> Anyway, the entire premise presented here becomes bogus if the software connects to the internet for key verification which has been a viable option for decad

> Anyway, the entire premise presented here becomes bogus if the software connects to the internet for key verification which has been a viable option for decades now. This would seem true to most people, and I had the same assumption over 5 years ago when I started Keygen. But you would surprised at how many software vendors, and end-users, do not consider an online-only licensing system a viable option. Take Sublime Text -- as far as I know, they do not use a licensing server that "calls home" (I'd bet their user base revolt against such a thing.) There is a sizeable portion of my customer base that rarely even uses the API -- they use Keygen to generate signed offline-first license keys which they distribute to end-users. They only use the API for customer support and reporting purposes. I like having the best of both worlds -- an online-first, offline-capable licensing system. But to be offline-capable, your key algorithm has to be secure, otherwise bad actors will just go offline to avoid the part of your system that works.