Greg,

this is very bad news.

Greg,

I too am very interested in the ability to encrypt maps as per your proposal. I can understand the importance of protecting the business model with regards to sales etc and that certainly narrows the parameters of a user level application. As such, is there an opportunity to provide user level access to a corporate site containing an encryption application where maps could be encrypted to cards using either CID or Unit serial numbers BUT monitored and vetted by Navico? A user could perhaps login, encrypt a map to a card and then logout, but obviously face several restrictions, such as map type (Vector/Raster), number of separate encryption events allowed, size of map/data allowed etc.

I am only "throwing" some ideas at you as you have indicated that the level of interest for your proposed version was not sufficient to outlay the effort require to develop. I don't really have any idea whether what I have proposed is/could be done more efficiently but I would imagine that it would definitely allow Navico more control over what Encryption is used for whilst still giving the IMC user the ability to protect their intellectual efforts better.

Just another idea.

Regards,
Rob.

Charger wrote:
Maintaining a dedicated website and monitoring the card encryption levels would represent significant overhead in the process. The ready to be encrypted state for unit encryption would represent the most viable solution from our perspective in that it is the only solution we can propose that doesn't rely on a back end or monitoring.

Fair enough Greg.

For your info, I have been speaking with some other users and they too are VERY interested in a user level encryption option. From my own perspective, it would allow me to provide maps to my friends without fear of my hard work ending up plastered all over the internet. Yes I know, friends should be able to be trusted not to do this, BUT it is not really MY friends that I am worried about. It is their friends begging them for a copy and their friends........ and so and so forth and pretty soon I have lost control over who has what and the chance of someone posting it on the net has increased exponentially.

I don't see it hurting the company business model either to be honest. In fact I see it the other way. If people (like me) had confidence they could share their maps with others but still maintain SOME control over who had what as well as protection for their intellectual property, then we would be more inclined to do so. This in turn generates talk about the Navico product/brand and pretty soon anyone who doesn't own a Navico unit will want one so they can use these maps too. I know this because I have seen it. As soon as I show someone what I can do with regards to mapping they are asking how much they need to spend to get a unit that can run the maps. The thing that stops any further discussion is when I tell them that because I can't encrypt the maps, they cannot have them.

I guess what I am saying here Greg is please don't throw this idea away. I see it as a win-win for users and Navico.

Regards,
Rob.

gpiverson wrote:
I'm curious, what method is available to keep data on an SD card from being used on other cards? Is it CPRM?

The core rule of encryption is to never explain or give hints on the specifics.

What I have already explained here is as deep as I will go on this.