oh great it's right next to a string buffer labeled "verify_password"

I'm sure that'll come in handy

oh my god

I think this is even easier than I thought.

So the function looks basically like this:
validate_authorization_code (serial_number, expiration_date, max_users, authorization_code), right?

and it takes the serial number and expiration_date and max_users and confirms the authorization_code matches some hash or something to make sure it fits those serial numbers and expiration_date and max_users

a less sensible way to do this would be to have validate_authorization_code be implemented like this:

correct_authorization_code = generate_authorization_code(serial, expiration, max_users);
return strcmp(correct_authorization_code, authorization_code) == 0;

the authorization_code generator has an "encrypt" parameter that does some simple XORing

this code passes 0 for it, so that's not even turned on