Slashdot Mirror
e-Denounce
Knacklappen writes: "A British organization named Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) will according to this article on Monday launch a plug-in for Internet Explorer that will put an 'F' button on a user's browser. Pressing the button, one can easily tipoff FAST about pirated software. The plug-in captures a live example of the site for evidence as well as other basic information about the site. Great idea, but why not mark the button with 'D' for 'denounce'?"
That would only work if this software simply sends the data of the page and the url where it was found. What if it transmits your ip? Well then you can be filtered out. Only people that have low submissions from a single ip would be counted as where if you submit adobe.com and slashdot.org and freshmeat and they run a parse script, they can tell if you are trying to mess with them. Who knows though?
Lets just reverse engineer the protocol and write our own clients with spoofed source addresses. Shouldn't be that hard.
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
In order for this to work, each time you give a site an "F", you should be contractually bound so that if it turns out that the site is legit, then you are the one that gets in trouble: you would have to pay a fine.
Then, in order to give people a motive for using this plug-in, the company should pay bounty money to the vigilante via a Paypal type system.
This fine/bounty system would turn the internet into the wild west, but it might just work. You would end up with roaming internet cowboys who made a living by busting pirates.
However, the system should be more sophisticated, give the user more tools: IRC, USENet, and other protocols are often used for piracy. The report tool should be able to legally document those types of sources.
If noone could pirate software, far more people would end up using free software. Think about it.
... for reporting spam. I am NOT playing vigilante for copyrighted software. It is NOT that hard to find. And what would my reward be?
Screw that. But if I could press an F button to say 'this is spam' and have it reported, then in theory maybe somebody'll do something about it, and I'll have less shit in my inbox. That would be a rather satisfactory incentive for me to report stuff like this.
"Derp de derp."
Okay, we really need to get this straightened out.
First of all, allow me to establish my own credentials. I've been reasonably active in "trading" software for 20+ years, since long before there was any really active internet scene. (/crotchety voice)Back then, if you wanted to trade software you had to link up by BBS with someone, and actually go over to their house with a box full of your big-ass 5.25 floppies. It took work in those days, boy. (/crotchety voice)
Anyway, from the first time the term started being used, warez was always pronounced "wares", to rhyme with "bears".
Said Simple Simon, to the pieman,
let me taste your wares
This "war-ez" business (to rhyme with, i dunno, say, "bore fez") started up some time around the 93-95 zone, in my own experience. I'm not slamming you personally by saying this, just making an observation, but I've tended to see this pronunciation taken up by relative newbies on the scene. I don't like it. "Wares" is simple and elegant, "war-ez" is two syllables, and does not roll off the tounge anywhere near as nicely.
Not that anyone will care, don't listen to your elders, world going to hell in a handbasket these days anyway, I don't know... (wanders away mumbling)
FAST has long been at this kind of thing: some years back, they started pushing their "shop your boss" campaign, whereby they encouraged people to report their employers if they were using privated software.
Such tactics as these are really quite chilling, and can surely do FAST no favours whatsoever. It's ironic that, by pushing this kind of crap, the powers-that-be continue to harm their cause: these draconian tactics will only serve to encourage the view of the software pirate as a Robin Hood figure fighting an evil force. And, indeed, the organisations who're pushing this kind of stuff generally *are* the true thieves who are *truly* costing the software developers their money. After all, who can really trust people who try to convince you that, in a free market economy, the logical economic response to flagging sales (as a result of piracy) is the raising of prices...?
Most pirates know that what they're doing is questionable; compared with the likes of the RIAA and FAST, though, their sins are made to seem small and insignificant. I can only hope that continued moves like this will encourage society as a whole to address industry-serving laws that allow teenagers who copy games to be locked up, whilst (for example) keeping animal abuse acts a simple misdemeanour in several states.
One possiblity - all of the assorted "warez" sites may start automatically bouncing anyone with IE, saying "use something that doesn't report us" or similar....
A plus for Mozilla, Opera, et al. Not necessarily the sort of advertising they'd ever want to use, but every download helps.
Beware the psychokinetic mimes!