Press Releases

• SoftwareShield Named Finalist for Prestigious SIIA Codie Award, February, 2007
• 90% of Cracked and Pirated Software Uses "Homegrown" Digital Protection. July 21, 2004
• Software Licensing System Embeds Sensitive Data Inside Images, February, 2003

SoftwareShield Named Finalist for Prestigious SIIA Codie Award

VANCOUVER, BC – February 8, 2007

SoftwareShield Technologies, Inc., a world-class Digital Rights Management and licensing and protection system, announced today that it is a finalist for the Software & Information Industry Association’s (SIIA) prestigious Codie Awards, in the Best Digital Rights Management Solution category.

The SoftwareShield™ System SDK provides a comprehensive Software Developer’s Toolkit for creating licensing systems and protection software that developers can use to distribute and sell their Windows® applications online.

“We’re thrilled with the nomination received from the Codie Awards committee,” says Zack Wickes, President of SoftwareShield Technologies. “It validates for us the hard work we put in to making SoftwareShield a premiere software licensing system for software developers.”

Established in 1986, the Codie Awards celebrate outstanding achievement and vision in the software, digital information and education technology industries. Through a unique combination of journalist and peer review, the Codie Awards recognize 72 categories of outstanding products and services. This year’s 367 finalists represent an impressive array of technology and business excellence, passion and success. They were chosen from more than 1,200 nominations submitted by more than 600 companies - breaking the record set in the 2006 awards. Over 219 individuals in the trade press, consulting, educators, IT specialists and other neutral specialists have reviewed all of the products entered.

“The 2007 Codie Finalists represent real winners, even at this stage of the contest,” said Ken Wasch, SIIA President. “Competition is fiercer than ever and that makes selection as a Codie Finalist a real achievement. All the companies on this year’s list should feel justifiably proud of their recognition.”
About SoftwareShield Technologies, Inc.

The SoftwareShield System SDK addresses a growing need from software publishers worldwide for digital rights management software that electronically generates and enforces their software licenses and guards against unauthorized use. By implementing a wide variety of built-in product activation algorithms and copy protection from a single binary file, SoftwareShield’s SDK can completely automate product activation and runs securely behind a payment processing merchant or gateway.

The SoftwareShield System SDK is available for purchase and a free Trial Edition download at www.softwareshield.com. SoftwareShield Technologies, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Yummy Interactive, Inc.

About SIIA
The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) is the principal trade association for the software and digital content industry. SIIA provides global services in government relations, business development, corporate education and intellectual property protection to more than 800 leading software and information companies. For further information, visit www.siia.net.
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90% of Cracked and Pirated Software Uses "Homegrown" Digital Protection

Vancouver, British Columbia. - July 21, 2004

If the software you publish has never been cracked, pirated or just plain stolen - you should consider yourself very lucky.

SoftwareShield Technologies Inc. released research results today that examined how software publishers license and protect their titles. The survey sampled over two hundred North American software companies, revealing valuable information about these publishers.

"Past research focused primarily on the financial losses from piracy. However, our research focuses mainly on who is getting cracked and why. The results are shocking. We decided to release some of the more relevant findings so that software publishers might be better prepared in the future." says Zack Wickes, president of SoftwareShield Technologies Inc.

The study showed that a remarkably high number of publishers (88%) who distribute their products electronically have had cracks or pirated versions of their titles released on the Internet at one time.

Of these publishers, the vast majority (92%) relied on their own developers to build their software licensing and protection systems "in-house". Further, for these same respondents, almost three-quarters (71%) reported that licensing and protection systems were either the last functional requirement implemented, or were over the projects time budget and had to be rushed.

The results above largely confirmed what was already suspected. However, the next set of observations was particularly shocking and is potentially valuable information for software publishers looking to maximize profits.

In dramatic contrast to those who have been victims of piracy above, just over half of those publishers who had never experienced illegal cracks of their titles reported they used a third-party licensing or protection software development kit (SDK). More often than not, these publishers purchased the SDK in the first half of the product development cycle or it was already owned from previous projects or titles.

The other half of publishers who had lost nothing to cracks or pirated titles relied on a solution developed in-house. Interestingly however, only 5% of these companies reported leaving the licensing and protection "until the last minute".

