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Using Spyware to Report Pirates?
An anonymous reader asks: "I have visibility to AUP complaints we receive at work, and we receive messages from a software vendor that make it obvious that their product is phoning home when it discovers it is running a cracked copy of itself." Apparently the software phones home, and then the publisher's legal department sends the administrator an e-mail. "The message goes on to detail the users IP, a timestamp, the product in question, the users PC name, username, and MAC address.
This falls under -my- definition of 'spyware.' What are your thoughts?" Software has been making surreptitious checks for "piracy" for over a decade, yet these checks are usually limited to the software itself, and not data on the user's machine. Do you feel software publishers should have the right to peer into users data, if their software suspects foul play on the machine, or should it do the easy and intelligent thing and just stop working?
Just WHO is this publisher?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
So that's why my copies of OpenServer and UNIXWARE keep pingflooding kernel.org...
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Its been going on for quite some time now.
You use the illegal software, I don't see any reason why someone who's life work might involve *writing* said software would not want to catch you pirating/using is Illegally.
I'n not all that sure how I feel about the users computer information being fired off in an email, but I have always considered that a possibility in the past. Seems like I was right.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order- Ed Howdershelt Via Tass
Seriously folks I think lately we've forgotten that stealing is stealing, and if you're stealing a piece of software you should be punnished for stealing a piece of software. It seems as if we look beyond the crime far too often lately and we forget the obvious... STEALING IS A CRIME... end of story.
transmission_err
All spyware sucks.
Well, I guess it IS their software, but is it really any different than new cars that have software that can track you and shut off the ignition?
They could write similar such spyware to detect the presence of Linux on any local partition. After the spyware phones home, an automated service would send out a bill for $699.
If the software distributor makes it obvious that their software has things that report on your activity then yes they should be able to force you to have that adware in their application, and it should phone home if you try to stop that adware or crack it in any way, because then you're violating the EULA because you knew about the spyware and you chose to use the software anyways. If you cracked it then you're stealing from the developers and they deserve compensation. If they didn't make it clear that there is spyware in the software you should be able to crack it and remove it.
My Signature
I have no problem with this, as long as it is in the agreement box, or they make it clear that it till collect the user data and send it to the company if the software checks itself to be a crack.
You don't like it then don't use it.
DecafJedi
DecafJedi
my weblog: apropos of something
Or should we brutally rape blue haired old ladies?
What kind of question is that?
Software has every right to phone home. It's what software does, i.e. it executes code that it was told to execute. If you believe (as I believe) that software has the right to be Free (as in Freedom), then you have to be in favor of software publishers reserving the right to verify that you are not using their software in violation of agreement (or lack thereof in the case of warez).
Freedom for software also entails Freedom for developers, though sometimes these are quite at odds. In those cases the developers' Freedom ought to take priority over the software.
In any application where data is sent from within the company (or home) consent is vital. Perhaps you would argue that stealing the software removes the obligation to ask for consent, but the potential for the software to mistakenly think it is pirated is too high.
POPFile has an option to check to see if there's a new version available. It's incredibly innocuous: it hits a server and check it's version number, the server junks its logs daily. I keep no record. This was initially on by default but people were upset, it's now off.
The simplest solution is that a piece of software that thinks it is pirated start warning 30 days before it's going to shut itself off to give the user a chance to do something and finally disable itself. That is effective and friendly.
And get yourself a copy of ZoneAlarm so that you can see which apps would like to talk to the outside world.
John.
I seem to remeber that a vendor did this to the Dod like in the early 80's. I also thought the DOD took them to court and won. I can't see how it is legal unless it is in the licensing agreement.
There are clauses in some EULAs that note these features. Shareware/crippleware uses "call home" functionality with a good rate of success since the software is not modified by pirates/crackers who simply supply a serial or keygen and a link to download the crippled version.
Do you have the right to install Lojack in your car? Yup. Do you have the right to go hunt the asshole down, and kill him with a crowbar? Alas, no. Do with this data what you will.
Now the script kiddies can work on something besides crashing servers, they can figure out how to properly crack a program, now post the damned publisher!
Does everyone else know this acronym?
Thanks.
--
One good method is when the software sends an email to the customers IT Administrator, notifying that there is unauthorized use or the number of licenses was exceeded. The IT administrator has usually the responsibility in most companies to make sure they are in the clear in regards to licenses. Sending an email outside to the vendor is I think bad behavior, and the vendor will never be able to sell to the government with such a feature.
From the software companies point of view it makes sense to include something to enable it to detect if it is a cracked version of it or not. Just depends what other information it is collecting, and where it is sending that!
Programs like Gator, are allowed to run because end users don't realise they are being installed, and i'll bet that if the users of this software knew that it was going to be doing that they wouldn't be using it.
id didn't creat this.. hmm...
It's not spyware, it's a fucking anti-theft system. Don't like it? Don't steal it.
Arrrr Matey, light the canons and blow them uptight anglo uppity software developers to smithereens!
Okay, this one seems simple enough.
Let's say I am a small book publisher. I publish books about historical battles. I find out that there is someone out in the world who, instead of buying a copy of my book, has simply photocopied a friend's purchased copy of the book.
Now, let's say I track this person down. Then let's say I break into their house. Then let's say I rifle through all of their belongings. Let's say I get their credit card number, bank PIN number, passwords, social security number, medical history, personal communications, personal habits and all of this information for each person in their family, too. Then let's say I take all of this data and give it to the police or the government. Or maybe I even go much further and just burn the house down with everyone in it.
Was I justified? I mean, I must be right? After all the person had a photographed copy of my book and didn't pay me the $39.95 for a legitimate right to read it...!
There's a legend that Microsoft actually encountered this back with Microsoft Word 1.0 - it formatted the hard drive if the CRC of the program changed. Bad karma there, hosing innocent users if they got infected. (BTW - I've seen Vesselin Bontchev reference it here and other places, but it could just be he picked up a convenient rumor. Anyone have verification of this story?
If it's not documented in the EULA for the product, it might even be a potential civil suit against the company. Doesn't Europe have fairly restrictive privacy laws that could come into effect here? Could be criminal there if so, especially if it misfired on an innocent user. Although of course - IANAL.
BTW - what product?
I write code.
BullShit!! Spyware plain and simple!!
If it's in the EULA of the spyware (assuming it had an EULA), there is no grounds for prohibiting this (except maybe that EULAs are invalid, but that's another debate).
I don't like it, but I think it's legal. Besides, I don't "pirate" software.
filter the ports at your firewall. Problem solved, right?
Beware, Nugget is watching... See?
Make sure you know exactly why an application wants access to the internet.
Yeah, it's underhanded when a company makes it phone home when you've cracked it. However, it's illegal for you to crack it. You're lucky that they aren't calling the... uh... whoever it is that deals with software pirates.
I'm not perfect here - I've got some software that's not, exactly, paid for. (I plan on getting the real versions once I graduate.) Some of the features don't work. I don't bitch about it, because I didn't friggin' pay for it. I also don't pay for multiple compies of games so I can play them on my home network. (One thing that Mircosoft does right - 1 disk covers many people.)
The intelligent thing may have been for the software to stop working. However, you can get cracks for that. I'm sure software publishers are getting tired of all the cracks.
The interesting thing is to see if that company will lower the price of the product. I mean, the software's now uncrackable, right? And part of the cost of software is to pay for all the pirated copies, right?
Yeah, I'll hold my breath.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
AUP stands for 'Acceptable Use Policy'.
---
WARNING:Slashdot karma not redeemable in the afterlife.
Ultimately if you get taken to court because of a copyright violation that was discovered because the cracked software phoned home, I doubt the court will grant you much leighway.
If the software's anti-theft tracking was being put in place by the police, that would be a violation of the fourth amendment. On the other hand, this is being done by a private corporation which has far more rights.
Think about LoJack, the car anti-theft mechanism, that tracks the car. Isn't that effectively the same thing? That's perfectly legal.
I don't like the notion of a company installing such spyware because there's little guarantee that they are only reporting pirates. Furthermore, what's to keep them from reporting subtle violations of the license agreement that aren't in fact illegal under copyright law. Once the spyware is there, there's effectively no limit on what it can do.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
While I'm not saying that piracy is a good thing I also don't like software that makes connections to some "outside" source and sends info off without my permission. Which is why I think outgoing firewalls are a good idea. Along with knowing what kind of traffic internal boxes are generating.
It's not paranoia - just perfect awareness. And yes, people ARE out to get me.
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
How many packets does your machine send out that you have not looked at personally ? Mine does that *all* the time (I don't have the time nor the resources to check them all).
:)
This means that if say MS is checking the contents of my machine and starts harassing me over possibly illegal software that I would have no way of knowing that the info was retrieved using spyware. it's the stupidity of the 'presentation' that gives this one away, if they were a bit more clever about it you'd never have known that it was spyware related.
The best way to avoid this kind of trouble is to go completely open source or make sure your licenses are paid up
are you on the grapevine yet ?
MP3 Search Engine
but why the fuck stop there? Even a mere suspicion should be enough cause for the software to trash the machine's hard drive and fry the motherboard. That'll teach the goddammn software pirates.
This is a tough question/topic. I mean, it "sends the administrator email"...what precisely does that mean? The ISP? A corporate administrator? The ISP has no real business knowing this unless/until the company decides to subpoena the user's information. The administrator certainly could know, but what about individual users?
Unless they inform you of this possibility, I'd rather them just use product activation and be up-front about their piracy prevention measures. Why? Because software has bugs, and I don't want to have the hassle of software phoning home, claiming that I'm doing something illegal, when in actuality there is a bug in the software (or a virus causing a different checksum) that is causing the issue. Bug in their software causes a problem, they sue me, I have to deal with the legal hassle, but laws like UCITA mean that I can't countersue for the bug that initiated their response in the first place.
Does anyone know where there's a list of spyware that does this? I'd like to see what programs to avoid stealing.. uhr.. I mean buying.
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
With the game Black and White that I own, the cd copy protection gave my computer so much problems and the only solution the publisher gave me was to install a new cdrom, so I was forced to install the cd crack to actually play the game. I'd hate to be labeled a pirate and taken to court because I actually wanted to play a game I legally purchased(Hell I preorded).
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Why? It makes no sense that this should be moderated troll.
I can't tell, but I'm assuming that you work at an ISP (AUP complaint?). Why on earth would you care about this information?
"Oh no! One of our users is doing something illegal and it has nothing to do with us! Quick, pull the plug on him!!!"
Seriously...unless you are law enforcement, what could you possibly do with this information? If I wrote your ISP and told them I saw you smoking pot, should I expect them to pull the plug on your connection??? How is this any less rediculous?!?
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
How exactly would a program go about detecting accurately whether it's cracked? I'd hate to get a virus infection, which changed the executable slightly, and then end up being accused of cracking the software.
Ok, so if the program is smart enough to discover that it's a cracked copy of itself, why doesnt it just not start up and prevent the user from using the cracked copy.
[alk]
you need to tighten up your firewall!
If you don't even know which software or machine is communicating with which outside hosts, don't be surprised when you find out some inside box is relaying spam or leaving out the welcome mat for unwelcomed visitors.
In any case, what exactly prevents you from naming the offending software? Why speak in generalities and obfuscation?
If you computer is password protected, then this would probably constitute a hack under s408D of the Qld Criminal Code, and you could go them. Of course, if they aren't in Aus, the local police can't do to enforce it, but you could always sue them civilly.
Of course, if you don't password project your computer, then this section doesn't protect you.
Another exception being if the manual or licence agreement states that they send such details from your computer, in which case you agreed to it and tough luck.
I would have to say, this is well with in the software companies rights. If you use cracked versions of licensed software the software companines should be allowed to do anything they can to stop the illegal use of they're product.
Anyway, they absolutely should be free to use such methods. Of course, we are all free to not use their software if we don't like their methods.
That is, if whoever started all this would step up to the plate and tell us who the publisher is...
How is this intelligent? You know that before long, a crack will be out to get it working again. And if the person who went through the trouble of copying it in the first place, is really likely to know about cracks.
--- to swing on the spiral...
If you do not want that behavior you should enforce operating system controls to prevent it from making that connection (unless, of course, you have a contract with the vendor requiring you to allow it).
Discussions of how vendors ought to behave have only whimsical value, and sending lawyers after them is too expensive.
Given that you undoubtedly agreed to allow the proprietary software to do a full body cavity search on you when you clicked through the EULA, the publisher has the right to do just that. Even if you're using a "legal" copy.
YOU have the right to refuse to use binary-only, spyware infected, jump-through-hoops licenced programs. Use Free Software instead.
"But I depend on the proprietary software to do my job." Then support the Free Software movement so someday you won't need to depend on proprietary software anymore.
You can take the guy's picture, find out where he parked your car, and tell the cops. That's what this software is doing:
Hey, this guy's stealing...
He lives here...
This is what he looks like...
[Hello, police?]
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
I believe the corporation and the individual user belong in different categories and should be distinguished from one another when piracy comes into question. The face of the organization is represented by the synergistic effect of all its employees. I think callback software is okay to a certain degree. For me the Product name, IP# and MAC address would seem reasonable information to send back -- however it seems to be going too far if they identify the employee. The vendor needs proof that the company is infringing but should not target the individuals in the company. It is up to the company to repremand its employees or handle the situation how it wishes. So I say let the software vendor deal with the corporation, and in turn let the corporation deal with the employees.
From what you posted, it looks like they are collecting a sensible amount of information (no /etc/passwd or Windows equivalents) and only for tracking down people using unlicensed copies of their software so they can persuade them to pay up. Of course the "evidence" they are collecting would never stand up in court if the unlicensed user calls their bluff.
I've heard rumors that if you're caught committing a crime then a cop can get a thing called a search warrant from a judge that allows them to search your home! That's not all either! If they can convince a dozen random people off the street that you did indeed commit it then they can haul you off to be incarcerated. In prison you lose many of your constitutional rights. Can you believe it! It's unconstitutional!
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
but not as intrusive as M$'s phone-home registration for Windows XP, etc., which is applied to those who have paid for the software. I don't particularly like it, but if people would stop pirating software on such a large scale, such tactics (both the software in question's and Microsoft's) would not be justifiable to the general computing public. When companies are losing a lot of money to piracy, they are going to fight back. If you can't pay, or don't want to, use Free Software instead.
Erm...while I grant you that in a civil case the rules of evidence will be much more lenient than in a criminal one, there are statutes related to industrial espionage which you could cover yourself with.
IANAL etc etc, but I am under the impression that, unless you explicitly agree to a function which is not arguably part of the 'core' raison d'etre of the software, things like collecting information without someone's consent on legitimately licensed PCs could be construed as breaking and entering, or the digital equivalent.
If the software only does this for unlicensed copies, I wonder whether you couldn't use a similar strain of argument (license was not active for arcane technical reasons, whatever.)
Admittedly, without starting an argument about it, I don't have strong moral qualms about piracy, and I do believe there are certain limits as to what's allowed in terms of evidence collection/snooping even if you are doing something legally "wrong".
Frankly, I think companies should try to use free/open software anyway if they can, so this never even becomes an issue (ask SCO!
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
You are the one who enables the phone home code by cracking the software. That code is never run unless you enable it. I fail to see any problem with this.
My initial reaction to this was one of dislike, but it strikes me that this is equivalent to the phone company tracking people who tap into a line, or a cable TV company tracking cable thieves.
Why are we offended when a company includes in a product the means to report its own theft? Aren't there programs that attempt to alert the owner of a laptop when a thief tries to use the machine?
The Internet is a public place. If you don't want anyone to watch what you do on the net, log off.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
You sign to a contract, you've better live by it.
BOO! TERRO
Things are changing, but it takes time.
Personal Firewall is the best approach to keep software from "phoning home".
You need to use your best judgement - when and why an application connects to the internet. Deny all connections by default.
In the end, this sort of thing will drive away potential legitimate users also. Programs and their authors can get a bad reputation if they do things like this, and I'd be wary of buying and using a program that had reports of spyware like this in.
