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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?
Michael is a DIRTY LINUX HIPPIE.
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
God Bless America, with the worst crime levels in the first world
God Bless America, where "democracy" means a rich, white male as President
God Bless America, the biggest consumer of the world's natural resources
God Bless America, where "freedom of speech" means race-hate groups like KKK
God Bless America, and its massive and ever-growing poverty gap
God Bless America, with the highest obesity levels in the developed world
God Bless America, all its appalling "sitcoms" with no grasp of irony
God Bless America, because corporations should be allowed to run amok
God Bless America, wasting billions of bucks on attacking foreign countries
God Bless America, and thank God I don't have to live there.
Adobe? M$? (..the obligatory mention of..) SCO?
Some people, especially young children, seem to have a difficult time grasping that although
nothing physical is taken, theft has still occurred. They seem to overlook the fact that in the
case of software (as in books), it's not the physical manifestation that's holds the majority
of the value of the item, it's the intellectual property.
By the way, your children are well on their ways to being republican voting CUNTS like their father.
Sounds like your father should have spent more time teaching you. Perhaps if you ever find out who he was, you two should spend some time together.
"Can Linux do this?"
Sure it can! All you have to do is learn how to program, read/understand the source code, and design, implement, and compile the app to do this.
I'd do it for ya, but I'm more interested in writing this Quake 3 stats calculator.
"Derp de derp."
Illegal search and seizure Illegal wiretap And.. Theft of services for stealing my bandwith
Sick of stupidity? http://www.patentlystupid.com
I didn't read where it was stated it was an "American" corperation. Where did you read that?
Oh I missed your nick. You have a totally different agenda "Gore was robbed"
grow up and fuck off.
Who started the pointing? Silly troll, you can do better.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Except at an airport. I'm being forced to fly next week and I'm not looking forward to being treated like a criminal going through security just to get on a plane to go to a friend's wedding. I'm a white male in his late 20's. How many hijackers have ever been white males period?? They should just go back to the tried and true method of pulling aside arabs and leave the rest of us alone unless you've got some fucked up look in your eyes like Tim McVeigh or Manson.