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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'?"
I'm getting this just to claim that every single page on the FAST website is pirated software. Yes, I have no life.
If you are surfing websites looking for warez (pronounced "war-ez" and not "wares" by the true junkies) ... Why the hell would you want to report it to a bunch of copyright police?
The average joe-shmoe will never run into a download for pirated software unless he is looking for it. So this "plugin" is pointless.... right?
x-empt
Ever need an online dictionary?
You would have to be crazy to even think about installing something like this on your system. If its sole intention is to rat on people, wouldn't you think it would monitor just a little bit more than what you volunteered to offer?
What's your damage, Heather?
All you have to do is press the "S" button for article submission.
:)
Of course the editors need an "R" button for "Rejected." But then, I think auto-reject is a feature already built in.
satire, n: 1) witty language used to convey insults or scorn; 2) a form of humor lost on most slashdot moderators.
www.gnu.org
Seriously though, there was this kid I knew who would spend a week at a time to download software off AOL. He had heard about Linux and wanted to try it out. So he asked me where a good place to get pirated iso's of it were.
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
The true users of this software will be:
A) Self-appointed vigilantes with nothing better to do.
B) Immature little warez kiddies turning in sites that belong to "opposing" warez groups.
As a side note, how many times do you think The Underdogs will be turned in per day?
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
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.
THE FEDERATION AGAINST Software Theft (FAST) relies on the kindness of strangers in its effort to short-circuit pirates selling illegal software over the Internet, so in its effort to encourage the reporting of such pirating, the organization wants to make whistle-blowing as simple as the push of a button.
Early next week, the London-based nonprofit will launch a software plug-in for Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE), that when installed will put an "F" button on a user's browser, said lawyer and FAST representative Julian Heathcote Hobbins. The "F" stands for "fast," not "fink." The software will be free and available at the FAST Web site, http://www.fast.org.uk/.
"The software makes reporting instances of illegal software piracy very straightforward and simple. In the past, people would have to go to our Web site and fill out a form to do so and the process was rather complicated. That's completely changed with this software; it's free, easy and you can even make an anonymous report if you'd like," Heathcote Hobbins said.
If a user finds him or herself on a Web site that sells illegal software -- be it music, games, movies or programs -- one click on the "F" will pull up a box. A person can fill in their name, a fake name or no name at all, answer a few other questions, and then click send.
"Included in FAST's software is Webcam software that captures a live example of the site for evidence as well as other basic information about the site," Heathcote Hobbins said.
FAST was set up in 1984 by the British Computer Society's Copyright Committee and works in a fashion similar to the Business Software Alliance (BSA) in Washington, D.C. "The BSA also investigates reports of software privacy, but its reporting process is very complicated," Heathcote Hobbins said.
Companies' revenue losses due to software piracy were nearly $11.8 billion worldwide in 2000, according to the BSA's annual report. The organization's report for 2001 is expected to be published next month.
FAST, which does not concern itself with peer-to-peer file sharing, had been receiving a steady stream of e-mail and telephone calls reporting the sale of illegal pirated software until recently, he said.
"Since between December and this spring, our e-mails have fallen to about 10 on the weekends and one or two a night on the weekdays. That works out to about 1,000 reports a year, which is about a fifth of what it had been. I don't know if that's because pirates have gone more underground or perhaps our old system was a bit of a pain. That's why we created the new reporting software, which we believe is the first of its kind," Heathcote Hobbins said.
Once FAST receives a tip-off about pirated software, it investigates the claim. If FAST is satisfied that the report is valid, Heathcote Hobbins sends a letter to the ISP (Internet service provider) hosting the Internet software pirates' Web site, informing the ISP of the problem and requesting the site be shut down or that similar action be taken.
"ISPs have been very responsive to this issue, and once they are made aware of anything illegal, are generally keen to put a stop to it. FAST is about stopping illegal software but we also work with the other enforcement bodies, covering music, movies and games," Heathcote Hobbins said.
FAST has also been developing a close relationship with the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) in Washington, D.C. "Obviously, the Web is global and the problem isn't just confined to the U.K. In fact, I just got a tip-off from the States this week. We are looking to broaden our horizons, but that takes time and money," Heathcote Hobbins said.
FAST is also developing plug-in software for the Netscape browser but is uncertain what the time frame for its release is.
The company makes money through corporate and industry membership fees. Companies like the international engineering, construction and services group, Balfour Beatty PLC, and Yorkshire Electricity Group PLC pay yearly fees beginning at $863, depending on the size of the company, to have FAST audit the company to ensure that all of the software the company is using is legal.
FAST not only monitors for software sold illegally over the Internet, but for unregistered software that is being used by companies. About 37 percent of business software used worldwide in 2000 consisted of illegal copies, according to the BSA report.
"There are different types of people that report different types of things. For example, people reporting the sale of illegal software over the Internet may have been burned when they bought illegal software in the past that was ripped badly. Or an IT manager in a company may want to make sure his employer isn't inadvertently doing something illegal. Or in both cases, people may be reporting instances of illegally pirated software simply out of the goodness of their hearts," Heathcote Hobbins said.
The really scary part is this: (from the linked article):
The company makes money through corporate and industry membership fees. Companies like the international engineering, construction and services group, Balfour Beatty PLC, and Yorkshire Electricity Group PLC pay yearly fees beginning at $863, depending on the size of the company, to have FAST audit the company to ensure that all of the software the company is using is legal.
Seems like a bit of a conflict to me: sure, pay us to confirm that you don't have illegal software, and we won't tell ourselves.
It's like having to pay protection money, so they won't come and break our kneecaps.
Suspicion Breeds Confidence!
The Underdogs really tries to only post the binaries for games that are no longer sold. If a game is re-released, or still sold after a really long time, he has a review of the game, but doesn't post the binaries. The Underdogs tries its best to live up to the Abandonware promise.
... 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."
It probably uses TCP. Contrary to popular opinion, spoofing TCP is very difficult. It's about as hard as factoring 1024 bit prime numbers - you can factor 1024 bit numbers "off-line", but you have to guess sequence numbers "real-time" to do TCP spoofing.
Unless of course you are planning on injecting false BGP routes into the backbone - well above the capabilities of most people.
I'm actually getting tired of hearing how easy it is to spoof IPs. For ICMP/UDP? Sure. Old SunOS, Windows, and Linux? Sure. But if you are using modern operating systems, it is nearly impossible to spoof TCP.
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.
Hey, what if that webcam captures some of the original stuff I put on the Web? Isn't that, in itself, copyright infringement? And does that mean I should click the "F" button while at their website?
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
It's about as hard as factoring 1024 bit prime numbers
I can factor 1024-bit primes easily.
Each has two factors -- itself and 1.
Products of 1024-bit primes, on the other hand, could be a bit more difficult...
deus does not exist but if he does
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!
For fsck's sake people, software piracy is *bad*!
There are people out there who depend on software sales for a living. If you don't want to pay for software, you can use free as in beer software. Much of free as in beer software is also free as in speech.
I neither want to pay out hard cash, nor do I want to be restricted by legalese. So, I use GPL'd software where I can. Apache webserver, for example. Samba, instead of Windows network server. You know, stuff like that...
However, I also want to play Half-life, and Counterstrike. It took time and money to make these games. Yes, I could get pirate copies off Gnutella, but I want the *actual real copies* bought in a shop. So I have the right to own the proprietary software I use, and I have the right to use the free software I use.
It's kind of neat that we can now press a button and take down a website.
Before such software as that, we had to get it posted on Slashdot.
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