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Using Spyware to Report Pirates?

Posted by Cliff on from the do-the-ends-justify-the-means dept.

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?

7 of 1,013 comments (clear)

  1. SCO OpenServer by SHEENmaster · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
  2. List o' Spyware by chimpo13 · · Score: 3, Funny

    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
  3. Re:What is "AUP," please? by LookSharp · · Score: 3, Funny

    Acceptable Use Policy, standard to most Internet Services Providers (AKA ISPs).

    PS - AKA Stands for Also Known As.

    PPS - PS stands for... eh, forget it :)

  4. Re:Use Free Software by FuzzyBad-Mofo · · Score: 3, Funny

    But, but, but.. I didn't click through any agreement! My cat must have walked across the keyboard when I was out of the room, honest!

  5. Re:What we want to know... by wo1verin3 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Particular CD? Hah, I guess you're too young to remember having to check page 46, line 3, word 12 in the manual. :)

    More details on that old thing (+1 nostalgia) here:
    http://www-cse.stanford.edu/classes/cs201/projects -99-00/software-piracy/copyright.html

  6. Re:Another question... by GMFTatsujin · · Score: 3, Funny

    Ha! Having stolen and cracked the software, I never HAD to agree to an EULA. You won't catch me that way, you tricky devil!

  7. Re:What we want to know... by tf23 · · Score: 4, Funny

    If that's the case, and it' sending information back, then you need a better crack!

    --
    http://slashdot.org/~tf23/journal