CAD: 2012 USB Thumb Drives One Part Short of Two Part Security ...

If you have been following Kung Fu Drafter for any period of time, you know that we are Autodesk fanboys. No, we aren’t ashamed of our rampant fanboyism; in fact, we carry it as a badge of honor. So our long time readers weren’t surprised by our excitement over the release of the 2012 product lineup on Twitter or our live coverage here on the blog. But what may surprise you is that there are things we would still like to see! That’s right; our fanboyism is surpassed only by our geeky superpower to be armchair developers!

First off, we were surprised that the Autodesk Design Suites would be shipped on USB thumb drives. Not this is an entirely foreign concept; we just thought that it was pretty cool. Our second thought was that this was an obvious move towards thwarting piracy of Autodesk products. Like every other software company in the world, Autodesk has been suffering from rampant piracy of their products for years. So it seems like a natural move for them to change from optical media to more secure, encrypted USB drives. No shocker there.

Check out Autodesk's full lineup of 2012 software suites ...However, here at Kung Fu Drafter we would like to see Autodesk move in a different direction. Now don’t get us wrong, we know there are some pretty big brains rolling heavy at the Autodesk offices. Therefore, there must be a reason that Autodesk has passed on two-factor authentication system. We just can’t imagine what that reason would be. Here at Kung Fu Drafter we have LONG been fans of two-factor authentication which, in its simplest terms, is account verification using something you know AND something you have. In this sort of system you have a piece of knowledge (e.g. a password or, in this case, a serial number) combined with a randomly generated code from an authenticator fob or application to access or install the software.

Blizzard authenticator fobs ...This sort of security has been used for several years in banking (unfortunately not our bank), the military and even gaming systems. However, it is with deployment of two factor authentication by mega-firms Google and Blizzard that we think it will finally go mainstream. We would love to have seen Autodesk maintain an even higher level of piracy prevention with this sort of authentication system.

While it’s true that as long as there is intellectual property in the world there will piracy, systems like two part authentication remove a good portion of that risk. We are sure that those nifty little USB thumb drives have some hefty anti-piracy kung fu going on under the hood. Unfortunately, our efforts to wheedle information out of our contacts at Autodesk turned up a bunch of sealed lips. No sinking AutoCAD ships here. What we do know is that USB thumb drives replacement policy will be the same as it was for optical media. See, are we hard hitting with the news or what?

Tune in for our next post, where we take one more step into poking our good friends at Autodesk with a muddy branch. What could we possibly want more than two-factor authentication? Let’s just say that it’s time for a man in the middle. Until then, please leave us comments below on what you think of our little security rant. Or tell us what ypu are looking forward to in the 2012 products. We have enough branches for us all to poke our favorite CAD developer with ...

- KFD -

Image credits: James Sawyer, Ronnieb, Autodesk, and Blizzard

Comments

[Paul Munford]

Some cynics have claimed that Autodesk deliberately opened the gates to piracy when they got rid of the 'Dongle'.

What's the opinion at KFD?

[Kung Fu Drafter]

You know, I've never once thought about it, but I suppose those people could be on to something. However there are a few things to consider. First, hardware security is NOT ever cheap. They are also prone to failure and that is a recipe for dissatisfied end users. Finally, I have no doubt that modern crackers (the software ones, not the saltines) would have circumvented the hardware dongle.

I guess when it comes to the topic of software there are as many schools of thought as there are pirated applications in the world.

Thanks for commenting!

- KFD -