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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?

2 of 1,013 comments (clear)

  1. Using Spyware to Report Pirates? by pandrel · · Score: 0, Troll

    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.

  2. Re:What we want to know... by treat · · Score: 0, Troll
    On my machines I run Sygate Personal Firewall. I have it set to block traffic based on application, not port number

    Can Linux do this?

    If not, Windows is more secure than Linux for a desktop user.