One wonders if the set of those claiming this is a valid anti-piracy tool intersects with those who would believe Microsoft doing it is an invasion of privacy or evil in some way.
I know I run some cracked software using a windows emulator on my computer since the copy protection scheme gets in the way of the program running. Why should I now also fall vitum to suspected piracy.
As long as the software licence says it does this, and it doesn't "phone home" with anything but what is necessary to identify the computer hosting the cracked copy, I think this could actually be pretty cool.
In my experience, most companies don't want to steal software, but it does sometimes get accidentally installed without an extra licence purchase. If the software maker did it right, they could just call up the owner of the infringing computer, and say, "Hey, it looks like you need a few more copies of our software! Have your purchasing department get in touch with us. We'll let the unpaid-for software keep working for a month but make sure you buy your licences before then. Then get back in touch and we'll tell you how to reconfigure your installations to use these new licences."
Honestly, this method sure beats the BSA, doesn't it? In fact, if I were a busy IT person, I'd appreciate knowing that I can run around installing this software whenever I want, and the company will just get back to me if I forget to pay for it!
Of course, if they didn't warn you in their licence that they'd be doing this, or if they were transmitting confidential information back to home...that's a whole other story.
Copying things I like (music, movies, software) is legal.
Copying things I don't like (anything that I decide upon on the fly, as is convenient) is illegal.
Who's the vendor? Until that is shown, this is not news, but just 'someone said this...' speak.
The problem with this software is not that it informs the 'publisher' of copyright violation.
The problem is that information from the user's computer is given to a third party - the 'administrator'. This is a potential violation of privacy. That said, I'm not sure if IP address, username, PC name, and MAC address count as 'personal information' to be protected.
No X11R4 integration :)
It might be fun to pipe that output to an automailer, replacing OpenServer with Linux.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
just write a simple proxy that goes in between this program and the main site. change it from:
Version: 2.45 build 34
License Key: h4x0rr3d by PHR3d! ph33r phr3d!
IP Address: 66.35.250.150
Ethernet address: 23:e6:38:af:80:bd
to:
Version: HAPPY MONKEY!
License Key: SEE THE HAPPY MONKEY!
IP Address: LOVE THE HAPPY MONKEY!
Ethernet address: BE THE HAPPY MONKEY!
It's your network, you can send whatever data out of it that you like!
Kucinich's article on Lessig's blog about Airplane searches
Kucinich on Copyright
Quote: "As a father, I don't believe our government has any business locking up kids for sharing files on the Internet."
Call the company. Say you found the user and pirated software, and appreciate their notice. Tell them the software has been deleted and the user has been reprimanded. Tell them you have banned said software company wide because your company does not use pirated software - or spyware.
I write code.
LoJack is a bad example. It's installed by the person who bought the car, intentionally, to make sure that they aren't deprived of the use of their car. No one is deprived of anything when you copy software illegally.
I don't have a problem with software being disabled for users who are installing/using a pirated application/utility.. I DO have a problem with servers collecting information that they have no business collecting.
Also, after having proxomitron running on my laptop for months, found out that it logs and transmits to Microsoft every time I play a DVD... I honestly thing this has been going on for quite some time, and it should really NOT be all that surprising.
People get paid to write this kind of software.. isn't there someone out there who has time to write something that will filter all requests not originating from a user's command? I'm a little too lazy to do it and would rather have something to bitch about, but if someone else wants to take on that challenge.. go for it.. just don't port it to windows.. I'm almost inclined to think that built-in spyware can be expected there...
Peace.
I can't be the only one that has used a crack on software purchased legally in order to not have to have the stupid CD in the drive.
To label me a criminal because of this is asinine.
As such, looking for it being cracked in order to ascertain if I am a criminal is also asinine along with being against the whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing.
I think that if, as the original post says, it only phones home when it thinks it's been truly cracked (ie tampered with) that's OK.
I have concerns if:
1. It phones home periodically on legit installations too: if I have a legally licensed copy, then the software co. really has no right to collect data (even if its inadvertent) about how often I'm using their software, what kind of computer I use, etc...
2. It phones home if the software is untampered with but "suspects" that I've used a serial # twice, etc. Why? Because, and maybe this is on the slippery slope, the world needs some form of wiggle-room built-in -- while its technically a violation to install the same package on my home desktop and my home laptop at the same time, in my case its a fact that that package will _never_ be used on both at once -- the software co isn't losing anything. I think we do justice far more damage by not overlooking this. To me this is the same case as with too much surveillance and tracking -- we all commit minor indiscretions sometimes.
If I remember correctly, it was Aldus PageMaker for NeXTStep. Someone I know had a pirated version of it - After he installed it on his NeXT cube, he saw his on-demand-dial-up internet slip connection start connecting. He shut off his external modem and poked around and found that it had set up a cron job to email home about the violation. So deleting the current email from the mail queue would not be sufficient. If he didn't have a dial up connection he never would have noticed.
The only issue with this scheme is when the software screws up and THINKS it is pirated when it is not.
The solution? Use free software.
--jeff++
ipv6 is my vpn
At what point do corporations have more authority to snoop into our private lives then the government. Compare this to the fifth amendment, the government can't do this sort of thing because it would be, UNCONSTITUTIONAL! Why is it ok to allow a corporation greater authority to invade privacy then the government. People pull your head out of the RIAA. The government should be the ultimate authority in this country NOT CORPORATIONS and their LOBBYISTS.
It doesn't make it ok to do "because you shouldn't be doing so and so in the first place". Remember, two wrongs, do not make it RIGHT!
You know what, I am beginning to think the American Civil Liberties Union ain't such bad people after all! Perhaps, eternal vigilance in the style of the ACLU, is the only way to stay truly free.
Infringment of copyright laws is NOT stealing.
Look it up.
MS has a database for doing just this. They routinely use it to track not individual copying but whole scale copying. At least for now.
They have had it for more than 5 years that I know of. So why are ppl complaining now?
He... he he... ha ha... <Breaks out onto the floor in hysterical fits of laughter> No, no, this is Slashdot, you see...
Seriously, though, I've often installed cracks on software I own, just because I don't feel like dealing with the hastle (need to have the CD for no reason, etc.). I use a laptop without a built in CD drive, which means that a large amount of software would be completely unusable to me when I'm away from my home, and that's just simply unacceptable. I'm not just talking about games here, either...
and running legal software, you wouldn't have anything to worry about, right :-) ?
Ok, all the other comments have well covered the debate of is it stealing, is it not, etc etc.
But, does this violate your AUP? I don't know many isp's who say you can't run pirated software on your systems. So, since the AUP is not violated, basically this company is spamming the abuse channels.
Don't Tread on Me
A Worm is a Worm.
Spyware is Spyware.
There are more ethical alternatives.
Do you feel software publishers should have the right to peer into users data, if their software suspects foul play on the machine
Just where does a piece of software get off having suspicions? If there are suspicions, they'd better be coming from a human who I can sue for defamation when they prove to be baseless.
I don't run red lights, but if I was summonsed because of a traffic camera, I'd demand the right to confront my accuser: the camera.
The insertion of code on my system to verify that I'm legal is electronic trespass by deception and I'd sue, even (and especially) when my software is legal.
I havent bought a piece of software for at least 3 years!
:)
Most of the things I need are out there as open source.
Thing is... if this sort of thing becomes more common, it just means that the Crackers are going to have to get a bit more cunning and bypass the code which "phone's" home. Its futile really!
some of us have music to help us through the dark times
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
I doubt that this alone means that 'non-infringers' are getting spied on. My guess is that the idea is to make branches in the code that are not associated with the rest of the registration logic.
It is easy to find branches that lead to an error screen saying "this software will now stop because we have detected it is pirated" as well as the branches that lead to those branches. That is why some people can crack complicated software in under an hour.
So then you make an independant pirate check algo that has no immediate effect at all... but X days later it messages home so that the can send you a scarry email.
That would make sense, and it is about all you really can do to secure your software nowdays.
I really feel that these companies that have to deal with piracy. It's not fair to them, though a large amount of users seem to not have a problem with stealing programs. However, I feel that this is also a good reason to use free (as in speech) software that is less likely to have spyware included. The code is clearly visable to all. While it's not possible to have a free (as in beer) alternative program to the most typically pirated Windows apps, one can still limit this by using those legitimately free programs that are available...
;)
I've got a friend that makes jokes at me about using Linux, but the majority of his software is all pirated, aside from the occasional game that he purchases. Which is a better choice? I don't advocate software piracy, and that's one reason that I choose Linux. Of course, Darl McBride might argue that some of us are using illegitimate software after all.
There's always the danger that a disgruntled employee could plant a cracked version of the software on a company computer.
And what about shared laptops. Somebody loads on some software while attending a conference and then hands the machine back.
Some floating software licensing schemes work on using IP addresses, MAC addresses, monitoring the real-time clock to make sure dates don't change. What if one of these circuits fails (stray cosmic rays, power surge), does that automatically make the user a criminal?
Sure, software companies have the right to protect their software, but I don't think they have the right to allow their applications to automatically generate crime reports. W It would be more for the application to request new short-term licenses and deny access than do anything destructive. If an application can detect that it has been cracked then it should just refuse to work.
No one is deprived of anything when you copy software illegally.
Hey, whatever helps you sleep at night.
I am an independt contractor . Some program I write I try and sell comercialization stile . Piracy simply destroyees my ability to sell these programs . Now most of my software that I sell only phones home and does checks during auto updates . If they really dont want it to phone home then they can disable the auto update feature (and admitedly get no more updates because I dont offer manual updating) . Now if you agreed to this in the AUP or license or EULA or whatever then its your choice.
I use some pirated programs myself, but the attitude I take is if you're willing to pirate software, you should be willing to take any risks associated with using it. If you don't want the risks, then don't pirate software! It's really simple!
It's called the "principle of clean hands". Don't go complaining about someone doing something wrong if you're in the midst of doing something wrong yourself! It's like a pot smoker trying to sue a drug dealer for selling him oregano instead of pot... no court will be sympathetic to him.
A few years ago, I ran a serial cracker that installed a virus and wiped out my entire hard drive. I was pissed, but I was pissed at myself. If you use pirated software, the way I see it, if they phone home, I have no qualms with it.
If you pay for the software or if they distribute it for free and it phones home, then I look at this as a violation of my privacy.
Stealing the original software or not, the software IS stealing information from the corporation in question. You may think it's just a username, but it's half the key to logging into that account. I'm speaking with regards to security.
This company should be very careful. This falls under the Patriot Act and employees could end up in prison for a very long time.
"Computer Crime: The PATRIOT act (section 309) includes "fraud, theft, or extortion related to computers" as terrorist acts. This overly broad definition risks classifying a wide class of acts as potentially subject to life imprisonment, according to the terms of section 309."
People just don't get it lately. They don't understand you CAN and WILL go to prison even for the simplest hacking endevour. And yes it goes both ways with regard to this case...
Guess what! They(software owners) will be classified as terrorists and as such will only have the rights of a "prisoner of war". Yes, we are at war by definition of Congress.
I agree. When does the commercial world have more rights than the gov't that does, in fact, govern them, too? On the other hand, I don't think it's illegal for a program to send information back to the software publisher (at least I know it isn't if the user specified upon install that it was OK to do so, etc.). So, in that regard, the software publisher could take the same position that someone might when using a 'citizen's arrest'-like policy. In conclusion, I think that: 1. It is invasion of privacy if, in fact, the software is legal AND the user specified that info. should NOT be sent. 2. Gathering information that was not explicitly proposed by the software publisher beforehand is deception. 3. In agreement with a previous post, the public *does* need some wiggle-room. Personal use of a copy of software on more than one personal computer should be allowed.
The power of Christ compiles you.
A Random Blog
Is there any point to low for corporate America to stoop these days? We're going to have to amend the old saying that you can never underestimate the general public to you can never underestimate corporate America. Between RIAA, the MPAA, Microsoft, SCO, Enron, WorldCom, DirecTV, Disney and a raft of others I'm starting to wonder where the bottom of the corporate conduct barrel really lies.
Just seems like every time we hit a low point someone comes along to dig a little deeper.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Hi!
I used Microsoft Word 1.0 for the Mac, Word 1.0 for DOS, and Word for Windows 1.0 (which was released after Word 3.0 for DOS). I certainly have never heard of any such "feature", and I have installed updates on Word for Windows 1.0. I think this is probably a legend, rather than fact.
John Murdoch
Wow, talk about your target marketing. Calling the network admin to bitch about unlicensed software "detected" on the premesis doesn't sound like a way to win happy customers. But you have to admit it's a way better opening line than most sales calls you get these days. Damn the customers, Jim, we're fighting software piracy here!
Actually, I have cracked most of the games I own so they don't use the cd because I prefer for the cd to last a few years instead of letting the drive and switching it around slowly chop the cd up. There's your legitamate use if you needed one. It isn't illegal, it just violates and invalidates the eula, so sure I am stealing. They started it by taking away my ability to learn from their work and by charging exuberant prices.
Am I a thief as you are accusing me of? Sure, are you a complete dumass? Yes.
Not to mention people hate monopolies over anything that makes it so expensive to buy that most people can't afford it. If wallmart moves into your town, kills the competition, issues slapsuites and the like against startup companies looking to compete with them, and then quadruples their prices for everything, and you, a hardworking american now has to buy most of their food, clothing, etc from wallmart, is it really wrong to steal from them? At the end of the day do you let your kids starve and go clothless? No, you do what it takes to survive.
Stealing [i]is[/i] a crime; [i]stealing away our ability feed and cloth ourselves or have the conviences we are slaves to is a crime within itself[/i] and when you realize that you'll probably be disguisted with what you just said. Whatever happens after that is vigalanteism under the guise of civil disobedience.
If you don't like something and the state is too corrupt to take care of it, and I can't emphasise this enough
[i] you_have_to_take_care_of_it_yourself[/i].
If the coal mining company is illegally ripping up or polluting your farmland and the goverment does nothing about it, buy a boat repair kit and coat the engine of the construction equipment with fiberglass in the middle of the night so they'll never run again. Plant spikes in the ground and road to pop the tires of the workers and the machines doing the working. Make it so expensive that they can't do it. There are towns in the country where they throw up gigantic inter-city powerlines and where the people, who don't like their farmland being ripped up or polluted by them, will tear them right back down. They'll get up, but they won't stay up!
If an OS company establishes a monopoly by stealing, killing, cheating, and just downright dirty play so much so that most of the software produced is for it, the best way to fight back is to pirate that software or to use something else. Microsoft already has enough money and political influence as is, they don't need anymore, and most of the people in the world can't afford it to begin with. $199 for winxp? $399 for office? I'm not paying that, and I'm consider it highway robbery that when I go out and buy a new dell machine it doesn't come witha CD and then something like blaster comes along and kills the install, so I'v got to go out and shell out some more money. I'm pissed that there's no competition to speak of accept for linux, which isn't ready for the vast majority of users. As soon as there's a viable alternative, you'd better believe MS's software prices are going to plummet to compeditive prices and their stock is going to go down.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
Do you feel software publishers should have the right to peer into users data, if their software suspects foul play on the machine [...]?
Yes, absolutely. This will only serve to differentiate Free Software from monopolyware, or separate the wheat from the chaff, if you will. Choose vendor lock-in, planned obsolescence, security by obscurity, spyware, draconian EULAs, and harassment by the BSA - or choose freedom. It's up to you.
use free software.
ps: actualy it 3 words
I work for an abuse dept for a major ISP, I have seen these before. VisualWare (http://www.visualware.com/) is one comapany that does this. I have seen the DMCA violation letters myself.
Using unlicensed software is not stealing simply because you have not deprived anyone of using their property. It is an infraction (a civil violation) but that's a different issue. IANAL
Let's stop calling it STEALING.