Publishers should pay careful attention to two key conclusions from this research:

1. Using a good third party licensing and protection solution can reduce a publisher's probability of a crack appearing for their titles by up to 40%.
2. Leaving the design and implementation of in-house licensing solutions until the last minute or under-estimating the resources required always results in a less effective system. Even if you decide to build your own licensing and protection systems, do not leave it to the end of your project or under-estimate your requirements.

"The decision for most publishers is clear: To maximize profits, reduce costs and enhance security, publishers should buy a good software licensing SDK. Whether you purchase the SoftwareShield SDK or the competitions, the important thing is to buy a third-party solution, as early as possible in your development cycle - your project ultimately will be better off" says Wickes.

The SoftwareShield System SDK addresses this growing need from software publishers worldwide. Publishers use the SDK to electronically generate and enforce their software licenses and guard against unauthorized use by implementing a wide variety of built-in product activation algorithms or copy protection - all from a single binary file. Product activation can be completely automated and run securely behind a payment processing merchant or gateway - completely hands off.

The SoftwareShield System SDK ships electronically in three editions. Every edition ships with: the "License Manager" application to create and manage licenses, the "Manual-Activator(tm)" to unlock, activate and remote-control customers software, the "ClientProtector(tm)" component for integrating into client applications and the "FingerPrint Viewer(tm)" for inspecting and generating machine Fingerprints used in machine-locking. Additionally, the Internet Edition ships with the "Web-Activator(tm)" which allows vendors to integrate the SoftwareShield System SDK with their e-commerce solution to automatically generate Activation Codes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

You can check out the SoftwareShield System SDK and download the free Trial Edition at http://www.softwareshield.com or contact the company directly at info@softwareshield.com. Prices for the base SDK range from $379.95 US to $899.00 US, depending on the edition and number of installations.

Software Licensing System Embeds Sensitive Data Inside Images

Vancouver, British Columbia. – February, 2003

SoftwareShield Technologies Inc. announced today the release of The SoftwareShield System, a new software licensing and copy protection system for software developers. Setting it apart from competitors, the SoftwareShield System has the ability to hide encrypted license data inside images. Traditional licensing functionality in the SoftwareShield product is standard. However, the addition of image hiding technology gives Windows software developers a new method of license enforcement and another weapon in the fight against software piracy - steganography. “Steganographic licensing technology” is SoftwareShield’s licensing and copy protection solution which gives developers the unique and interesting option of using encrypted data hidden in images to license and protect their applications.

Zack Wickes, president of SoftwareShield Technologies Inc, who has a background in Applied Artificial Intelligence, has focused his research in the past few years on computer vision, visual perception and cryptography. This research has lead to the development of the SoftwareShield steganographic engine and ultimately - SoftwareShield Licensing System.

The SoftwareShield steganographic engine performs the task of hiding license data inside images so effectively that thousands of bytes of data can be hidden in a small image without it appearing altered to the human eye. “We know from our artificial intelligence research in perception that the human eye is least likely to see slight differences in color variation along the edges of physical objects. We have taken advantage of this trait of human vision in the SoftwareShield System to very effectively hide license in images. The data is right under the nose of the pirates and those who might try and defeat a vendor’s license. Its really quite effective when you see an embedded image and the volume of data we can hide inside it.” says Wickes.

To illustrate how effective the SoftwareShield steganographic algorithm is at hiding license data, we have embedded two paragraphs of text (about 150 words) inside the following logo. The images on the left are the sample original logo (92 x 64 pixels) pictured on the right is the same logo with two entire paragraphs of text steganographically embedded inside it - can you see the difference? We have enlarged both images 3 x times for your inspection.

SoftwareShield primarily helps software developers who choose to deliver or license their products in electronic format by the internet – for the obvious cost benefit. “Our clients are constantly looking to find new and secure ways to demonstrate and deliver their products electronically – but without being subjected to piracy.” The SoftwareShield Licensing System meets those needs by enabling developers with the power to create demo, trial, copy-protected, leased, pay-per-use and many other editions of their software with a minimum of effort and a solid level of security. This security optionally includes the new weapon in the arsenal – steganographic licensing.

The SoftwareShield Licensing and Copy Protection System ships electronically in three editions. Every edition ships with: the “License Manager” application to create and manage licenses, the “Activation Code Generator” to unlock, activate and remote-control customers software and the “Client-Protector” component for integrating into client applications. Additionally, the Internet edition ships with the “Web Deployed Activation Code Generator” which allows vendor’s to integrate the SoftwareShield system with their e-commerce solution to automatically generate Activation Codes.