How HWID lock works
Why we lock keys to hardware, what we actually see, and how it differs from the public-cheat norm.
Why
Without a HWID lock, one paid key gets shared across many users. This isn't theoretical — the publicly-leaked KeyAuth datasets from competitors show 5–8× usage-per-key inflation when keys aren't locked.
The lock isn't there to spite you. It's the only thing that lets us price day-keys at $5.
What we see
We see a 64-character hex string derived from your machine via SHA-256. We do not see:
- Your machine name
- Your CPU model
- Your GPU model
- Your disk serial in plaintext
- Anything PII-like
We can identify "this is the same machine as last session" — that's it.
What changes the hash
The hash usually changes when you:
- Replace your motherboard or CPU.
- Reinstall Windows from scratch (MachineGuid is regenerated).
- Swap your primary storage drive with the boot partition.
The hash does not change when you:
- Reboot.
- Add or remove RAM.
- Swap your GPU.
- Add a secondary drive.
Vs the public-cheat norm
Most KeyAuth-based loaders we've audited send the unhashed MachineGuid straight to the auth server, plus a comma-separated list of disk serials in plaintext. We hash on-device before any network call. This is documented in our Privacy Policy.