Speeding is the perfect analogy for this. Speeding is not a crime unless you go over a certain limit. Likewise, using unlicensed software is not a crime unless you go to far (selling fake copies for example).
If using unlicensed software was a crime, Microsoft would have had a lot of people in jail by now.
Liberty is not granted to me as a privilege, it is my due.
When Starcraft was first released Blizzard used a similar approach to gather information directly from the registries of computers used to log into suspect accounts. Thanks to a few well-timed privacy lawsuits Blizzard stopped this practice in a very short period of time.
Of course, with all the wonderful new laws passed in the U.S. since then, this sort of thing may be possible to defend in court. A more important question is whether or not this sort of thing *should* be allowed.
No method of crack-detection is incapable of producing false-positives. A little bit of corruption in a seldom-used module of an executable could easily cause it to fail a parity check. A user could have his private information sent out over the web and receive harassing emails because of a corrupt disc sector or two! Personally, I feel this sort of thing is no different than a convinience store owner following you home and breaking into your house to check for stolen merchandise just because you looked a tad suspicious when you were in their store. This is simply not acceptable even if such false-positives are a one-in-a-million occurence.
Personally, I refuse to use any software which will compromise a user's privacy for any unavoidable reason. The chances of being a false-positive are remote, but why put up with them if you don't have to?
P.S. With american countries taking people from other countries to court, it would be nice if things worked both ways. I'd like to see some privacy lawsuits levelled against american companies in countries where draconian anti-privacy laws have yet to be passed. Is this even possible?
i've used a piece of software from a resonably small unmentioned vendor.. that when i tried to 'extend the trial evaluation' it did phone home... and record my mac address... and disable itself!
that was nasty, i reinstalled my OS because i wanted to buy this software. i installed this app again, entered in the trial keys and when i had a net connection again, it disabled itself.. again!!!
which is fair enough... if the price is right.
with software monopolies running rampant and the price of popular software often doubles the price of a high end PC... what can one do? i definatley can't afford to spend $8000 on a computer when i'm struggling to save $2000 for one!
time to use unix maybe?
You have not explained your position to anyone's satisfaction. You have only said that you think pirating software/music/movies and collection of personal data ought to be illegal. Then you turn around and start wavering on that position with a lot of handwaving and vague references to informality, etc.
What is your position? Do you have one?
> The intelligent thing may have been for the software to stop working. However, you can get cracks for that. I'm sure software publishers are getting tired of all the cracks.
Except that would deprive the companies the opportunity to pursue you for "loss revenue" (or generate additional revenue, depending on how you look at it.)
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
I hate spywares of any kind. That's why I install firewalls like zonealarm. It's great because of any apps that attempts to contact to outside, it will notify you and if you don't know what that app does, just click no. Problem solved.
LittleSnitch solves this very problem.
:)
It monitors and controls an individual application's access to network resources: in essense, you can write "firewall" rules for individual applications, applying to each one a different measure of trust.
A lot of people below were bemoaning the ipfw-based solutions, since they don't work... which is true
LittleSnitch is a Mac OS X application, but, I'm positive GNU/Linux and Windows applications exist to do the same thing.
So the (alleged) spyware sends copies of certain information about your computer back to the company that produced the software.
The user still has all the information they started with. No one has been deprived of any information. All that has happened is that an additional copy of this information has been created and distributed.
In order to object to this, you have to admit that some information does have owners, and also that it is wrong to copy information without the consent of the owner.
Then, this being slashdot, you have to do a little song and dance, like this: "when other people create music and software and movies, and I make a copy of their stuff, it's fine. But when someone else makes a copy of information from me without my consent, that's wrong!"
Your information wants to be free; my information wants to be private. See?
My own beliefs are the same as Linus Torvalds: "He who writes the code chooses the license". If you don't like spyware, don't friggin run it. I don't.
Do you feel software publishers should have the right to peer into users data, if their software suspects foul play on the machine, or should it do the easy and intelligent thing and just stop working?
...
No, they should do the hard and dumb thing. Whatever that might be
Take it easy on the advocation.
Here are two more i have noticed that do the exact same thing :
1. Admuncher http://www.admuncher.com/
2. Evidence Eliminator http://www.evidence-eliminator.com/
I found a quick (& better)replacement for Admuncher in the new google toolbar (http://toolbar.google.com/) to get rid of popups.
Evidence eliminator is crap, dont need a replacement.
In either of these cases they take you to a page showing your IP address with what they think is a scary message. If you do use a cracked version make sure your windows installation does not carry your Original Name / Location and that your IP address is dynamic.
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
What exactly does the software company do with all this information? If they just recieve the data and do nothing with it then it's kinda pointless. Is there some sort of massive repository of information about these users with cracked (or possibly uncracked) files? If so, how are these companies protecting this information to keep bad hackers from getting to it or spammers from buying it? Who is the end recipient of all these IP addresses, MAC addresses, etc.?
10 Bits= $.25
100 Bits= $.50
110 Bits= $.75
1000 Bits= 1 byte
As a software vendor myself, some software sold on a subscription basis "phones home". It's done very openly, through a "synch" where the users enter their login/password, which is then authenticated via an encrypted protocol to a central server which updates their license for another 30 days.
If the synch doesn't fly, neither does the software. Very simple, and there's nothing for anybody to complain about "unknown information". With this, the idea of "stealing" the software is pretty meaningless, and anybody who objects doesn't have to log on.
This synch, BTW, is a good way for us to backup their data (which they REALLY like) and update their software. (which they also REALLY like)
So, it's not about "phoning home" it's about not telling anybody about it.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Plain and simple. It's wrong to steal things from people.
Lojack "phones home" when your car is stolen, what's wrong with that? Absolutely nothing, because everyone wants to see a car thief get caught.
Why shouldn't someone's software phone home when it is stolen? How is a software thief any different than a car thief?
If I spent a couple of years of my life writing a piece of software, you can bet your ass it'll phone home whenever it's installed, uninstalled, started, and every hour while it's running...
Would it be illegal for the software to "phone home" in these cases?
Could the software vendor be subject toprosecution for unauthorized access to federally protected systems?
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
Glad to see the majority of comments expressing support for the actions of this software developer. I want to add my own voice to the crowd before the pro-piracy mob start shouting louder.
Two on-the-surface legitimate arguments have been raised but they don't stand up to scrutiny...
Legal owners of the software are being spied on too.
From the story: "their product is phoning home when it discovers it is running a cracked copy of itself"
It's an invasion of privacy because it can steal credit card numbers, bank details, etc.
From the story: "the users IP, a timestamp, the product in question, the users PC name, username, and MAC address"
So the bottom line is that there's no apparent risk to legitimate users, no theft of extraneous data, and no harm done. Hopefully a few software thieves get caught and some hard-working developers get the money they're entitled to.
Good Thing.
I have seen Adobe do something suspicous this ways. I have seen computers where I installed Windows and Office under one name and Adobe stuff under another. Digging through the registry later I found the Windows / Office name attached to an adobe registration key within the registry.
This was NOT the name used when installing the Adobe products. Obviously Adobe is surreptisously spying and gaining certain information about you regardless of what you tell it. Whether it sends this information back to adobe or not is something another person will have to tell. This in essence is spying on you, the question is what does it do about it?
Once someone catches on that a piece of software is sending such information to its publisher, it won't be long before someone's spoofing that information and sending it to the publisher, getting innocent people in trouble.
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
AUP!!! Camping faggot! You teh ghey!!!!111
A long time ago in a galaxy not far from here, Novell servers would send out broadcasts looking for identical serial numbers and would complain if it found itself. That was before widespread connectivity so it couldn't report back to hq - I can't ever remember if it stopped working or not. Some people didn't like the extra network traffic being used to 'spy' on itself.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Software has been making surreptitious checks for "piracy" for over a decade, yet these checks are usually limited to the software itself, and not data on the user's machine.
If it has been checking for over a decade, and you are not still in jail, then don't worry, they wont get you now.
You deserve what you get. Doubly so if you are pirating software. You aren't forced to use the program, you choose to. You also choose to pirate it. If you are busted because of choices you have made, tough shit.
Maybe open source software will look better in the face of fines, jail time, et al. especially if you can't afford the payware.
In all things security-related, the more security you add, the more convenience and usability you take away.
Look at your own home, for instance. You can improve security against a break-in all sorts of ways. Add bars to your windows? (Effective, but probably makes your windows more of a pain to clean and makes your home unsightly.) Add a security alarm? (Ok, but now you always have to deal with entering that annoying code as soon as you go inside, and remember to arm it before you leave -- and you've got false alarms to deal with too.)
So it is with software. Add copy-protection schemes? End-users have problems making legal backups. Add dongles? Possible incompatibility problems and support headaches. Phone home reporting suspected pirates? Possible lawsuit when you find out your software made a mistake. Possibility of tripping internal firewalls or anti-virus/anti-spyware software and angering system administrators.
Piracy is a fact of life. Not everyone who desires to run a program is willing (or able) to pay for it. Making your product as user-friendly as possible (and least intrusive) will ensure satisfaction among the percentage of people who really are your customer.
Morons that think they know-all but actually they don't know fuck-all.
Wanting everything for nothing, wanting everything instantly.
That's why this economy is FUCKED.
Getright communicates with the company's servers to insure that the copy isnt pirited. When you connect to the internet, it checks the key and if it is pirated, disables the key. It also disables you from entering a key for another 24 hours.
Not that I would know...but the Devastation game does this.
If I was a home user, I'd be using a firewall. Oops, trying to phone home, are we? (Quake3 Voice) DENIED (/Quake3 Voice).
If I were in a corporate environment, I'd tell the creators of the software that I'd be more than happy to help them out in their search for pirated software. I'd also let them know that we'd be terminating our contract with them immediately, as, if they're sending out that information, who knows what else they might be sending back to themselves? I'd also inform them to expect a letter from the legal department due to the fact that they may be snatching private corporate information from our boxxen.
on corepirate nazis/stock markup felons/the walking dead, va lairIE's whoreabull PostBlock(tm) devise, etc...
.asp for va lairIE's whoreabull pateNTdead PostBlock(tm) devise?, used against the truth/to protect robbIE's payper liesense stock markup bosses/corepirate nazi 'sponsors'. yuk.
whatever works...
that's right, after the walking dead finish exterminating themselves, & sadly enough, some of us, it won't take long to clean this cesspool of greed/fear execrable up.
we're calling it the planet/population rescue program (formerly unknown as the oil for babies initiatve).
the Godless wons are helping by continuing to show where their hearts lie.
what's wrong with folks selling their kode? if it causes convenience, & interoperates with all the other kode on the planet, we say, no harm, no foul, so long as you fail to employ gangsterious/felonious practices to asphyxiate the 'competition'. sabotaging your free version of anything is a tad dastardly. if there's value added, without FUDging up the compatability, we'll pay. same with music. no more gouging dough though.
fortunately, mr stallman et AL, etcetera, is now offering comparable/superior software, to the payper liesense spy/bug wear feechurned models, in almost every circumstance. there'll be few, if any more softwar billyonerrors, as if there's a need for even won. tell 'em robbIE. you are won of the last wons whois soul DOWt, right?
back on task.
what might happen to US if unprecedented evile/the felonious georgewellian southern baptist freemason fuddite rain of error, fails to be intervened on?
you already know that too. stop pretending. it doesn't help/makes things worse.
they could burn up the the main processor. that would be the rapidly heating planet/population, in case you're still pretending not to notice.
of course, having to badtoll va lairIE's whoreabully infactdead, pateNTdead PostBlock(tm) devise, robbIE's ego, the walking dead, etc..., doesn't slow us down a bit.
that's right. those foulcurrs best get ready to see the light. the WANing daze of the phonIE greed/fear/ego based, thieving/murdering payper liesense hostage taking stock markup FraUD georgewellian fuddite execrable are #ed. talk about a wormIE cesspool of deception? eradicating yOUR domestic corepirate nazi terrorist/gangsters will be the new national pastime.
communications will improve, using whatever power sources are available.
you gnu/software folks are to be commended. we'd be nearly doomed by now (instead, we're opening yet another isp service) without y'all. the check's in the mail again.
meanwhile... for those yet to see the light.
don't come crying to us when there's only won channel/os left.
nothing has changed since the last phonIE ?pr? ?firm? generated 'news' brIEf. lots of good folks/innocents are being killed/mutilated daily by the walking dead. if anything the situations are continuing to deteriorate. you already know that.
the posterboys for grand larcenIE/deception would include any & all of the walking dead who peddle phonIE stock markup payper to millions of hardworking conservative folks, & then, after stealing/spending/disappearing the real dough, pretend that nothing ever happened. sound familiar robbIE? these fauxking corepirate nazi larcens, want us to pretend along with them, whilst they continue to squander yOUR "investmeNTs", on their soul DOWt craving for excess/ego gratification. yuk
no matter their ceaseless efforts to block the truth from you, the tasks (planet/population rescue) will be completed.
the lights are coming up now.
you can pretend all you want. our advise is to be as far away from the walking dead contingent as possible, when the big flash occurs. you wouldn't want to get any of that evile on you.
as to the free unlimited energy plan, as the lights come up, more&more folks will stop being misled into sucking up more&more of the infa
Just to eliminate the legal liability, can't you figure out what ports this is using to "phone home" and block those at the firewall? Can somebody please do a network trace on this and publish the info?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
For companies: Insist on using open source software. If you can't use open source, build it internally. If you can't build it internally, hire people. If you can't do any of that, then expect to have concerns about security unanswered for the foreseeable.
/.
For end users: Use open source software. If you can't use OSS for everything then make sure you have a good firewall of some kind (everyone in Windowsland seems to be using ZoneAlarm Pro from what I hear). The most important thing however is simply to read everything and assume nothing.
For everyone: get a good firewall. Keep an eye on your traffic.
If someone's scanning your stuff and poking their nose around you'll see it and know about it. Be sure to tell your friends how disreputable the software provider in question is and post an embittered rant about it on
Can't we all just get along?
Say you're a small shop. You have need of 3 copies of s/w package X.
You go down to BigBox store, and buy 3 copies of X.
Back at the office, you use one CD to load all the machines. Leave the other 2 in the shrinkwrapped boxes, on the shelf. Perfectly normal...happens all the time.
The running s/w sees 2 other copies of the same s/n on the LAN, and phones home. PIRATE! PIRATE!
You're 'legal'. You have paid your fees for the 3 copies. But Company X, due to their incorrect reporting and intrusive networking, thinks you are in violation. They send the BSA after you, with all the attendant fees.
At this point, you're guilty until you can prove your innocence.
Absolute BS, I say.
Yon 'software' (whatever such may be) can report us all it likes, but nothin' short o' a stout heart an' a 30-pounder broadside will ever stop my crew o' rascals from flyin' the Black Flag as we ply the Spanish Main!
Watch out where the huskies go,
And don't you eat that yellow snow
If the EULA states that the software reports back to the publisher, then it seems like a reasonable practice -- provided they give refunds to people who don't agree with the EULA and return the product.
On the other hand, if they don't fess up to the reporting, or if they refuse to offer refunds to people who don't accept the snooping as a provision of use, then I don't find that to be ethical.
After all, you can put a lock on your door, and a sign that says "trespassers will be shot" -- this way, criminals can go burgle somewhere less risky, and legitimate visitors can decide if knocking on the door to say hello is worth the risk.
Or you could just leave the door unlocked, shoot anyone who walks through it that you don't like the looks of, and claim they were trespassing.
Use IP Masq or NAT, install all your software as owned by "Bill Gates, Microsoft", and use randomly assigned software MAC Addresses. Then, when you get that message, just say "Who, me?"
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Ultimately you own your own computer and with an inexpensive linux firewall in front of the poor Windoze machines you have full controll over what goes on.
Paranoid - not at all. Realistic - yes. Today an incredible amount of information is gathered because it is worth money, and your privacy is worth invading. It is naive to think that you won't have to pay to protect it. The companies doing this are not alone, they are just the ones you now know of. Wake up.
