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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.
DecafJedi
DecafJedi
my weblog: apropos of something
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.
> You use the illegal software
But doesn't this imply owners of the legal software are also being spied upon?
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
But, as someone who is innocent until proven guilty, what right do they have to {spy on, steal from, stalk} me? Seriously, if you're going to back the "stealing is a crime" part of the law, you also have to accept that the alleged thief is innocent until proven otherwise. No one (without subpoena or warrant) has a right to that kind of information without consent.
It's not spyware, it's a fucking anti-theft system. Don't like it? Don't steal it.
Beware, Nugget is watching... See?
Installing spy programs on someone elses computer and misapproriating their resources to send information about that computer back to you, OTOH, may certainly be a crime.
As someone who makes a living writing peer-to-peer software, I completely disagree that "STEALING IS STEALING" as you say.
I don't want to get into semantics with you, but here goes:
Stealing involves the deprivation of someone's property, removing thier ability to benefit from it. (paraphrase)
Information "theft" is not really theft or stealing.
Thousands of my users probably "steal" my software, but guess what! I DON'T CARE! It is information, which I CANNOT OWN!
Noone, corporation or individual, has a right to profit.
Everyone has a NATURAL right to consume and reproduce information. How do I know? Look how we are physically built, for crying out loud!
Let me close with this somewhat fanatical thought: Every month new ground is broken in the attempt to produce objects by piecing them together molecule by molecule.
Now, it will probably take longer than my lifetime to occur, but EVENTUALLY you all will be able build a generic THING from its component molecular pieces.
Consider this "future" world for a moment: No more scarcity, no more hunger, no more epidemics caused by lack of medicines.
Now consider the same world, with *your* "STEALING IS STEALING end of story" claim: Should the first person/company that creates a new molecular structure have a monopolistic control over said structure? Should you be able to produce (from scratch, not by "physically stealing") a replacement Brake Pad for your car without paying Ford for the privelidge? What about creating your very own "claritin-like" substance for your allergies? Should you have to pay Mosanto?
I stated before, and firmly believe, that information wants to be worthless, in an economic sense. Information has no "owner" that I recognize, and, as such, I do not consider the "copying" of information to be "theft".
If someone broke into my office and stole the computer I was writing my source code on, then THAT is theft of information, as it has deprived me of it.
If someone copies (without my permission) my program and uses it without paying me, oh well! I haven't been deprived of anything! I still have my program! The only thing I *may* have lost is potential profits, but NOONE HAS A NATURAL RIGHT TO PROFIT! NOONE!
(Thats why "Step 2: ???" is so common! heh)
In the above "idealistic copying world" example above, noone could profit! There would be no object scarcity, therefore (almost) no intrinsic value to *ANYTHING*, let alone "strictly informational things."
Time to end this rant, but PLEASE PLEASE consider:
The end result of personal "posession & ownership" of information, combined with monopolistic control, and the added "Lets consider artificial entities with the stated goal of financial wealth accumulation (corporations) the same as people, with the same 'rights' to own information, etc, is a CORPORATE FEUDAL SYSTEM, not the (what I consider) ideallic, everything-copying society that we COULD have then.
The road we are starting down today is leading us towards the scarier of the two, I believe.
-vDave-
{dave -at- bearshare -dotcom-}
Help me out, and use BearShare for all of your p2p (INFORMATION COPYING) needs!
The pig browse. With Google. Sigh is to the chicken. Chicken is fool. Giggle. The DailyWTF giggle.
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.
And for those situations where stealing doesn't mean stealing?
Two trivial examples that I suspect most us us could get "caught" for:
First, a friend purchased (completely legal, nothing unkosher whatsoever, not even grey-market) a copy of Age of Empires - AoK. It has a rather annoying copy protection scheme, however, which annoys legitimate users (whereas pirates just run a cracked version with no hassles at all). So the solution? He uses a cracked copy of the game. A stupid software test for known program cracks would flag him as "stealing", yet he did no such thing.
