3. How to Get Bound (The Handshake)
To request a pilot, you do not fill out a form. You email me the hardware fingerprint of the machine you intend to test.
hardware fingerprint · run all four
# 01 · Machine ID
cat /etc/machine-id
# Persistent OS-level machine identifier.
# 02 · MAC address
ip link show | grep "link/ether" | awk '{print $2}' | head -1
# Primary NIC hardware address.
# 03 · CPU model
grep "model name" /proc/cpuinfo | head -1 | cut -d: -f2 | xargs
# CPU model name from /proc/cpuinfo.
# 04 · CPU physical ID
grep "physical id" /proc/cpuinfo | head -1 | cut -d: -f2 | xargs
# Physical socket ID from /proc/cpuinfo.
Why these four values?
When security teams hear "hardware binding," they worry I am asking for sensitive machine secrets or TPM hashes. I’m not.
The four commands above (/etc/machine-id, MAC address, CPU model, physical ID) read standard system identifiers, not secrets. I do not read your files, your environment variables, or your private keys.
Think of it like a shipping address. I need to know which machine to route the license to so that no one else can use it. You are giving me the ZIP code and the street name, not the keys to the house.
Setup
Environment Configuration
The binary binds to the MAC address and Machine ID of the host.
- Supported
WSL2: Supported with a static MAC. Under [wsl2] in .wslconfig, set networkingMode=bridged, vmSwitch, and macAddress.
- Single session
Google Colab: Supported for single-session evaluation. Runtimes are reassigned, so a Colab binding does not persist across sessions.
- Supported
Enterprise VMs (VMware, AWS EC2, GCP): You must configure a static MAC address for the instance.
- Not supported
Snapshot/Revert VMs: Reverting a snapshot breaks the hardware fingerprint by design.
Trust
Privacy & Storage
These four values are sent once to generate your license. My server hashes them immediately into a single cryptographic binding key.
I do not store the raw MAC address, Machine ID, or CPU serials in my database as plaintext. Once your license is issued, the original email containing the raw hardware identifiers is permanently deleted from my inbox. If my database were ever breached, there is no readable hardware data to steal.
Licenses are issued manually by a single operator, with no automated pipeline in the path.