Fair enough. There are some edges which lower the target number. But its not something an existing character could 'get'. But if you have those, why on earth do you want to lower the numbers even more with Centering?

Tradition modifiers, the only other things I could think of which could possibly lower the TN also fit into the 'unavailable to obtain in game' category, so I would say that there's no way to lower the TN in game without resorting to special metamagics and house rules. If its an existing character who doesn't have the appropriate edges or tradition modifiers if indeed such things exist, then you can't lower the conjouring TN. If you're talking about making a character who is a world beating conjourer from scratch, then build it carefully, and like anything else you can probably twink it out quite a long way if you were that way inclined.

And I would say your CD files are most definately pirated. FASA always said they were never going to do it and I know it definately hasn't been done for retail since 3rd ed. Personally, I own almost all the core books and most of the sourcebooks that've been printed except the neo guide and tir na nog, but I could really use an on disk resource. Trouble is they'll probably be in pdf, so you couldn't search the data. So I wouldn't bother with it myself. In any case, I wouldn't shout about it too much, even if you bought it in good faith.

*dreams of an official release, hyperlinked, searchable html set of core books with demonically powerful uncrackable encryption, and sighs*

That's not the problem. Nigh-unbreakable encryption is readily available, for free. I routinely use free source encryption software to encrypt my network traffic at levels that, barring major advances in decryption techniques, will not be cracked before the heat death of the universe. (This isn't paranoia.... well, it isn't just paranoia. I've got wireless Ethernet here, and the standard hardware encryption/authentication on that is so weak as to be practically useless. So I run software encryption and authentication and fairly rigorous firewalling on top of it to keep anyone within a block of me from being able to leech off my Internet connection. And I figure if I'm doing that anyway, I might as well do it right. It's not like the K7 I use for a router doesn't have CPU cycles to burn.)

Anyway, the problem is that it doesn't matter how strongly encrypted the data is. The end user has to be able to decrypt it, or it's useless. If you can't decrypt it, you can't read it, and there's no point in buying sourcebooks that you can't read. And, digital media being what it is, if the end user can decrypt it, he can make a perfect copy of the unencrypted data, or simply make copies of the encrypted data and hand out the info necessary to decrypt it along with them.

Microsoft et al. are trying to solve this problem by building copy protection into the OS and the hardware such that the computer itself will refuse to allow the end user to make unauthorized copies of such things. There are a number of issues involved with that approach, however, not the least being the degree of control over what can be done with the computer that it requires the end user to give up to the OS manufacturer and content providers.

That's what he meant by "doesn't exist in a commercially friendly way".

It's not a matter of commercial friendliness, or anything else to do with encryption, though. The encryption exists, and fills its part of the deal quite effectively. It's just not the right tool with which to solve the fundamental problem. Encryption is great for protecting communications between two friendly endpoints from interception by hostile third parties. It doesn't do jack when the hostile party is actually the intended recipient of the communication, which is the problem faced with piracy.