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Intuit Sued Over Product Activation
An anonymous reader writes "PCWorld is reporting: [Scott] Leviant's firm of Stanbury & Fishelman has filed a class-action lawsuit against Intuit in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of all U.S. purchasers of TurboTax software for the 2002 tax year. The suit alleges that Intuit engaged in unfair and deceptive business practices by failing to fully disclose the mechanisms and consequences of its product-activation technology before consumers pay for the software."
It's true. I should know, it happened to me.
I thought it was something that _I_ personally did wrong until I started searching Google trying to find out what I did wrong before installing the software. Did I mess up permissions some where? Did I forget to "su root" before running the scripts? Where was the error?
Well, then I found a blog that said "Likely the biggest problem users have expressed, is the level at which the TurboTax licensing agreement is managed and protected with the SafeCast/C-Dilla technology. People believe C-Dilla infiltrates their system in a very insidious manner, and uses memory and resources even when TurboTax is not loaded. And some believe it has caused them serious compatibility problems with non-related CD writing operations. (PC Magazine and ExtremeTech will be conducting some tests next week to see if we can duplicate some of these problems).
Intuit and Macrovision have provided only cursory information regarding C-Dilla operations. Understandably, Intuit does not want to expose significant details. But if the scheme is mathematically and technically sound, there really is no reason why ALL the details should not be known, as it would likely not be computationally feasible to crack in a reasonable timeframe, even if one is armed with full knowledge of how it works. Unless Intuit and Macrovision provide this level of information, many people will still not trust you."
Background: 28/M/Bi-Sexual; Owner of a Linux company; MBA Harvard 2003; B.S. Comp Sci MIT 2000
Product activation is *always* bad. I pay for my software. Even donation-ware and shareware. Heck, I even buy CDs from Red Hat and FreeBSD Mall. Gives me a warmFuzzyFeeling(tm).
I would NEVER pay for software that plays tricks with my hard drive, even if I needed it and the price was right. When I see software that does this, I get mad and pull out my eyepatch and put the parrot on my shoulder.
OK, so suppose Intuit gets slapped down. Still doesn't stop other weasels from writing in the boot track. Does this tool exist:
:-)
1. before install, make a backup of the boot track and checksum it.
2. after install, checksum the boot track, and display diffs, if any.
3. optional restore of the boot track.
This allows us to get our old boot tracks back, and *still* get the fun of starting a righteous flame-war on SlashDot.
Sorry if the answer to this is "yes, you clueless fool, go use tool __". But at least I'll get educated
There's also the new protection from Macrovision that some games (Mechwarrior 4 Mercenaries for example) use that install a program that monitors what you burn to CD, and has been reported to destroy your ability to burn *ANY* CD in some cases. It's nasty. It runs as a service in XP (look for C-Dilla in the services... Macrovision bought C-Dilla), and if you get rid of it, delete the files it installs, it reinstalls the next time you run the software UNLESS you run it as a limited user. (Of course, doing that means you can't save your config in the game.) If you delete the DLL in the game directory that it calls, the game then won't load.
.nfo files where they tell you what the protection was:)
The companies have become so hellbent on stopping piracy (which their techniques don't. Don't believe me? Check IRC sometime) that they no longer seem to care about fucking over the legit consumer. (Witness the number of problems people have with SecuROM and Safedisc "protected" titles.) All they do with these routines is stop the casual copier, but everyone I know just downloads the titles anyway. I can't remember the last time anybody I know engaged in "casual copying". Macrovision and Sony (they created SecuROM) have pulled the biggest scam ever on the software companies by persuading them to pay for their crappy "protection".
Side note: Always amuses me in the warez groups
TurboTax has the Windows(tm) logo flag. So, I take it they pass the "Designed for Windows" logo criteria.
How in heaven's name could anything that writes the boot track earn the Windows logo? This cranky old software validation manager smells either cluelessness (MSFT) or cheating (Intuit) or some combination of the above.