Protecting your investment

[jadiflow]

Hi,

I hope this is not too much off-topic, but here goes:

I am developing a test box app with an embedded ECIO connected through USB to a PC. This is the first time I envisage updating the PIC software during the life of the unit. Now, I always use the code protection features of the PIC to forestall any enthousiastic backwards engineering. But when you distribute upgrades that users can download to the PIC, that protection goes down the drain.

Options:
1) use a dongle (awkward and extra cost);
2) only exchange 'old' PICs for 'updated' PICs (awkward, lots of shipping, downtime);
3) distribute updates in encrypted form, and decrypt at download.

What do you people think about these issues? Is it realistic to modify for instance the PPP downloader to handle encrypted hex files, and would that close the protection gap?

Hopefully, we can get a fruitfull conversation going here; there must be lots of people with the same issue. Has MMM management a view on this?

Jan Didden