Any word on a smaller sleeker dongle yet?

That would be the beginning of the end. Elicenser is fine as it is, I want my software protected and not hacked.
ILok was breached once they went with harddisk based protection. It did bite them in the behind that bad that a bit later it also affected their dongle based protection. No thnx, let’s keep Steinberg secure please.

You seem to forget that elicenser was also hacked. I don’t frequent the torrent sites, but my understanding is that there are several software companies now that do non-dongle security that have not yet been hacked. A dongle is not foolproof (as the past shows) nor is any other method. I am also all for security, but to assume that a dongle is the only way to achieve that is simply false.

It’s one of those things that I don’t think is up to any one person to say whether they don’t like it or not. Clearly there is a large amount of users now who have different needs where dongle is not ideal.

There have been tons of pirated versions of Cubase all over the place for many years, including now. Someone I know works on software security for quite a few companies including a couple of well-know DAWs, and he sees that world deeply every day. A dongle is no more effective than others, from what he tells me.

Your friend is full of sh*t and is probably lying about his job if he’s really that clueless.

The newest Cubase version to have been cracked is almost 10 years old while the newest cracked Steinberg plugin is almost 15 years old, and from what I’ve heard these illegal versions were very buggy.

What happened in the past is completely irrelevant. The point of crack protection is to delay cracks for as long as possible, and right now the USB-eLicenser is doing a more than perfect job. Even in the mid 2000s it was doing its job excellently.

I should know by now that it is useless arguing with people about whether or not the dongle is a good thing. Since the past is irrelevant, then simply only look at today-there are plenty of other secure audio software out there now that use methods other than the dongle. I’m pretty sure that the very Komplete 10 that you have in your signature uses a copy protection that is not cracked. Do not equate using a dongle with the only effective way of securing software. Even the ilok was compromised just a couple months ago and needed a hot fix.