Help, What's a Dongle?

[gman3030]

Help, What's a Dongle?

[aldus4]

I think its copy protection. You can either get software dongles (try it, buy it software for example) or hardware dongles (output ports i.e. USB, parallel etc.).

[Greg12]

i thought it was a connector on certain hardware boards. i think they r the wiires that hang off of certain capture cards.

[Darkbird]

It's a piece of hardware that attaches to the computer for protecting against software piracy. They used to use them on serial ports, but now they are also made for USB. A computer program (usually a very expensive one that the makers don't want pirated) sends a small amount of data to the dongle, and then reads response data from the dongle. If the repsonse is the correct one, then the software becomes temporarily unlocked and can be used. If the dongle is missing, the software can't send the data or doesn't get a reponse, and so the software remains locked and cannot be used . . unless the program's executable code is patched to bypass the protection check. A progam that performs the patch is often called a crack.

[leebo]

Oohhh.

All this time I thought a dongle was that thing they chopped off of my dog!