
How to remove PACE:
Disclaimer: This is standard Windows stuff. It *should* work. I can in no way be responsible for what happens to your system should this method fail. "O, Liability! I do disclaim thee!"
The good news is that lots of great products do not use Pace, including everything from Cakewalk.com. Support good vendors, look at their products first. It is hard to tell which software packages use Pace, but those that do not often brag about their rational licensing plan on their website. For example, on the Sonar 3 product information, they state:
What is "Hassle-free copy right protection"? Hassle free means you don't need a dongle or other intrusive devices when using SONAR 3 in your computer. We trust our customers and believe they will adhere to the copyright policy of one license per computer. You get a serial number and enter it during installation. Then you are free to work on SONAR 3 as you please. If you register your serial number, you will be eligible for updates, news, contests, special offers and other fun stuff.
The following products are Pace-free and work well with Sonar:
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
Authors include but are not limited to:
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