Ok, another idea: A secure empeg registry which couldn't (easily) be used by thieves. I have the hunch that thieves may use the registry to create fake serial number tags based on which ones have not yet been registered. They could easily make a new tag and put the player in a box claiming it's new-in-box and that the firmware serial number can't be displayed because the box can't be opened.

How can this be done? Kinda like One Way Kerbros encryption. Once you submit your serial, name, and location to the server, it can't be retreived by a listing or browsing. The only way your information can be retreived is by submitting the serial number to the server. To avoid brute-force enumeration, you're IP could get three tries in a certain period of time before it's locked out.

That way, if someone says, "I'm selling serial 010101999" you could go to the reg and punch that in. If nothing came back, you could feel kinda good that it may be legit. And empeg owners could feel good that their information was confidential because of the security in place.

To further secure the server, there could be some functionality which would e-mail the owner of the serial when their information was accessed. The e-mail could contain the requestor's IP address, for instance. So, if I owned 010101999, I'd know someone was poking around when my information got requested.

Any other ideas for security? I'd really love to see the whole community registered and to keep their registration updated.