Second, and even more difficult to deal with - I have all of my CD collection on my HDD, since I only ever listen to them while at the computer. Legal format-shifting as allowed even by the DMCA. Yet, can I "prove" to some stupid spyware bot that yes, in fact, I really do own the CD? Nope. And even if I could, I shouldn't NEED to; my computer serves me, I do not serve my computer.
More important than false positives, though, we should consider the issue of why we buy software in general. If I buy a game, I buy it to play that game. If nowhere in the documentation (or preferably, on the outside of the packaging) does it describe its "RIAA-friendly anti-piracy technology", it damn well better not have any. I don't buy software to spy on me, I buy it to do the task it describes itself as performing. Nothing more, and nothing less.
True.
And gathering personal information about a user, without his/her consent without a legal warrant is...
Seriously, this information is NOT what anybody can get from public records. If I gathered this information about someone, and that someone found me out, I'd be charged with cyberstalking or whatnot.
>Some people, especially young children, seem to have a difficult time grasping that although nothing physical is taken, theft has still occurred.
No, it hasn't. Most parents (including yourself, I'm sure) tell their children, once they're old enough to read, that they should check the dictionary. I hope you don't mind if I do it for you.
theft
\Theft\, n. [OE. thefte, AS. [thorn]i['e]f[eth]e, [thorn][=y]f[eth]e, [thorn]e['o]f[eth]e. See Thief.] 1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny.
Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief. See Larceny, and the Note under Robbery.
I don't know how much clear it can be than that, sorry.
>it's not the physical manifestation that's holds the majority of the value of the item, it's the intellectual property.
The only real IP I know of is Internet Protocol. "intellectual property" is a buzzword used by various anti-piracy groups to scare users. IMHO, it rates right up there with "speed kills" and "this baby is crying because it's dad was killed by a drunk driver".
>So, your thinking that even though you took it, the fact that they still have it (wow, magic), let's you off the hook is just plain wrong.
I'm not saying that. What I am saying is that piracy is not only a lesser crime (IMHO) than stealing, as it only deprives the owner of an imagined profit, and, in fact, does not cause a direct loss like shoplifting, it really bears no relation to stealing. The similarity ends at the word loss. Speaking of which, murder would be a loss of life, and therefore has the same amount in common with stealing as does piracy.
Again, just my humble opinion.
That being said, I feel that piracy ISN'T a good thing, that it is illegal, but that it is overzealously punished in today's times where steamboat mickey is still copyrighted property. The only way what people will wake up and stop the insanity (put copyright terms back into the hands of the people) is if people stop making it out to be something it isn't.
>By the way, you're not even close in interpreting how copyright laws apply to these situations.
Uhh, seriously, read a law dictionary. Without something being missing from the victim, and without it being in the hands of the perpetrator (preferrably at the same time) there can be no theft.
While the crime of copyright infringement is generally punished in a federal court, and the crime of speeding violations in a municipal or provincial (or, in the US, a state) court, the style of offense is identical. They're both victimless crimes. Sure, you could say I *would* have bought a piece of pirated software rather than pirating it, but at the same time, if I get a stolen (for real) camcorder for $50 that sells for $5,000 do you think there's even a chance in hell I would have bought it if it weren't stolen? The fact is there is normally no specifically identifiable victim from piracy that can prove a loss, which is just like when you receive a speeding ticket -- nobody can prove a loss. It's just illegal, that's all.
It's always a lot more complicated to convince someone a crime is bad when there is no victim, and *THAT'S* why the BSA (et al.) want you to (wrongly) think copyright is theft. Because then they have their victim -- english teachers.
In fact, you'll find my previous dictionary definition a little lax. Merriam Webster says:
theft: 1 a : the act of stealing; specifically: the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property
When dictionaries start saying specifically, and highlight it; I think they're trying to curb an improper usage of the term.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Oh, come on. That's ridiculous. There's a distinction between public information and private information. Published programs, even if they're copyrighted, are published. They're not private, like the user's MAC address and personal grooming habits.
I'm not trying to justify running pirated programs, I just think you need to make a better argument.
Now, that's a better argument.Lost: one sig, witty, 120 chars, sentimental value. Reward offered.
More like, the vehicle detects that you had it serviced at an independent mechanic, instead of at the dealership, and phones home to cancel the warranty.