There are only pedators and prey. What do you want to be?
um, what? you might have a point if the software in question searched the user's hard disk for these pieces of information, but it's not. According to the post, the information sent from the program to a remote server is:
"the users IP, a timestamp, the product in question, the users PC name, username, and MAC address."
Every single piece of information transferred is accessible through the use of other, perfectly legitimate pieces of software, unlike medical records (which require a plausible reason to access); it should be clear that this program is not 'rifling through anyone's belongings.' And the mentioning of burning down the house is completely absurd; nobody is considering giving this data to law enforcement agencies or blowing up the user's computer if it's running pirated software (to relate your analogy to the situation being discussed). Please take your slippery slope arguments elsewhere.
the coolest club on
According to the original poster, this program did this:
192.168.0.1
2003-08-21 19:16:01
My Super-Cool Program v2.1
W2K-WRKSTN-05
Guy B. Smith
1f:37:9b:00:a0:32:e2:82
I fail to see how this equates to breaking into someone's house and taking their credit cards, SSN, silverwear, kitchen sink and then commit arson?
It might not be ethical or right or legal, what the program is doing. That's not something I can answer as I'm not a lawyer or ethicist. To make it equivelant, your book would get up and phone you to tell you the name and street address of the person who copied it, what time it was copied and on what copy machine.
Let's compare apples to oranges, shall we? Instead of comparing Apples and AH-64 Apaches? How did this one get "Insightful" in the first place?
... "I read part of it all the way through." -- Movie Mogul Sam Goldwyn (and some slashdot readers)
the problem is you can't replicate your car. That and you aren't getting the SSN#, medical information, ethnicity, sex and all other personal information of the person who steals your car. All you are doing is getting the location of your car.
That and stealing a car is a crime. Using unlicensed software is not stealing. It is a civil thing.
The thing that would really bother me is if A) It is not in the EULA or other document like that and B) It sends back false positives. There is nothing worse than having to prove your innocence due to ignorance of the accuser. That should be a crime in itself imho.
Well, the question is. Does it start Spying when it is not pirated? How does it determine it is pirated? And does it warn the user that it is pirated? I think it would be fair if on startup it says something like "This program does not appear to be licensed. If you continue It will contact vendor XYZ so you can arrange payment, or resolve the problem if this message is in error". (Or something like that). If it just doesn't in behind without saying a thing then it could be spying when the software is legally purchased. This would pose a huge problem!
And robbing it.
Only there you see a notice that the store is protected by CCTV (closed circuit tv). I would venture to say that as long as the company admits they put it in their software it's ok. Like bulletproof ftp. It tells you straight up that it logged your IP and sent it to the publisher.
The car alarms that us a cellular network are so expensive!
As you say, stealing is stealing, whether it's your car or your software, either way you lose money. With the amount of software stealing going on, some people lose fleets of cars in a metaphorical sense.
The law is there and people break it when they think it's wrong, then cry when they get caught.
"No officer I'm certain I have the right to kill an idiot of a neighbor."
You have to have boundaries. There is so much free software people deserve to get their details sent to the police etc. if there is suspesion if they modify proprietory applications. If the software was not good, then THIS WHOLE SAGA WOULD NOT BE AN ISSUE.
Personally, when I crack software to remove limitations, nags, or enable hidden functionality for proper evaluation purposes, I always have faith in my firewall to detect these sorts of 'protections'. If it reports that the software is trying to phone home, then I deny it that ability for the current session. After that, I fire up my port monitor, re-load the software and log what's going on. It's usually a simple matter to prevent the execution the offending code, and in the end I've produced another quality crack.
My motto has always been: if a cracker is good enough to unlock the software without a serial number (or otherwise), then they should be good enough to circumvent the code that phones home.
Thats the thing, aside from all the sleasy EULA stuff that goes along with this stuff.
I understand why a developer would *want* to use it, but that doesn't actually justify it unless they want to reimburse me for the cost of owning and maintaining my computer, with the understanding that (god forbid) should anything go *wrong* while their software is running they might possibly be sued for damages and data loss if I can make the case that their software may have somehow been involved.
Then I have no problem with it.
Quack, quack.
read the term.
:d oin g-to-your-system-software
the long version is
we-dont-want-you-to-know-what-our-software-is-
Whether they jump you at sea and take all you have or steal software which may have taken years for your company to write, all pirate scum are bad and deserve to be punished appropriately.
If there isn't a similar program available in Open Source, go write one yourself. Don't steal.
At the heart of the matter when some script kiddie gets busted for distributing a worm/virus a part of the outrage is that he appropriated the control (partial, temporary or otherwise) of someone else's computer without their permission.
Couldn't we go after software publishers who do this sort of thing on the same grounds?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Doesn't the guy who purchased the car usually ASK to have lojack installed?
Bad Example. Toyota doesn't install LoJack in all of the cars they have "Just in case" one is stolen.
that's not the way it works.
Looking for Book Reviews? Check out Literary Escapism.
If the first the purchaser knows of this "feature" is a nasty gram from the vendor ... that is out of line.
The big problem of course is when the spyware screws up and makes a false report, resulting in the ISP taking some action against the user, which could be cause for a lawsuit.
Some years ago I knew a highly ethical woman who wouldn't even think of running copied software on her PC, which was not 100% IBM compatible. She was absolutely livid with rage when a game program she purchased popped up a big banner saying in effect "YOU ARE A PIRATE". (She bad-mouthed that game program to her acquaintances for weeks afterward.)
Most Windows firewall software, like Zone Alarm, requires specific permission from the user before allowing any program to connect to the Internet (and MD5 checksums programs thus allowed). It would appear that only naive "pirates" would be caught by this type of spyware unless the spyware managed to somehow subvert the firewall (or the spyware publisher managed to buy off the firewall publisher).
At the software company I work for, we have in the past had suggestions to employ similar phone-home schemes. Sometimes it's in the context of catching cheaters; more often it's a way to find what parts of the software do people most use. That kind of data can be priceless; the user often isn't really concious of what he uses, and only remembers the best and worst parts.
We have always refrained. (But once at another job, a developer surreptitiously added a system call to email to himself a message everytime his library was used; QA caught it, and he had his hand spanked.)
If you install software that tells you it's going to phone home to verify its licensing, you get what you pay for.
Of course, if the software installation proc. doesn't disclose this, then IMHO it is spyware.
YMMV, of course. ....
"A gun is a tool, Marian. No better, no worse than any other tool. An axe, a shovel, or anything." Shane (1953)
And it almost always is. Sneaky is sneaky however it obfuscated. Its a sleaze ball parlor trick, I hope EULA's are successfully challenged and we can get back honest business. Its like because software is so 'new' we think all the regular rules of good (honest) business somehow go out the window.
Quack, quack.
What's all the fun in the product just not working? If the company does that, then they have no exscuse to collect information and possibly make money off of pirated copies of their software by selling this information to other people.
Warning: Babysitter software included. May cause unexpected software instability. Will report all suspicious users. Thank you for your business.
Quack, quack.
Mind you, if I wrote it, I wouldn't have it phone home, - I'd have it phone a (very) expensive 900 number (say, $50.00 a call) that I'd own, and you'd end up paying for your license when you got your next phone bill :-)
It's hard to do with the folks who have broadband and no modem. Seems like it would mostly nail the budget croud who can't afford broadband. Keep your legal department on call. If a registered user has a hard drive fail and reinstalls it, you may have a legal challange for the toll calls.
Stealing isn't justification for running nannyware on my computer. That's invasive, intrusive, not to mention the possibility of poorly written nannyware causing memory leak and instability like existing adware.
And FALSE-POSITIVES. This seems like another good place for responsible developer (business people) to draw the line, or get smacked with a lawsuit.
EULA? Its less then a slip of paper and begging to be invalidated.
Quack, quack.
But unless I misunderstand things, private corporations don't go around installing LoJack onto peoples car without telling them.
LoJack is opt-in.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
If a utility I download or any app I buy which has no reason to connect to the Net asks permission for it to connect, I JUST SAY NO.
If it has no access to the Net, there isn't a problem.
The real problem with something like this is... if it's just telling companies "this package is stolen", that's one thing and the ethics can be argued. However, only an idiot would trust any company which would use this kind of copy-protection not to report other things of interest to the company with the spyware, and make no mistake about it, this kind of app is spyware no matter what the rationalization is.
I've been looking for a Linux equivalent to ZoneAlarm, preferably one that allows blocking of specific ports as well as application-based filtering. IMHO, application-based filtering is an improvement on ipchains or iptables.
Tech Public Policy stuff
See link:
c y_ piracy/
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9805/04/priva
Don't people know that things like "firewalls" and "cracks" often prevent silly software (especially a lot of windows titles) from phoning home?
Its not the same. When his spyware runs on my computer its using my resources, my electricity. If it causes problems (and it will) it causes them on my computer. Thats not even considering my privacy rights and concerns.
My own beliefs are the same as Linus Torvalds: "He who writes the code chooses the license". If you don't like spyware, don't friggin run it. I don't.
I don't think Linus was talking about either EULA's or spyware, so it's an irrelevant quote.
You want to coerce me into running spyware? Don't bury it in a user agreement, come right out and make me click a radio button mentioning it directly, watch the popularity of the product drop and then decide if its worth it.
It's simply dishonest. I don't care if its buried in some agreement, thats not good enough.
Quack, quack.
Knowifi's Casino Marketing Event Manager (cMEM) allows you to track the movement of guests throughout your property. Give your convention or event guest a promotional item with an embedded WiFi tag and find out where they travel on your property and how long they stay in each venue (casino, food & beverage outlets, entertainment, etc.). Now you can have accurate information about whether your promotional events drive customers to the casino.
Here's how the system works:
Event attendee information is entered or uploaded from the convention system, event listing, registration system or entertainment system into the cMEM database. Attendee information can be anonymous.
Event attendees are issued a promotional item (hat, key chain, comp, coupon, etc.) with an embedded WiFi tracking tag.
Either standalone or as part of an existing WiFi network, access points are positioned cover key zones throughout the property (e.g. casino, buffet, hotel, entertainment, etc.).
As guests move through the zones, the WiFi access points detect the guest and sends data about their movement to update the cMEM database.
At the conclusion of the event, the event manager prints out reports that analyze the movement of the guests for that event throughout the property.
Now property marketing managers can use actual data, instead of pro forma estimates, to determine whether their promotional events are driving casino traffic!
I can see the software company's interest in stopping piracy but there is a little problem... How much does a copy of Photoshop cost? How about 3D Studio Max? Now tell me who can afford that? An adult, an established designer, etc, etc... How about people in college, high school and middle school? There is no way in hell they can afford that. Could you imagine having asked your parents to shell out 500+ bucks for a peice of software? Didn't think so... So what do the kids do, they pirate it. They learn the software, make some money and continue with that software. Once they are established they will purchase the software odds are. I know I will ^_^ What happens when the kids parent's get busted because he used pirated software and the company goes after the guardians? See? Without pirating no one will learn the software, no one will buy the software... We need piracy ;D
_________ Help me get a PSP!
Correct me if I'm wrong (heh, like I need to say that), but doesn't this seem like leaving something valuable sitting on a park bench and then hiding behind a tree to bust the first person that picks it up?
It all seems a little disingenuous to me. The purported reason is to prevent piracy, but in fact I'm betting it's part of their business model.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
Look at the old issues of Wired. It was a reporter for the NY Times that was nailed by the drive reformat. M$ support said it was a cracked copy, reporter got story on the front page. M$ quickly appologized and removed the misfeature.
I must be misunderstanding the spirit of the original article, because I think that your anaolgy is off base. Yes, I'd be pissed if my car was reporting where I was at all the time.
However, I would be more than happy if my car reported to the manufacture/insurance/police/whoever if it determined that someone had driven off without using the ignition key.
To me, the $64,000 question is how the software determines that it has been pirated.
it's a sales tool...if it was an anti-theft system, the software would just stop working (which a lot of ppl seem to be wondering about why this isn't the case)...it's an easy sale...'buy a liscence, or we come after you'. In fact, I wonder what would happen if you said, 'fair enough, you caught me, I'll just stop using the cracked copy and won't buy the thing'...I imagine they don't get that response often and they'll probably fall off their chairs.
would just alter (or remove) the offending code. It would be similar to the No-CD cracks, though probably more difficult to pull off.
So, now, crackers require two levels of cracking. The first is to break the copy protection scheme. The second is to disable the attempt to phone home with the details. This will probably add a couple hours to the crack time. Now we know. And knowing is half the battle...
I've read posts by shareware authors who have their software alert them if it's been modified/cracked. Something even more common is simulating nasty bugs when the software has been cracked. One game introduced a memory leak when cracked so that it'll crash before you get too far into it. In some extreme cases they attempt to crash the system.
Are they free to use your computer? Your resources? To potentially crash your system?
Its simply not an open and shut case.
Quack, quack.
God Damm Europe, ... with the highest tax rates in the world ... where salaries are lowest in the first world ... freedom of speech does not mean freedom to critizise the government ... where poor health care make you sick ... with the highest rate of unemployment in the first world ... the overcrowded continent of poverty ... and above all France where once they outlawed encryption ... and above all Great Britain where they demand access to your crypto in court ... and above all Germany where they have a section in their penal code that makes blasphemy illegal ... and above all Poland, they're a bunch of catholic thieves ... above all Spain and along with it the Basque terrorists ... and above all Portugal, only slightly poorer than Poland ... and above all Italy, and it's fascist leader Berlusconi ... and above all the little countries and territories I didn't mention because they don't amount to anything worthwhile.
Brush your dirty teeth, you limey bastard! How many teeth fell out of your mouth durning the writing of your rant?!? And that accent gives you away, completely gay!
Think about LoJack, the car anti-theft mechanism, that tracks the car. Isn't that effectively the same thing? That's perfectly legal.
I think the difference here is that you install LoJack in your car. While this company is installing their LoJack equivelant in your software.
First thing, obviously, is when you install software on your machine you have a right to know what it is that you are installing and what that software program is going to do. The software company should also be required (legally) to disclose any such monitoring that is going on.
Second thing, this is all very new. If organizations put secret spyware code in their applications so that they can bust you later, soon people will know that this is going on, and people will move to protect themselves from false positives, and potential crackers will perhaps be deterred from pirating software. This kind of stuff should be out in the open, and well known. Keeping this kind of stuff secret is besides the point. Traumatizing people is different from informing people the software phones home. If the software phones home, the manufacturer should be required to disclose that fact in big letters somewhere.
Certainly, snooping out credit card numbers, or other software programs, or other confidential family photos and things like that would be way out of line, but if a software manufacturer wants to collect information to later sue people, that manufacturer should realize that sooner or later people are going to find out that this is what that manufacturer is doing. And this can be good, because it will act like a deterrent. So the whole "spy" concept is wrong. It should clearly state that information will be collected about computers running the program that are unauthorized and leave it at that.
If the point is to spread FUD, then I think they are missing the point. So no, there's nothing wrong will collecting a reasonable amount of data, but there is something wrong about being sneaky and underhanded about it.
There should be a disclosure, or even a screen on the intall wizard that lets you know that "This software phones home and it will report you if you are using an unofficial copy". That way, people won't even install it. Which is the whole point, right?
The cost of having software do this, and the cost of monitoring and dealing with all this info drives up the price of the software, too. That's another thing to consider. If you can prevent someone from installing it in the first place, then the "spyware" has done its job.
Focus on mitigation, not "A-ha! Gotcha! Betcha didn't know I've been spying on you all this time you snivveling infringer!"
Monitoring users adds cost to the program, and not telling people that they are being monitored totally negates the deterrent effect of people realizing that they will be phoned in by the software if they install it.
No, LoJack is not the same thing. You actually own the physical car, and it's in your posession. You can transfer ownership, modify, hack, and otherwise make it your own.
Okay. Argue this one all day, but there's one thing you're missing: No matter what you think you should or shouldn't be allowed to do, right or wrong, they're all illegal. Are less severe offenses any less against the law?
