How can I retrieve the processor serial number with Matlab?

Hi!

I have written a Matlab code that I want to sell as an Excel add-in. To protect the program and to know when each user uses the add-in, I would like to include the following in my Matlab program: 1. Get the serial number of the computer you are on. 2. Send the serial number to a server (so that the server knows that the program has been used) in an encrypted form. 3. Receive an encrypted answer from the server and perform the calculation only if the license is valid on this computer.

My question is: how do I do step 1 in Matlab? Is there a function that retrieves the serial number of the computer on which Matlab is running?

Many thanks in advance!

Benoit

Answer 1

[Jan]

There is no unique serial number of a computer. Therefore you cannot obtain it.

Beside the ethernet MAC address, you can use the user's SID, see Yair's GetSID: http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/15718. Then you find the ProductID of Windows in the registry (I cn check this for XP only):

winqueryreg('HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE', ...
     SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion', 'ProductID')

In the registry you find the InstallDate, DigitalProductID and LicenseInfo also. To get the vendor-IDs of the harddisks and other installed hardware, you can use:

!powercfg /devicequery all_devices_verbose

But POWERCFG may be restricted to admins also. And most of all: This works for Windows only!

Finally you have to consider the local laws for privacy protection: It may be a problem if you track the work of each user in real-time. I'd personally would never accept such a control on principle. Controlling the validity of the license during the installation causes enough problems already.

Answer 2

[Matt Fig]

This doesn't work all the time, but might give you an idea of what can be done.

T = evalc('!wmic bios get serialnumber')

[Jan]

Is the WMIC access allowed only for admins usually?

Answer 3

[Benoît]

Thanks for this reply, Matt! Why doesn't it work all the time? Because not all processors have a serial number?

[Matt Fig]

Please delete this "answer" and put a comment on my actual answer. Then I can comment back.

[Walter Roberson]

Unix doesn't have a wmic command.

If you ask about the serial number of a *processor* then you need to be concerned about what answer you will get if the system has multiple processors.

One common approach is to get the MAC (Media Access Control) of the "primary" ethernet card. However, that can fail if the ethernet cards are changed or if a built-in ethernet (e.g., on a Dell) is disabled and replaced with an ethernet card, or if it is not possible to determine which is the "primary" ethernet card. Still, the technique is widely used, more so than processor serial numbers.

From time to time you will encounter a program that takes the serial number of the first hard drive. I personally consider that to be a poor decision, as it is common to change hard drives.

[Benoît]

Thanks Walter! Do you know the function to use to get the MAC of the primary ethernet card?

[Walter Roberson]

Unfortunately getting the MAC can be OS specific. Usually though you can get it by parsing the output of the system command

ifconfig

but in some OS you might have to include an interface name. Also, determining which is the "primary" ethernet card can be hard. In the old days, BSD Unix derived systems often had a "primary" flag that could be set against a single ethernet interface, but as it become common to have multiple interfaces it fell out of use as being too limiting.

Answer 4

[Jan]

For getting the MAC address: https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/289469-checking-physical-address-of-the-computer