"Speeding is not a crime unless you go over a certain limit."
Well, yes, but unfortunately, until you exceed that limit, it's not CALLED speeding. No, speeding is NOT the perfect analogy for this. Last January, my girlfriend got "a little bit pregnant," and now I'm "kind of a dad." It doesn't work that way.
Okay, we'll stop calling it "STEALING," if it'll make you feel better, but it's still "WRONG."
"If using unlicensed software was a crime, Microsoft would have had a lot of people in jail by now."
If Microsoft put as much money into tracking you down as they put into "What Would Bill Do?" advertising campaigns, there would be lots more people paying fines.
Mom says my
Your information wants to be free; my information wants to be private. See?
You're mixing up private and public with commercial and free.
Private means that noone else should have, the rest, free or commercial is public.
Commerical means that you can have it - for a price, and free means just that, for free.
When people say that information should be free, they mean that all public information should be free. If you make a speech at a meeting, or a concert performance, they claim that you should be able to do whatever the hell they want with the information you gave, including but not limited to recordings of it.
That does not mean they have the right to read your personal diary to find out what you mean about the same issues, or record you singing in the shower. What you're looking at here is a program that is illegally* transmitting private information to others. (* they may have a CYA clause in the EULA)
Copyright could be abolished, but there would still be private and public, and laws against invasion of privacy. Whether that would be a wise decision or not though, is another story...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
1984
(For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it's a book written by George Orwell, I suggest you read it.)
Question everything
MOD PARENT UP FUNNY!
But, as someone who is innocent until proven guilty, what right do they have to {spy on, steal from, stalk} me?
You misunderstand the "innocent until proven guilty" quote.
That quote refers to the government not applying sanctions to a person who has not (yet) been convicted of a crime. As he goes through the legal process (assuming he ends up convicted) he may start out as a "subject" (of an investigation), and graduate to "suspect" (of a crime), then to "accused" (of the crime before the court), then to "convict" (-ed of the crime, i.e. "guilty"). It is only at this point where the government imposes sanctions as punishment - which is what the "innocent until proven guilty" line is about.
But there is plenty that may (indeed, sometimes must must) be done at earlier stages. Like warrants for search, supported by probable cause. Or imprisionment to prevent escape or to insure identificication. Or intervention to stop a crime in progress. Or searches WITHOUT warrant when an officer has probable cause before him and the risk of flight is high.
And of course a victim may act in self-defense to prevent a crime (such as assault, kidnapping, etc.)
One thing a victim may do, should said victim believe him/herself to be imprisioned and possibly enslaved, is cry for help. And the cry for help is probable cause, allowing an officer to immediately intervene without waiting around for a warrant to be issued.
Which is exactly what the program is doing, when it believes it is being run without proper licensing.
= = = =
Of course that's not to say that I'm happy with programs which "phone home" to say "User x is running me on machine y at ip address z and I don't see that he has permission to do so." If nothing else, sometimes programs goof on that subject. (And sometimes they might send that info even when they're running legally - in which case it IS spyware.) And because of this, along with the risk that they might send out other information that they shouldn't disclose, I would normally refuse to accept such software in my own shop, and would certainly disqualify a vendor who includes such functionality without disclosing it prior to purchase (unless there's no alternative available for a mission-critical job).
But I do recognize that a program which runs but phones home if unlicensed is a much more effective tool for the vendor than one which refuses to run.
For starters, a pirate with a won't-run program gets immediate feedback about when he has successfully bypassed its protection mechanism. But a phone-home program will provide evidence to charge him, and deliver it to the appropriate department at the vendor. (And it won't disrupt the operation of a shop if it really IS licensed but there's a bug - in the program, the install, or the license server.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Does this software also report the color of the pirate's bandana? I have a suspicion that it reports everything and everyone except for the pirates who wear purple polka dot bandanas. And those who wear no underwear when overclocking.
Certainly this is something that would be right up their alley...
This is one of the most obnoxious copy protection schemes since Adobe's "timebomb." Back in the mid 90's, if you installed an unregistered copy of one of their graphics programs (such as Pagemaker) for the Macintosh, a timer would start. After x days had passed your system would crash with the error message "You have failed to register this product." It turns out that you got a malicious executable file free with each copy... not a true virus as it could not reproduce itself, but with the same effect. Actually complying and registering the software was not an option at this point, since the pseudo-virus woud crash your box the moment you rebooted. The only fix was to boot with "extensions off" (i.e. Safe Mode) and then hunt down and remove the "bomb." Of course just uninstalling the app or deleting the whole "Pagemaker" directory by hand did not work... the bad file was hidden away in your system files...
I'm not sure if Adobe made a PC version of this little gem. Later Mac versions lacked this "feature," presumably because of public outcry...
This is *EXACTLY* like the spyware that checks your moves in the internet etc.
If a guy climbs a ladder and peeps in your window, it doesn't matter if he's seeing your mom take a shower, watching her read the paper, or watching her dime up crack bags which he then reports to the cops - he is *WRONG* for peeping without permission, regardless of the actions of the "peekee". In this case, software companies are peeking without permission, and, not surprisingly, they're wrong.
Nice rant, and I agree completely. Now if only you hadn't closed it with a shameless plug for a proprietary piece of software... :p
A popular theory of law, says somehting to the degree that laws are followed, when the risk and magnitude of punishment exceed what the law breaker is willing to tollerate (if some one can tell me what school of thought this is, I would be grateful, I slept through sociology class a lot)
In order to stop a person from pirating your software, you have to do one of the following:
1) Make it impossible to crack
Unlikely, we all know this, end of argument
2) Catch and prosecute all pirates
About as viable as the first option, going to court is expensive.
3) Make most of your users beleive that they will get caught and prosecuted if they pirate your software
And this is what we have with the spy-ware. The average user, (slashdot readers on the whole being a little more informed than the masses) that just sat down to photo-shop a squirrel with large nuts into a FARK photoshop contest entry, and has a big window pop-up and tell them that they are in violation of the law and will burn in hell for pirating software is less likely to continue using it. Is it going to work all the time? No, but it will deter some potential pirates. but why spy on them? I can think of a lot of reasons, the first one that comes to mind is to track the distribution of the pirated copy. Do this enough, and you can begin to put a finger on the specific people that are distributing your software.
Why not freeze it out?
Simple, if the software froze all the time, it would be obvious very quickly to the "pirates" and they would get to work at cracking it again. The spy option makes it far less likely to be noticed, and instead may round up a few customers.
Is this right? Personally I don't think any sort of spy-ware is justified at any time, so I would say not. But on the otherhand, stealing crap isn't right either so I have a hard time feeling too sorry for the people that have their privacy breached in this manner.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
That's not to say that I necessarily agree with all IP related laws. I think the reason for copyright given in the US constitution (to promote the progress of science and useful arts) is a reasonable one but the protections given should be a minimum to achieve the desired effect of promoting invention.
In the long term I see that there could be great danger in steering an economy to a place where it relies too much on artificial scarcity. It could well turn out to be a house of cards.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
In the circumstances of the case described here, copying software is CLEARLY a crime under the US code (there will be the opportunity for civil damages also, but saying that it generally isn't a crime is misinformation).
Copyright infringement is a criminal offense if it is A) done willfully, and B) done for commercial advantage. (US Code 17:5:506).
- Done willfilly? If the system administrator received correspondence that states who, when, what IP address, and what program is being used illegally, then chooses to do nothing about it, you can hardly plead ignorance here.
- For commercial advantage? Yes - this isn't you sitting in your basement listening to a couple of MP3s; the article specifically states that this is taking place at work.
Slashdot is entertaining like pro wrestling is entertaining
Nuff said
I know of several companies that are pirating M$ Office and when faced with the licensing costs of hundreds of thousands they'll consider alternatives like Open Office or Word Perfect. But if nobody cares they'll continue to pirate software, keeping M$ Office owning the mindshare for office apps.
If users at companies were forced to use Open Office it'd be just like when they were forced to use M$ Office. They'd adapt, learn to deal with it, and soon those hourly Office crashes would be the norm instead of a drawback..
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
Dude, if you can't abide by the conditions that the authors have set: eg. price and license
THEN DON'T USE THE FREAKING SOFTWARE
I won't go into quality of the software, but I will touch on that fact that YOU CAN DO ALL OF THIS WITHOUT THEIR SOFTWARE.
I read excel spreadsheets, I write lots of documents. I don't use Microsoft software in my life.
I can afford it. I can't stand its LOW LOW quality (been writing milters to block today's virus/worm that our unix and macs won't get but it clogging up our servers.)
You guys have postgresql, mysql, php, all the BSD and linux you can eat. Laptops that can run what our bigass VAX 780s struggled with. Jesus Freaking Christ. There's better software out there for FREE than was available 5 years ago commercially.
And your whining about how you think XP costs too much.
Don't use it if you can't buy it. You have options. Take them.
How is the following senario any different from what this software is doing?
I have a car. The car has a built in cell phone and GPS. If the car is stolen, the cell phone calls me and tells me the location of my car from the GPS. Am I now spying on the theif? Am I violating his right to privacy?
How does the software determine if it is running a legitimate copy?
If it is a type that detects cracked copies, what's to stop cRk_fOObAR_v1.0afixed.exe from disabling the "phone home" function and/or make it give incorrect information?
"...we dont care about the economics; we just want to be able to hack great stuff."
This method of evidence gathering would make the evidence definitely unadmissable in criminal court. In civil court, I think it would be a little more debatable, but if there was no indication in the program's license agreement or other documentation saying this would happen, I think the company might not have the best case. Especially since IPs can be faked/dynamic or whatever. Besides, how much are they really going to take in by suing some broke ass college students? It would make far more sense to just make the program uninstall itself.
I own 3 copies of BE 9 for 3 servers but one is an upgrade of an upgrade and you have to jump through hoops with the old serial to get the new one etc, so I just used the same serial on 2 servers. It sent a broadcast message to every user on the corp network that there was a software license violation.
Nice. How about just shutting the thing down and telling the administrator that this won't run.
It's about time developers start using some extra 'force' with pirates; software developers have families too. However, I don't think law enforcement (includes: legal department, lawyers, etc) should get involved with anything to do with software piracy (unless it's on a wider scale [ie: making hundreds of copies of the latest M$ OS and distributing it]). It seems to me, law enforcement should be going out catching murders & rapists rather than catching teenage 'pirates'.
If you didn't create the software yourself, you should at least have the sources available so you can peruse the code and see what it is really doing.
If you build your software from source that you can view, you can be absolutely sure of two things:
1. There are no backdoors or spyware in the code.
2. The code is not proprietary (I haven't seen any companies deliver sourcecode in years - unless it was for some closed system where joint ownership between two companies was the operating practive. For consumer software, it all comes in binary format, even for Unices), so you have the option of modifying it as necessary.
Even if you don't have the time to scan all of your programs before hand, having the sources available is an excellent tool for tracking down glitches - or 'spyware' activity (if your firewall detects outgoing traffic to particular IP addresses on particular ports, you can grep for these things in the program and figure out what the app is doing quicker than depending on the 900 number for 'Tech Support'...)
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
It's just checking (and reporting) whether the software in question
_itself_ is infringing, right? I wouldn't call that spyware per se.
Misguided, yes, but not spyware. It may be similar to spyware in
some ways, but I'd classify it as overzealous copy pretection and
let it go at that. Now, if one software package were checking for
infringing copies of _other_ software, that would be spyware.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Illegal search and seizure Illegal wiretap And.. Theft of services for stealing my bandwith
Sick of stupidity? http://www.patentlystupid.com
I'm sure everyone here can sympathize with companies and individuals who are hurt by piracy and I feel that they have every right to pursue it in whatever way they legally can. But that's the problem. As soon as a company uses illegal or unethical methods to combat illegal and unethical abuse, they lose me as well as the moral upper-hand. There are plenty of ways to combat piracy without invading a customer's privacy and I think it behooves a company or developer to explore those avenues. Also, they need to accept that there is always going to be a segment of users who will use pirated software. And I'm not so sure that matters. I would assume that most people doing so wouldn't have paid for the software legitimately anyway, no matter what, so it's hard to say that any potential profit has been lost by anyone. Tactics like "phoning home" and convoluted registration methods, dongles and other nuissaances only irritate paying customers and likely don't stop any piracy at all.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Draw your own conclusion :).
The Raven
I write software for a living. If you copy and use my software illegally, then you are depriving me of compensation for my hard work. Please don't do that. It's not nice.
--Be human.
Tactics like "phoning home" and convoluted registration methods, dongles and other nuissaances only irritate paying customers and likely don't stop any piracy at all.
:-)
Actually theres this thing called "cracking" the program that'll make it stop doing that annoying crap. See your local pirate for more information.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
The social structure that we all exist in today has been engineered so that virtually EVERYBODY who uses a computer is a software pirate on some level. --I only ever knew one person who made it her personal crusade to never, ever use software she hadn't directly paid for, and for her it was only because she was stubborn and had decided to be that way despite all the inconvenience it caused. It drove her boyfriend nuts, because he was a weakling and allowed her to direct his life as well, so much of his computer's functionality had to go. --His solution was to switch to Linux, and go the open-source route, which in the long run gave him the best of both worlds.
(Interestingly, she was an idealistic Mac user who didn't like to have think about how it worked, and he was a PC user who liked to pull apart machines and tinker.)
Anyway. . . The point of the matter is that the current system of society is such that it is set up to make EVERYBODY a criminal. That way, there's automatic leverage already in place against anybody who the Masters of the Universe want to intimidate and bully as they deem necessary.
With Gates working side by side with the Homeland Security spooks, with unique-identifier chips for computers on the horizon, this is only going to get more cemented into place. My guess is that there may even be systems in the future to automatically debit your account for the amounts 'owing' whether you like it or not. --And if your credit rating isn't good enough to support a sudden whop of extra debt, then there's always the state salt mines.
Here's another interesting thing; that same girl? There's a perfect place for people like her. She'll be the one who will put you in jail without a blink or note of compassion. She thinks she's better than you and that the system is inherently right; that individual thought, action and non-orthodox (creative) problem solving are the primary sources of all trouble and woe in the world. Everything would be Oh, so much nicer if everybody just did as they were told! Anybody who comes up with new ideas which have not been sanctioned by the wonderfully reassuring TV-Sciencey-People are so very threatening. (It's especially aggrievating to her when those new ideas prove to be more efficient and effective, propelling the outside-the-box thinker to success, leaving her in the dust. It's not fair! People shouldn't be allowed to do that! No fair!)
--She's the sort who was effectively programmed at a very young age to instinctively seek an authority structure and to then seek its approval. (Gold stars and check marks in school when you are a child? That's hard-core programming, baby!) As such, through desperately seeking the moral high ground in all matters without considering the terms of that 'high' ground, or the agendas of those who imposed the rules, she becomes a candidate for perfect Nazihood. She'll march in the fucking Neocon parades and turn you in for sedition. (Grumbling at your work station.) People like you have been making her feel miserable and lonely and awkward for her entire life, and boy, you better believe she's bitter. Soon it's going to be pay back.
By re-enforcing these patterns, by directing through subconscious suggestion the people you find yourself involved with, is how the real Matrix imposes control over us. It takes a great deal of awareness to break free of this system.
Ever wonder why most of the people you know are sad, stressed and exhausted most of the time? No? Might be a good idea to start wondering, because, newsflash; it's not the natural state.
Knowledge protects.
-FL
"Something, something the more numerous the laws, something, something." --Tacitus.
"Think about LoJack, the car anti-theft mechanism, that tracks the car. Isn't that effectively the same thing? That's perfectly legal."
Not at all. That's akin to the manufacturer installing a 'LoJack' that recognizes you as the licensed driver and refuses to let anyone else drive that car.
The owner of the car installs the LoJack to assist in tracking down their car if it's stolen...
- DRFSR
just as you should be able to pass over their product because they do, do it.
It's repetitive and reduntant too!
Banaaaana!
Apple has been doing something like this for years. If you run software on a network and you try to use the same copy of software on two different systems at the same time, something will have to give. In this case, MacOS informs you that person x is using a copy of the software and then it quits the application until you close down the other copy or log off the network. I don't see /. breaking out the hayforks over this though.
Vendors used to make our lives miserable by requiring us to bolt on stupid dongle thingamajigs to supposed "spare" ports on every "licensed" machine. Great, until you had four or five such packages and one free port. If that was reasonable, anything short of random drug testing and DNA samples in a license could be considered a blessing. Thank god there are other ways to validate licenses. So your IP address is sent out with identifiers for software on your machine. What's next, bitching over browser detection on web pages as an infringement of privacy rights since the action of opening a web page does precisely the same thing? If I sell a package to ACME Billionaires [INC|AG|SaP] and just trust them with no auditability to follow a license, I'm not in good shape to prove a damned thing. With all the auto-updating software that is out there, which does exactly the same thing (see: Symantec LiveUpdate et.al.) this is hardly earth-shaking. Maybe if this was more wide-spread, companies would stop bitching about piracy as an excuse for hiked up prices, which may explain why the anti-virus software that used to cost fifty-bucks now goes for ten likely owing to this practice.
According the Bush and his cronies, hacking is terrorism.
This software is arguably hacking.
Does this mean that the software industry is supporting terrorism?
Let's take things a step further: I don't believe in ownership. How about it? I just don't. I can't help it. My behavior doesn't reflect my beliefs, though, because I don't want to be in jail right now. So much for civil disobedience.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
I have long been wondering why Microsoft doesn't employ this technique in Windows. (And don't flame me for using those two cuss words here. *grin*) Their licensing issues would stop, 'Windows Product Activation' would disappear, and all the headaches associated with pirated copies of their software would just stop. And they would save a lot of money that way. Any time a Windows box boots, it calls home and identifies itself with its product key. If that product key is already identified as running, both machines then shutdown. Makes more sense to me than Activation.
... And I really don't like the idea of software programs running as spyware. How do I *know* that it's not transmitting out personally identifiable information? I don't. That's an inherent danger of the Internet age. When you plug your computer into a network, you take the risk that something on your computer could be retrieved or sent without your permission. Should it happen? No, of course not. But then again, consumers are getting screwed left and right.
...
Personally, I'm not an advocate of spyware. Almost on a daily basis, I run my spyware checker and delete any unidentified directories under 'C:\Program Files'
Hey, we could just do away with the Internet, unplug our computers, and go back to DOS in the 1980's
Who's with me?
Seth Anderson BTW, I'm not 23 anymore -- I am TexasCowboy26 now. =)
The first poor thing is that the admin won't be uncomfortalbe with all of his people being spied on (let alone all of the end users that threaten him with death).
The second is the assumption that the Admin is unaware that a cracked copy of software is being used, seriously all of this stuff costs well into the ridiculous range and there are more than a few companies who just say to hell with it all and let's just pretend like our lone copy is a site lease. Then they have to go through all sorts of trouble like pretending they care and making sure it doesn't happen the next time around.
when you are under police investigation, such as being followed or having your phones tapped, it has to be decided by a judge that you are dangerous enough, or enough of a threat to the law or society, that they should violate your privacy for the sake of others.
and in ALL OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES (barring, of course, anything in the latest patriot act), they are required to let you know what's going on. when you get a job that requires a criminal background check, they let you know. when you are asked for additional ID, well.. of course, you know.
that's reall the difference. should companies put spyware in to spy, or should they just outright tell people what's going on? it might even act as a deterrent to pirates who don't want to be caught. they will just use some other software, instead.
If a software publisher prices their software "out of the market" then a potential user has two recourses: 1. don't use it; 2. pirate it.
If the software publisher's decision is inappropriate (i.e., the value is $50 but they charge $2,000), then the user can't be blamed for pirating it. I mean, they can be, but let's face it you can't return software you don't like (because "you might pirate it"), so the default behavior is, pirate it to make sure you like it. Then, if you so choose, pay for it.
I think it's super cool though, that publishers are going to more and more draconian levels in order to "protect their profits" because it just makes open source/free software that much more attractive.
See the Ernie Ball story for more details. (I love that I saw the Ernie Ball and the optic-fiber sponge stories on Excite last night, and then saw those two posted here today.)
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
-1, Utter Nonesense!
..I have a used car to sell you
I would figure that if these 33733t haxor d00dz knew what they were doing, they'd remove the spyware phone home portion when they cracked it.
Now people will wonder whether or not the latest file they downloaded off Kazaa, Morpheus, or any number of other (until the Evil Empire^H^H^H^HMPAA/RIAA releases their legal hounds on whatever is left.) P2P clients, has some hidden gizmo thats contacting the mothership at 4:50AM sending their dox to the software company..
This is very much like the nonsense Golden Hawk had with CDRWin a while back (mabe even currently.) that eluded to the fact that "bad things" might happen to your CD burner if you used a cracked copy.. It makes people wonder, and these companies rely on that wonder, Who's going to run illegal software if it's reporting in? Not as many people, thats who.
I agree tho, if the software is smart enough to know thats it's been illegally registered/authorizied/whatever, it should just uninstall itself.. Personally, I would not, and will not utilize any software that phones home.
Or, whatif, as in the case of USN war ships, you are running on NT, and the software comes from a PLA front company, and not only are usernames and passwords forwarded to Peking, but so is any sensitive information on the system, and even control of the warship, say in the case of an invasion of never-under-the-control-much-less-the-property-of- the People's-Liberation-Army-terrorist-organization Taiwan?
Sounds like such spyware is totally incompatible with national security.
In civil cases, the standard is "a preponderence of evidence." Remember, civil cases involve two private entities coming to the state to settle a dispute. At the outset, the law has no judgement about which private party is correct; final judgement is issued based on who presents the most compelling evidence to support their side of the story.
I have a feeling that this is a pretty serious violation... Anyone know for sure?
Who started the pointing? Silly troll, you can do better.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I don't know the exact details, but in the case of cars, the warranty applies cannot be canceled for independant service, unless they can prove that the independant service caused the problem. Appearently at one time manufacuters tried that trick, and the goverment doesn't allow it anymore.
All suspects are guilty. Period. Otherwise, they wouldn't be suspects, would they?
There's another good reason to trick a product into not requiring a CD: Security.
Once you put a CD drive on a Windows computer, it no longer is red book class C2 certified. The obvious reason is that you can boot from a CD.
Obviously, you don't download a cracked version from Russia or China to improve security, but using virtual CD drives or modifying registry keys to look other places is quite normal.
And this might be enough to trigger a program into thinking it is running a cracked version -- when in reality it's an attempt to work around the flaws of the program, mainly that it requires a CD to be present.
Regards,
--
*Art
1) First time someone is convicted of writing this crap, they get a hand chopped okay - they pick.
2) Any company involved in this kind of software is force to open it sources and GPL all of it's code. The company is liquidated and the money forfited to the government.
3) Each time someone is caught, another limb is chopped off.
4) The fifth time, they are executed.
Is that strong enough?
FREEDOM FROM SPYS!
Do you feel software publishers should have the right to peer into users data, if their software suspects foul play on the machine, or should it do the easy and intelligent thing and just stop working?
***
Software publishers have no right to peer into users data. Think of it this way if you steal my car and bring it to your house do I have a right to dig through your house? No. That data has NO association with the stolen product. I have word documenets, private coorespondance etc.
This person should be beaten by the ACLU and EFF members in alphabetical order.
Do you feel software publishers should have the right to peer into users data, if their software suspects foul play on the machine, or should it do the easy and intelligent thing and just stop working?
Seriously folks. This is not even a question that deserves to be asked. The answer is such an obvious NO that it's laughable. If any software publisher is actually doing or intending to do such unethical things, there needs to be privacy legislation written immediately to protect consumers against this nonsense. If our vehicles started regularly phoning home to Detroit to tell auto makers where we'd driven in the last month (just in case the vehicle was stolen), would people question the bad ethics and privacy invasion? This is absolutely no different.
Fortunately, these issues are going to be completely irrelevant as the world switches almost entirely to Free Software over the next, oh.. 10 to 15 years. Don't think that'll happen? Guess again. The OSS movement is growing exponentially. It's not a question of "if" but rather "when".
Everyone has issues with firewalls. My current 'issue' with Tiny Personal Firewall (yes, I've actually paid for it.. and, just like Mirc, we're waiting to see who the 10th person ever to buy it will be...) is that yes, it logs but.. it does not have a second application to break down those logs. I'd love to log EVERYTHING and get a breakdown of where exactly my FTP program has been.
Ok. Using DC++.. it's ok. Now go look at BCDC++ and it's extras.. like it's log analysis software that reports how much a particular person has retrieved from you.. and what the most popular file was.
AN
Doesn't this fall under Entrapment laws, or does that just apply to law enforcement agencies?
And you know this how? You work for SCO?
But the published police report and all news reports said nothing about SCO. How'd you know information that wasn't available to the general public, Mr. Coward ?!?!? Sounds highly suspicious to me.
We know you have information, Mr. Coward. If you don't want a long prison sentence, you'd better start talking now.
Definitely NOT a legend: Waaaay back I looked at the code in a debugger just to see if the rumor was true.
There was a chunk of code that would perform a very tight loop of end-ro-end head seeks. A reset or Ctl-Alt-Del would probably not hurt anything but if the user paniced and hit the power switch.....
However, there was NO branch to that routine that I could locate; just another useless MS "feature" in MNSHO.
...stolen software that phones home is kind of like those car thingies that emit their exact location when the car is stolen...I'm sure car thieves hate those thingies. Now wouldn't the car thingie be cool if it could not only tell you its exact location, but also the name and serial number of the guy who stole it!
Stop and read what you just said.
You honestly don't believe that...do you?
"Suspect"
When you suspect there to be a problem with somthing... you think there MIGHT be a problem.
You don't know FOR SURE.
Just because someone is a suspect dosen't in any way make that person absolutely guilty.
To think so would put everyone back into the mindset similar to that of Salem during the witchhunts.
If one person kills another person, there may be dozzens of suspects in the initial investigation. Now according to your logic they are ALL guilty. So if some crazy serial-killer kills a lady and runs, then I guess the husband of that lady would HAVE to go to prison for life, or be put on death-row, huh? Because in the case of murder, the spouse is always the first suspect.
Seriously. Come on now.
Suspects are only under the suspicion of guilt. No more, no less.
that was an amazing post. if i ever meet you in real life ill smoke you a joint... replication is exactly it, time diliation from some game... thats exactly what we need and corporations will onyl hold us back. infinite resources and everyone is guaranteed the same quality of life.......
Simply not true. I'm using your software without compensating you, but I'm not depriving you of money (the money in my pocket was never yours in the first place).
Semantics? Sure, but accurate.
Be aware that pirating $500 worth of software within a 6 month period is now a felony in the USA.
Lose your voting rights, lose your firearm rights, and spend time in jail getting HIV-raped just for pressing some buttons on your computer.
Welcome to America, the incarceration capitol of the world, where the laws are written by money, and home of the richest man in the world.
Seriously I also remember a number of companies that used to do something like this with LAN based multicasts. Often the license itself was tied to a MAC address, so woe betide you if you swapped a lan adapter.
See my journal, I write things there
In Finland it is rare for younger people to have phoneline installed. Everyone have cellphone and internet comes from cable or dsl.
I think the EULA's aren't honest business so I'm expressing in part my own unproven (I think they will lose eventually) prejustice. When I explicitly click on a piece of software to install that does not mean I intended to install any other software surreptitiously and just because I may be mentioned burried in fine print somewhere does not mean I intended it (EULA as everybody on Slashdot know are not only dodgy agreements, but are circumventable, did I buy the EULA or the software?).
Quack, quack.
Where did anyone except you mention "other" software? This isn't like divx installing gator on your system - this is a publisher including functionality in their software YOU may not consider explicitly needed (or even wanted) but which they have every right to add. You have two choices: use it, or don't. No one is coming to your office and forcing your hand.
Nor is it even remotely reasonable to expect the end user to explicitly specify every little function added in a piece of software. Most users simply don't give a shit so long as it does what they want; if you demand finer grained control than that, download the source and compile it yourself.
No source? Well, then you make do with what you got. Either way it is your choice.
What if an enemy of (some) state was known to have this software installed, and the state was monitoring the traffic. Upon seeing this packet be sent, they conclude that the enemy is enganged in some serious work, and will stay home for a few minutes. A missile strikes soon after.
Now assume the "enemy" had a good intelligence service, and figured out who or what leaked the crucial information. Whom would they take their revenge on?
Ok, perhaps a bit far fetched, but what if a sysadmin wanted to stalk that girl in accounting, and had the firewall inform him every time she started this program (by capturing its spy packet).
In Murphy We Turst
Or something like that.
Such software would be breaking the law in many countries (specially in Europe) since nobody can gather data about you without your consent.
Both the copyright infringer and the company gathering information without a persons consent could land themselves in legal trouble.
The company producing the software can get themselves of the hook clearly stating that they are collecting information, which information and where it is kept.
Oh yes, IANAL.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
There's a piece of commercial bulletin-board/forum software that does this. When you purchase and register your copy, the company keeps a record of which IP you're on, your name, as well as a few other small details.
If you change IPs, their database is updated and the old IP is deactivated in their database.
If you've never purchased the software, none of your IPs are listed in their database, and obviously the rest of your [fake] registration details you key-generated won't be on file with them either. The software "pings" in with the main company's website from time to time; I would presume once every few weeks. The serial number and name you're using is probably sent during those pings...
They apparently verify that the software is in fact not legitimately registered, and then try to contact the user directly. If that fails (or the user fails to respond), they contact the ISP directly.
I was probably contacted by them 4-5 times total when I worked for a large ISP. Every time I contacted the colocated/vhost customer, the software was in fact being used without being purchased.
I'm sure this isn't the only company that does this, though. For example -- Bulletproof FTP phones home from time to time, to invalidate widely used warez serials and things like that.
I was told that I could listen to the radio at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven...
I do not know what the situation is in the good ole US of A (where privacy is treated as the private feudal property of a certain Mr Ashcroft) but in other countries you have not got any right to collect private information without the affected person's consent. No matter what the excuse.
A company using hidden spyware and then pursuing reparations due to copyright infringement, detected by above mentioned device, may find itself in hot legal water for collecting private information without consent.
The solutions are obvious and as usual, to be open about what you do is the best way to proceed. Why companies don't grasp this basic concept is completely and absolutely beyond my intellectual capacity to understand corporations.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
This program behaviour was previously hilighted as a breach of the Computer Misuse Act 1990-- software which causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer. i.e. the software firm is illegally securing access to licensing data (i.e. that the program is pirated) by sending an email without the computer owner's authorisation. I remember the author of an Acorn program a few years back being forced to remove this behaviour from his software for this reason.
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
I agree with your points about pirated software. However, one sticking point is that programs have too much power - programs run with the effective permissions of the logged-on user and loss of control of your own system is not a good thing. In practical terms, the real problem is most Windows program "run as root".
IIRC, Windows 2000 had an option to run a program as a different user. It would be handy to extend this limitation to effectively build a "GUI chroot jail". For example, the user should be able to set a system policy that said:
"If this executable came in via email, and I want to run it, then run it in a 800x600 screen window with a hatched window border pattern, with max. CPU utilization = 10%, no network access, disk access = virtual C:\ with 500 MB free, read-only winnt\ directory and virtual registry."
Imagine the following scenario. You have hapily been using your credit card for a while when shock horror someone has gotten your details and commits fraud. You of course are a suspect as it is your card invovled. Does this mean the police can redirect your mail (Even the harmless junk mail.) have a good look over your details before letting you have them back? No No it does not. You are inocent until proven guilty.
This is exactly the same scenario. Instead of credit card its a cracked piece of software. Inocent till guilty means you are always inocent of the crime so they have no right to look at any private details pertaining to you.
If anyone else decided to have a look at your computer name and what product you installed, even though its very basic probably harmless info, they would be seen as hackers. Doing it just because some of the people you do it to may be guilty is like arresting people who look at your house as potential burglers.
I have to stress that the information that the company gains off your computer is irrelevant. You are standing on a very slippery slope. You allow a company to take down simple details like this today, tommorow they will be sifting through your private files to pull every detail you have and send a team of police to your door despite you not even breaking the law.
Your computer is your own private space and just as with private property NO ONE has the right to take anything from it without a warrant based on sufficient evidence. A cracked file is far from enough.
[Also didnt MS try this crap at one point. Im sure I remeber them getting in to a lot of trouble with the law for sending back private details about the systems the O/S was installed on.]
Since Microsoft just announced the desire to have software update itself automatically (and self-install the latest version of bugs and crappy security), all the PC users should get used to it.
They were, after all the ones who came up with the idea of "reaching into your computer" in the first place.
Between Microsoft, the RIAA and MPAA, we're getting to watch the real life version of Fahrenheit 45i, 1984 and Animal Farm all rolled into one neat package. It's called the DMCA (Despicable Microsoft Controls America?)
Pirates "collect" pirated software. They prolly use about 5% of the software they pirate. The people that are going to get nailed are the people using the software, not the guys horking the programs off on IRC.
If you don't agree with their policies, don't use their software. Or should I say, don't steal their software.
We found hin, the guy/gal that actually READS the Eulas...
/. crowd ? How does it feel, just after you read a few thousand lines of Mumbo-Jumbo ? do you understand it all ? Do you think you can now remove the IANAL from your posts ? Or did you thonk it is just "the right thing to do" ?
So, dear sweet Tooth, can you answer a few questions for the
Next, on Slashdot : AC, or not AC !!!
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
I think that companies who write and sell their software have a right to try and ensure that their software is not stolen. The current economic climate, coupled with the huge hurdle of trying to compete in a market that is dominated by corporations like Microsoft and others with terrible histories of monopolistic behaviour, makes earning a profit from software pretty difficult.
However, from what I read, US companies seem to take very aggressive preemptive action against people and companies who they have the mildest suspicion of infringing their copyright. For example: BSA Accuses Open Office Mirrors -- there's many more (just read slashdot for a few weeks).
But these companies, going to great lengths to find and then harass potentially illegal users of their software, are forgetting one very important thing: these users want to use these companies' software. Not all know that they are doing so illegally, and of those who do know, not all are using the software illegally because they don't want to buy licenses. They may be trialling the software, they may have meant to buy a license but have forgotten.
I would suggest that, if a piece of software detects that it is being used illegally, it should do the following:
The other key to ensuring you sell your software is to have simple, reasonable, licensing terms. Don't charge for named users, let the license be able to be passed on. Offer a reasonable pricing structure, take into account home users, students, educational and research institutions and small businesses as well as large corporations. You might need to sell your $1500 per license product to students and home users for $30. So what. This will spread word of mouth and you've bought mind-share.
Companies that go storming in with the legal stuff just piss users off and give a very bad impression of the software company.
"The noble art of losing face will one day save the human race"---Hans Blix
I think (hope) that he was being sarcastic. However, I regulartly read articles in the press claiming that the large percentage of suspects that are found not guilty proves that the court system is loaded too heavily on the side of the defendant, and never seem to consider the option that maybe the police might regularly arrest the wrong people.
Arcview 8.1 leaves tcp ports listening AutoCAD 2004 comes with a new "communications center" and windows xp has windowsupdate just make sure you do port scans
They are collecting private sensitive infrastructure information like internal IP address, machine name and MAC address, and transmitting it over an open network.
This is most likely illegal in most parts of the world.
Not, if they just sent a message to the local admin it would be ok.
I have a removable hard drive that I use at work, connected to the internet with their IP account. I use it in my home computer, with a different IP account. I use my notebook with a PCMCIA WiFi card at home, a PCMCIA
ethrernet card at work, and a PCMCIA modem at a friends. Am I in violation?
#1. If it is an illegal copy then you need to pony
/sbin/iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p all -i ${PRIVATE} -s 192.168.1.0/24 -d 207.46.0.0/16 -j LOG /sbin/iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p all -i ${PRIVATE} -s 192.168.1.0/24 -d 207.46.0.0/16 -j DROP /sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p all -i ${PUBLIC} -s 207.47.0.0/16 -d ${PUBLIC_IP}/32 -j DROP
up the dough or remove it. Business that charge people money for services should have to pay for stuff they use right. I'm a programmer and I view it as perfectly legit for a software package to phone home.
#2. Here is how I keep winbloze from phoning home. I think it works. At least I can no longer connect to windows update.
# Do not allow our machines to communicate to any machines on Microsoft's network
# I do not know specific machines so I am dropping all of MS's class B subnet
DROPMS="FALSE"
if [ "$DROPMS" == "TRUE" ]
then
fi
How can "Linux" become "mainstream"? I guess a few distros could go mainstream (if you by that mean user friendly/used by a lot of users), but then just use whatever other distro you like, slackware, linux from scratch, debian or gentoo. I can assure you these distros won't go mainstream (windows way) any time soon.
---
The combined human population is enough to feed every living tiger for app. 28000 years.
If the EULA informs the person doing the install that the app will phone home, then you're SOL. However, if your network/workstations have a logon warning stating that the only authorized use is permitted, then in effect the software's behavior would fall under various electronic "trespassing" laws (see 18 USC 1030).
Bark less. Wag more.
programm IN whatever you want.
:)
phone-home capability if you want.
but vendor should have to declare it on the box if his software is "phoning home"!
of course nobody is going to buy it
Piracy was a much more emotive word in the 18th and 19th Century when it started appearing in relation to books. Piracy was a capital offence then, travellers and merchants were in fear of it. It meant murder, rape and theft (poss. even slavery) a long way from home. How this became associated with copying, I don't know.
See my journal, I write things there
If you use my software without compensating me, then you are depriving me of money. You see, I get paid for letting people use the software I create. It's that simple. I don't get paid for the act of writing it (i.e. if I take 2x as long to write it, I don't get paid 2x as much). I get paid for the finished product. And, since I license my software, I get paid for the *use* of my software. If everyone were able to use my software without compensating me (after all, their money was never mine in the first place, right?), then I would have no way to get paid! You see, I get paid for people using my software! And by using my software without paying for it, you are depriving me of money.
--Be human.
It might be a bit tricky to prove condition 1.(1)(c), but I think a good barrister would get it with no question.
So, unless you authorised the original vendor of the software to acquire the information from your computer that it sends back, they can be given 6 months in prison (or more likely just the fine).
well anyway, decalre in on the box or in the EULA that your software is "phoning-home". but please also include how much data is beeing transmited so i can bill you for the bandwidth you are using and I'M paying for!
is the new Windows coming out so late (2005?) because MS is busy verifing that all XP copies are legal?
Nobody seems to have problems with putting the CD into a game console to play it.
When this calls home, it does not mean a court conviction. It means the BSA storm troopers have a target. So, even if you own the software that phoned home, ALL of your assets will have to pass BSA muster.
The other part, Does Cliff work for the BSA. A little FUD can get the paranoid to pay up for more software. So Cliff, NAME NAMES! Without names, this is just BS and FUD.
www.zonelabs.com. It's free (there is a more powerful payware version, which I like) so it won't be spying, and it's well-known.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
I read some of the posts. At mod 5, when there were about 50 posts.
Slashdotters are missing the bigger picture.
The computer/technical knowledge of the average slashdotter far exceeds the computer/technical knowledge of the average computer user.
There have been two solid examples, probably a lot more modded less than 5, or to be added later, of situations in which someone would fall under the reporting scenario listed in the story.
The first would be where more than one copy of an application was purchased for more than one computer, the first box was opened, and only the disk from the first box was used to load the application into multiple desktops. The proper number of copies of the application were purchased, but the additional boxes were left sealed, to preserve the disks and manuals in case they were needed at a later date.
Been there, done that. More than one application.
The second situation is games. The one game that I own for windows is Soldier of Fortune. Won it at a lug meeting. Otherwise, never payed for (and never used) any other games that cost money. Not really interested in games that cost money. But, what a dumbass pain in the ass it is to have to find/load/run the cd to play that game. Totally stupid. Especially when the game can (can it?) be duplicated in a cd burner.
Prior to all this drm bull, I tried finding an easy way to load SOF onto the hard drive so I could play it directly off the hard drive whenever I wanted, without having to hunt down that stupid cd. Since I don't live to play games, I didn't waste that much time looking for the solution to loading SOF onto my hard drive. The one solution I did find, if it was correct, was too complicated for me to bother. Maybe if I was younger, I'd waste the time figuring out how to do it. Not worth my time.
SOF is no longer an interest to me. I reached the end many times, and its over with. Also, the SOF I have is for windows. I don't know if they make one for linux now, but I wouldn't waste the money on it anymore. From the previous sentence, you can see I use linux now. Have been for the last 2+ years. So I don't have to worry about windows crashes, viruses, or being accused of stealing software. I'm using 100% linux, 100% FOSS software. Nothing on any of my desktops or servers is proprietary software where I can be accused of stealing an application or game. But in the above scenario I just outlined, there are other people in the same situation. They have multiple cd games loaded onto their hard disk. Not to steal it. But to be able to click and run instead of hunting down/wearing out the cd drive (have two dead ones already).
So your average slashdotter may be able to 1. run cd games from the hard disk, and 2. may have in the past, or still presently, purchased more than one copy of an app, yet left all the boxes still shrinkwrapped except for one that was used to load the individual desktops. With the proper number of copies. As I stated earlier, been there, done that, and I know someone with a small business who has done the same, probably someone else as well, though I haven't asked (have seen three copies of an application, two shrinkwrapped, one opened, on the shelf above one of his computers, and there are three computers in his business).
So there are two scenarios that your average slashdotter may run into where the software is not actually stolen. Now let's take my case, and two of my friends. Although I'm running linux, I'm too stupid to figure out how to crack a game. And my two friends from the two businesses, one can't even tell you which windows version he's running on his three desktops, and the other can tell you (but he's running dos 6.1 or 7.1, and windows 3.1 so he's been staring at the same operating system for the last ? years (6?, 7?, 8?, 9? 10?). I set him up with a dsl account, and he is still using his AOL client.
So while the average slashdotter can check/delete the spyware (although this is
I think your statement is a little harsh there, don't you?
All I did was state that there are a number of products out there that do double-check to ensure compliance with their respective licenses.
Office X for Mac (single-user) does exactly what I said, so how am I lying to this guy?
I've never had a corporate edition of Office X for Mac, as I have yet to work in any corporation that actually used Macintoshes in quantity. (So far, every place I run into them in the workplace, it's isolated individuals using PowerBooks, or a small group (5 or 6 people, perhaps?) using them in one department, and they load all their software as individual versions.
Hmm, this sort of security feature may lead to new kinds of attack. Consider the following scenario. A black hat knows that company XYZ is running WeBuggedIt 1.1 and that WBI contains self-reporting ware that can be fooled into thinking that it is a pirate edition and then reporting to the WBI legal deptartment. Instead of a loud and obvious DDOS our imaginary villian spoofs XYZ's legit copies of WBI to report themselves as stolen. This sort of attack might not give immediate gratification but given the number of legal hours tied up at XYZ and WBI this style of attack could cost the victims a bundle. Of course no one would ever do something so unethical.
I bought Final Cut Pro 3 about six monthes ago and installed it on my G4 desktop. Everything was running great, but I wanted to format my drive and reinstall everything. Problem was that I had my serial number sheet...but my baby sister had torn it essentially in half, and I was missing the last sixt digits or so. I called Apple and explained the situation. I could tell them when and where I bought their software, I was calling from the number I registered the product and looking at his computer he was able to tell that I had been a long time apple customer. I needed the serial number that day. His solution; mail a copy of the receipt, upc from the box, and a printout of a form requesting a new serial number. Turn around of a week or more. My solution, which I told him outright, look for either a serial number online, or a cracked version of the software. He said that would be illegal.
Authentix(IIS authentication isapi) seems to try and phone home too.
> And by using my software without paying for it, you are depriving me of money.
Get your head out of your ass.
Fact #1: I cannot afford the outrageous prices charged for most software
Fact #2: Therefore I will not pay for any such software, meaning there is no money to be given to you
Situation: I want to use "Software Package," just for shits & giggles, to see what it's like
Action: I "borrow" a copy of it to use on my computer
Result: Net change? zero, except some bits on my HD were flipped and I can play around with this software. Your bank account has not changed one bit, nor has mine. You have not suffered one bit because I copied "SP" (albeit illegally, I agree). You were not robbed, there's no f'ing way you were going to get that money to begin with. So don't give me this "I'm suffering because you copied my program" bullshit, it's not gonna work.
I will reiterate that I am NOT suggesting this is legal or should be, I am only pointing out that me using the software & me not using the software have the same end result for you, no matter the conditions, except some of my HD space is taken up.
I'm not condoning wholesale piracy of software; I am in charge of making sure every single piece of software we have is licensed, and I am 100% sure that they are. I don't even take that software home to use: if I want the same software I'll download a copy from home.
"Do you feel software publishers should have the right to peer into users data, if their software suspects foul play on the machine, or should it do the easy and intelligent thing and just stop working?"
Yes. If strong measures are taken to insure that data is NOT sent, and that should legal action follow, personal data is still not compromised (Even if it was created with illegal software).
This hippie mentality that all 1's and 0's are meant to be free is a little ridiculous. Even the vast majority of OSS writers do so thanks to a day job that pays the bills.
My $.02
..there are programs on the Internet that will generate infinite activation codes for specific software. This doesn't require any help from authorized activation code holders
Little glitches like this are pretty strong arguments against disabling your software... it's much safer to see a pattern (i.e., 50+ users have downloaded the latest update using this reg number, or it's a valid reg pattern but isn't in the user database yet) and do something to make pirates nervous (call this automated 800 number, available 24-7, to get the unlock code).
You'll weed out most of them that way, without costing the legal users more than 30 seconds.
I think where these anti-piracy techniques really start to go wrong is when the vendor *thinks* they have a foolproof way to id a pirate... and they think they can "take revenge" then. There's almost always going to be that one case that didn't occur to them... and then the vilification on Slashdot begins.
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
Anonymous Kev
Proudly posting as AC since 1997
It was a joke, dude! I guess you didn't catch the reference to what was happening a decade ago, when peoples' modems were being remotely reprogrammed to dial porn lines (located in South America, so they got both a 900 number bill and a toll call bill).
However, there's plenty of tools costing hundreds or even thousands of pounds that I'd love to use, but nowhere near enough to justify their cost (e.g., Cubase, PhotoShop). Who would I be harming by pirating this stuff? They would not be getting my money either way.
<rant>
That's a very loaded question. I don't purport that Slashdot needs to be impartial (like a good newspaper) or anything. But if opening questions are supposed to foster discussion and debate, shouldn't they allow two sides to enter the discussion ground on equal terms?
I believe in privacy of data, and I usually agree with a good deal of what is said in these forums, but I'm not so zealous that I insist on absolute public anonymity (like some people who often post in these privacy-related topics). My view is unpopular, I know. But it seems like the system here is sometimes designed to (very subtly) push a certain agenda. And that's the editors' prerogative, I suppose, but I can't help but wonder if Slashdot would attract a slightly different crowd (and be somewhat more enjoyable to ME, at least) if it were more focused on expansion of awareness of other people's views than on railing on the same issues again and again with few new ideas ever finding a respected place in the discussion.
That said, I DO agree in this case with the suggested opinion, but I still would like to hear what others might have to say.
</rant>
Any sufficiently simple magic can be passed off as mere advanced technology.
Mind you, you could probably scan their address book and look for other people's cell numbers, then use a pc-to-sms gateway to spam the shit out of all their friends (one good reason for sms providers to put LONG latency into the front end of their pc-to-sms gateways, and perhaps require confirmation before a message is sent. *#$&#*& spammers)
I do understand that software vendors wants to get paid for the work they do, however if an installed software application wants to phone home or send information across the wire I want to know about it. I personally have a software firewall installed on my computer, Sygate in my case but there are other alternatives, that will let me know when a software application want to connect to the Internet. I was surprised to see that there were so many applications that wanted to "phone home".
I personally see the ability to control and limit who my computer software applications talks to as a part of my strategy to keep my computer network secure. A software application's ability to phone home will always be on my terms.
I worked on some web conferencing software that would look for a server on the internet when starting up in order to check its registration code in the server's database. If the server could not be found, the software refused to work over the internet (intranet use was unimpeded). If it did find the server and the registration was bad, it would stop working.
In other words, if you stole the software, you could still use it as long as you didn't attempt to run it over the internet.
Bad? Dunno...
MjM
Groovy. Gear. Mod.
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
I don't see what the big deal is. I think this just goes with the territory! When you get cracks you should make sure it comes from a respectable group and if your a cracker your going to have to learn to look out for this kind of stuff. More complicated software is going to have more complicated protection. I always see trojans attached to cracks that does the same thing as spyware...
There is a program called Little Snitch if you are using Mac OS X which is a fantastic anti-spyware tool, alerting you to all outgoing connections before they occur. You can create complex rulesets to determine what to allow or block, on-the-fly.
I don't see what the big deal is. I think this just goes with the territory! When you get cracks you should make sure it comes from a respectable group and if your a cracker your going to have to learn to look out for this kind of stuff. More complicated software is going to have more complicated protection. I always see trojans attached to cracks that does the same thing as spyware...
as long as they do not have a legal grounding to prosecute on. Since they did not have a warrant to search my machine. Technically wouldn't this be considered trespassing?
I'm assuming for the moment that this software only reports back when it sees a problem? (the alternative is too sleazy to merit consideration.)
If so, it sounds like they've created a "honeypot" copy-protect function for copy-crackers, with a second (real) copy-protect function that's more thoroughly obscured. This is actually a clever idea, and it depends on the cracker not knowing about the backup system. If the backup copy-protection shut down the program, then the crackers would know that they had missed something, and eventually they'd find it. This way, the war3z d00ds think they have a successful crack, until the they C&D'd, and even then they may not figure out how they were busted.
Of course, the possibility of false positives makes this more troubling (honeypots have to be sought out by the bad guys). But if the original copy-protection system is well designed and sufficiently non-intrusive, then most of the valid reasons for cracking legal copies go away.
The only other break in the analogy is that honeypots are physically part of the company's servers, not the user's PC. Is this enough to make honeypots ok, but this practice unethical?
"(E) You accept our right to audit your compliance with this agreement by monitoring computer and product usage."
I guess if you agree to let them...
(b) the access she intends to secure is unauthorised; and
(c) she knows at the time when she causes the computer to perform the function that that is the case.
There is a huge difference between quietly refusing to run if a licencing violation is suspected, and actually informing on a supposed "transgressor". The former case does not involve any third parties; it's between you and your computer. In the latter case, something unforgivable is happening. After you have bought your software, it really is none of the vendor's business what you do with it.
However, this sort of thing was inevitable, and the moral of the story is: Don't used closed-source software. At all. Period.
Until the law requires that every user of software be given the right to scrutinise the source code, these abuses of power will happen. Closed source is fundamentally no different to slavery. It is exploitation of vulnerable people under a thin disguise of doing them a favour.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
CuteFTP Pro do this? I remember that at my old job I couldn't find my license so I just used a keygenned one. When I fired up the program, the first thing it did was call home and check its key - returning that it was not a valid registered key. Took me quite awhile to track down our real (legit) key so that I could use the thing, how annoying
(I later found though, that disabling the network connection when the app started would cause it to skip the check).
The bottom line is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to keep people from pirating software. You can only make it very difficult. If its running on their computer, they can disassemble it and crack it. Its like those people who video tape movies. If you can see the movie, you can record it somehow regardless of what kind of crazy invisible visual artifacts are implanted. Until we have computers that are locked to the user and can't be opened(I mean the case itself), all software can be cracked.
In terms of a privacy issue, as long as this feature of the software is mentioned in the EULA, this seems fine. If you're a legitimate user, whats the problem. If you're not, you'd bypass the system anyway.
It should be more like
'En cliquetant sur cet accord, l'utilisateur ecrit une obligation legale de nous payer quelque quantite *que* nous choisissons, et pour tous les raisons dont nous pouvons penser."
I'm not good enough to be positive about this yet though
If I set up a secret camera in your car, just to be sure you aren't speeding. After all, we're not hurting you so long as you don't break the law, just taking down existing information.
Oh, and the shopping habits that we've catalogued for the last three years... no worries about those either, right? After all, we're just checking so that we can inform of product that you likely want to buy, it's to your benefit.
Oh, and while we're at it, we'll be sneaking into your house and checking every VHS tape, DVD, and CD, just in case you have any burned copies of something we own.
Of course, if you don't like us spying you don't have to agree to this... but seeing as though it's happening without anyone frigging telling you then what you don't know won't hurt you, will it.
Hello??? *knock* *knock*, is my point getting through yet?
The 3rd clause on page 55 of the EULA states you must give up your firstborn to company X? No, of course not.
Ok, that's a little dramatic. I'd say that if it was being fairly obvious that it was installing spyware. Say, a fairly visible clause that states "will install software that will report X Y browsing habits, email address, etc to our affiliates for the purpose of advertising good to you" then I would say... maybe. The software is still going to be sending them information, but can a spy really by a spy if he's jumped up and say "hey, here I am, I'm not really an FBI agent I'm on KGB payroll." Probably not....
The legit user bought the system knowing that it had phone-home anti-theft. The thief may become a user, but he isn't a legit one.
None of us are saying that the person using a "pirated" version of the software is legiticized in doing so, just that not all users that appear to be pirating are doing so, and that this function is hidden so it is a violation of privacy.
It's connecting to the outside world through port 80, on a connection through an IE widget?
Really, are you going to log and scan every bloody internet connection? Maybe if you're lucky you notice a light on your modem/hub blinking when it shouldn't be, or do a netstat sometime and see a connection to a server you don't remember connecting to, but you should be able to reasonably expect that you are secure (as per open relay, there are other signs, and periodic checks work well enough.)
> And, duh, how do you propose to complete the loop on that one? The only thing that could "prove" someone guilty is software that is checking itself in the first place, which you appear to declare shouldn't be done unless one is guilty to being with. Hoist by your own petard, or caught by your own 22 as it were.
Hoist by your own, sir. The fact that it's difficult to prove someone guilty does not excuse violation of my privacy rights to make their jobs easier. If they have reason to believe I'm stealing, they can press for a BSA-style audit. If they can't get enough proof for that, that's not my problem. Would you allow police to come into your home without a warrant or probable cause to search for illegal drugs just because that would make it easier for the police to catch drug dealers?
> Any piece of software that has a price tag has the absolute right to 'protect' itself against use that is inconsistent with the software license.
Um, this is limited by proper consequence. That protection must not break any laws or perform actions that are considered excessive. Besides, if I buy a piece of software legally, and then it serreptitiously sends my MAC address to its author, you'd have a very hard case proving that it's defending itself from inconsistent use, unless you agree with the logic put forward in the last paragraph.
> This hue and cry over privacy in this regard is so tiresome and is mainly from those trying to keep 'private' the fact that they're too damned cheap to pay for something they want to use.
Here's the relevance problem: the same hue and cry that pirates use is also applicable to falsely accused, legitimate users (and in the cases of some spyware, innocent bystanders). The fact that some of the affected parties are guilty does not excuse the fact that some are not.
Virg
If ... was being put in place by the police, ... On the other hand, this is being done by a private corporation which has far more rights.
I understand what you're saying. But wow is that a sobering thought.
Think about LoJack, the car anti-theft mechanism, that tracks the car. Isn't that effectively the same thing?
No. If the LoJack device reported back the driver's license and social security numbers of the person who stole the car, THAT would be the same thing.
God, I wish I had mod points right now. Mod this guy up.
"And if ya don't be quiet, I'm, aaaah, gonna shoot ya!" Never knew they were recruiting stormtroopers from North Dakoooota and Minneesooota...
"Settle down, Beavis. We've got an experiment to do."
I thoughts it strange that the Queen's Navy had been so successful at trackin' me down lately. I'll keelhaul me first mate for installing that software on my ship!
Search 2010 Gen Con events
and 2 wrongs don't make a right.
I cant beleve all but one of you missed the Troops referance.
I have to agree with the parent comment .
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I have found ALOT of users in common businesses that
do not bother to fully learn windows
I am not talking about control panel, and
systems settings, etc etc
I am talking about ppl not knowing how to
Copy-n-Paste
I am talking about ppl who still click on viruses
after they have been told to not click on
attachments from ppl they do not know
Even try to make something idiot proof,
and they will build a better idiot
I have worked at other places such as Cisco where
the majority of ppl knew what they were doing quite
well, and Linux could become mainstream there
Though Cisco was pretty Sun loyal while I was there
in their lab environment, laptops were Win2k @ the time
Redhat, mandrake and a few others "might" become mainstream,
but it still going to be awhile, especially for equal
level driver support
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
If this spyware were the same thing as Lojack, the car would have remotely started itself, stolen the drivers wallet and driven itself back to the fucking dealership. Poor comparison.
The version of Accpac I sometimes use at work launches a web page (presumably with bits of info in a GET or POST) when it "detects" an invalid license. The thing is, we do have proper licenses - installed properly too! The first time I saw it, I freaked out a little... but nothing happened. No AccPac police ever showed up. I've since realized that it's probably because the check is buggy and inconsistent. So much so that I'm sure that they can't do any productive followups because of all the noise caused by validly licensed users.
People on consoles have been brainwashed into using stupid little gamepads and claiming they like it.
Do you really think you could play Mario or Sonic games on the keyboard and get a better score than you would on a PS1 style gamepad?
They don't even complain about the lack of save-game ability on most consoles.
Game consoles have been saving games since The Legend of Zelda, published by Nintendo in the late 1980s.
Poor bastards who can't buy a PC.
A 27 inch TV costs $250. How much does a 27 inch PC monitor cost?
Will I retire or break 10K?
And yes, I asked and chose NOT to open a bank account at a bank which required me to use Windows.
How did you get this choice? In many towns, there is only one bank with ATMs. Example: Terre Haute First National Bank, whose web interface required IE until recently, is pretty much the only bank in Terre Haute, Indiana.
I tend to use the DVD player for DVDs and the Mac when I'm on the road. The Mac software is licensed.
For Linux/x86 users, installing the DVD software for Macs costs at least $1,000, which includes the cost of purchasing a new Macintosh computer. Most DVD players don't have VGA output either; many people (I'm thinking college students) would have to 1. buy a TV, and 2. rent enough extra space to hold a TV.
Will I retire or break 10K?
It's old.
And you probably aren't as skilled as Yakov.
So stop making "Soviet Russia" jokes unless you can think of something original.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Blurry, or detailed. Take your pick.
On the PC, I can get 1600x1200 pixels. Can I get those pixels on a huge display that four people can comfortably sit around? Giving each player his own display costs several times more of the family budget than connecting four input devices to one console and using a non-first-person game design such as that of Bomberman, Super Smash Bros., etc.
Sure, same-room multiplayer doesn't work against people in another state, but broadband is expensive too, and speed-of-light limitations still add quite a bit of latency.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I agree with those who said that because of the EULA, you're accepting this as long as you're using the program, but how far are we going to let EULAs go?
" Fig 10.13 - By using this software, you agree to be fucked in the ass by a burly man."
How many people actually read the EULAs? I know you're supposed to, but I think it's a bit outrageous that you can get away with spying on someone because you said you're allowed to in the software's license. I think that companies who are going to perform actions like that should be forced to either write up a simpler version of the EULA along with the normal one so that the user doesn't have to spend half an hour trying to sort out the relevant information from the pointless legal junk. That or they should at least highlight key points.
FlashFXP!
Yes, that's right, the parent has twigged which major application is the furthest in stupid anti-piracy excuses for bad behaviour. Good old Charles DeWeese, the original Rabid Shareware Author.
Nor is fucking over your legitimate users because of your assumptions that pirates are incompetent. Copy protection is bad, stupid and wrong. The existence of piracy in no way justifies idiotic copy protection measures.
If you _support_ the Free Software Movement, shouldn't you be coding an open-source EDA tool that doesn't suck, instead of waiting for others to do it for you?
Not everybody has both sufficient knowledge of computer science and enough cash with which to feed oneself while writing an open-source EDA tool.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Where did they get the idea that they could tack restrictions on my right to click a button on a piece of software I've already purchased, anyway?
Conspicuous text on the outside of the box: "Your purchase of this package indicates your acceptance of the following terms: Publisher is not willing to sell or license the enclosed Software to you except under the terms displayed when you install the enclosed Software. If you do not agree to the enclosed terms, you hereby agree to return the entire contents of this package for a full refund of the purchase price." How would you weasel out of that?
In fact, what if the EULA were printed on the box?
Will I retire or break 10K?
How is a software thief any different than a car thief?
A person who commits grand theft auto deprives the owner of the car of the use of the car.
A person who copies a work and infringes the copyright deprives the owner of the original copy (who is an end user) of precisely nothing. He almost certainly does not deprive the copyright owner of the full suggested retail price of the lost sale, as he probably would not have bought a copy anyway.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The problem is that this software is most likely sending all this data to the manufacturer even when the software is legit. Beyond the tinfoil hat aspects of this, I'm sure having an untrusted sofware send whatever data it feels like back to a 3rd party flies in the face of several legal obligations that can be placed on businesses (such as HIPAA, various educational confidentiality laws or working on clasified gov't projects)
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
Ad Muncher, which you can find here.
See, the program does a server check (which the newest cracks fix) for bad keys, then outputs a message to the effect that the offending IP address etc. have been logged and lawsuits are pending (not exactly verbatim, sorry).
If that lawsuit actually came to fruition, however, most users of the software would have no problem getting out with no scar - if you use the keygen to get a serial and register the app, then it immediately phones home even if you still have 30 days left of trial! So, effectively, a user can be threatened with legal action even when the program is still within 30 days of usage even though the click-through agreement says 30 days of trial are OK.
As a funny aside, I used Ad Muncher 4.5 w/bad serial just to evaluate the program, since I don't purchase phone-home-ware, and it was during my first few hours of use that I was threatened with this bogus lawsuit. Minutes later, McAfee (on-demand scanner, NOT a scheduled scan) detected viruses in ALL THREE archival copies of Ad Muncher beta versions stored on my machine (all downloaded from different sites), while no other programs were infected. I killed Ad Muncher's running process, and haven't been infected since. Since I'm behind a firewall, and scan everything every two days, and the AV definitions were several days old, I must assume that a running process infected my backups of Ad Muncher somehow, and the likely culprit is Ad Muncher.
Life calls, gotta go, enjoy.
One would think that in this era one couldnt trust a mac adress to be real... I mean mine doesnt stay the same from day to day nor does my ip. So why bother? I could prove in a court of law that you could NOT connect me or my IP to much. IE: what if someone was using my pc remotly? I could give you a lot of plausable situations that happen every day, without a users knowledge. I would bet that a company using such methods would include a short burts about it in the terms of service when you click the little "I accept" One would also think to only find this sort of thing effective in apps/utils aimed at users who dont use firewalls (that would exclude alot of buisnesses). Unless that is, it was put in as part of the auto update scheme... and that would make sence because updaters check whaterver thety like however they like. One big problem, thier information would be flawed... uncooked sockets would seem to enable full packet forgery (on most home users pc's!) anyway so again... whats the point?