Slashdot Mirror
Symantec Adds Product Activation
maliabu writes "GlobeTechnology/CNET reports that Symantec has added an antipiracy technology to the new version of its main virus-zapping program, in the form of compulsory product activation. It is intended to protect consumers from widespread counterfeit copies of Symantec programs. The company estimates at least 3.6 million bogus copies of its programs are sold annually, causing headaches both for Symantec and unsuspecting buyers, who find out too late that the software isn't doing the job."
How would product activation protect users? Piracy prevention only protects symantec.
The Television Wiki
Seems like the new standard - now they can enforce virus definition subscriptions as well - previously, reinstalling the product after a clean deinstall + registry clean would reset the subscription date for definition updates.
So the real question is - if there are 3.6M bogus copies sold, and (by RIAA numbers) an additional 360M pirated freely online, by enforcing the product activation, will the Internet see more viruses or less? (and yes, I know it's technically virii)
My vote is on more...
Subscribe for free to my show!
Not sure if it REALLY is, but Symantec has a serious problem with counterfeit copies. I get TONS of spam trying to sell me all sorts of Symantec products that are surely counterfeit. I've read before they have a support nightmare from people that buy them.
I am very disappointed with Symantec/Norton anyway, in recent weeks I have replaced 20 desktop licences with AVG by GRISoft. AVG found viruses on about 15 systems where Norton did not complain at all. Yes, Norton was up to date in all situations and many of the desktops were installed by other people, so no commonality there.
If I had shares in Symantec I'd be selling them now.
... they tell honestly that they want people to actually pay for the program? Norton AntiVirus is worth every buck you pay for it, and the online update features are very comfortable. I can't imagine of "bogus" copy's that don't work, and even if they existed, why counteract with a registration. if the bogus copy doesn't work, they don't have to fear it. Furthermore Symantec does a great deal in helping us for FREE (do you remember the W32.Blaster removal tool you could download even when you weren't a costumer of them?), so i think if you want to use AntiVirus from Norton you should pay for it, if you are greedy there are a lot of free alternatives
".Sig Stealer" was here
Just like the copy of my Symantec Anti Virus software I got for free with my DELL.
...Visit the website... Oh your version of Anti Virus has expired, please consider upgrading or buying our one year service plan...
Installed, and what pops up... Oh your virus files are out of date! Please visit our website.
The notebook was BRAND NEW...
This is called a money grab, boys and girls...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Not suprised, whenever I've bought or installed their software it has never used a serial number.
- make the update protocol encrypted and secured;
- make virus pattern update sucription for money;
- release the client software itself for free;
- ???
- Profit!
Why? I hate product activation - it never works and users are always frustrated.Besides, the scanning and curing are not complicated operations per se. Virus patterns are the content that I am ready to pay money. Therefore the the other business model: charging for content rather than for software.
Less is more !
I personally don't mind product activation as long as consumers are aware of it before buying. I mean it is a matter of choice. I am sure you can find alternatives without product activation if you like. So it is simple. If you want to buy Symantec (Symantec is not a monopoly like MS so you do have many alternatives), then you will have to activate the product. I mean why do people talk as if trying to prevent piracy is a very bad thing. Only requirement is that the consumer should be informed, and after that let the consumer decide. I know some will argue that if Symantec is successful, others will incorporate same technology in their products as wel, but the point is that if Symantec succeeds, that means that a majority of consumers don't mind activating anyway. So in that case other would be fully justified in adding this technology to their own products. On the other hand, if people are bothered by it, they simply won't buy it. So just let the invisible hand of market take its course. I am sure we will reach an outcome which is benificial to the maximum number of people.
What's under yellowstone?
The only anti-piracy technology that really works is that which uses hardware.
It's difficult if not impossible to duplicate a hardware lock (parallel port dongle), and it costs money to do.
It would cost Symantec about $5 in mass production to include a dongle with their anti-virus software. It would cost the average person $25 to make that same lock, and would be difficult if not impossible to duplicate the firmware...
Software methods for anti-piracy were killed by copyiipc back in the 80's....
because if you have every used a Symantec product like Norton Internet Security (NIS) or Norton Antivirus (NAV) you must have realized how easy those have been to install on multiple computers.
:)
:)).
I've bought one back home and run it on all of my (2) home Windowsses, after all Norton is almost a synonym for quality when it comes to Windows utilities. I've also installed few from some public www page, where NIS 2003 (includes NAV 2003) was spread in 40MB fully working package.
Maybe they are just playing it wisely, waiting for the fuzz about M$ fascistic moves calmed down and then switching their own system on.. Can't blame them, this is IMHO the only way to go, no other realistic options.. However, I doubt that this will give them much more money, as hopefully most of the commericial side is already using their products legally so this would mostly target home and lifeless w4r3z d00ds
Though I have to admit that I haven't read any recent statistics about pirated stuff used at workplaces, only heard news that it'd be going down all the time (at least here in Finland or Scandinavia.. I have very bad memory
-rzei
The link to the product you posted, also states that there is only a 2 year "subscription" period for the updates, before you'll have to pay for another license -- how is this any different from symantecs practice with a 1 year default subscription? There is still a subscription-period, even though grisoft calls it a "license" ..
mats
One man's ceiling is another man's floor.
If i'm not mistaken, f-protect offers free updates, though i'd have verify this. I use the dos version of their product, which is free for personal use, requires no subscription what so ever. It looks however on their page that their definitions can easily be downloaded.
e s. shtml
http://www.f-secure.com/download-purchase/updat
While I won't go as far as saying Symantec *should* give away free updates, but i'm saying these other people do. Symantec after all pretty much gives away their product with the purchace of many motherboards / systems. I don't honestly know where they get these pirate numbers from.
Now if you could easily download updates from elsewhere and convert them into Symantec antivirus readable form, that would resolve the issue all together, as far as them being jarheads that is.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
I mentioned this in a seminar in Redmond when we were discussing MS product activation and Windows XP. I'll admit that software companies are entitled to make a profit. I'll even admit that they have the right to license every copy of that software that's in use if that's the model they choose. I won't argue MS' claim that about half the commercial software in use is pirated - but: Since these companies are showing a profit now, the price of piracy is clearly built into the software now. If product activation is effective then the previously unregistered copies that get purchased are clearly pure profit for the software manufacturer. Everyone pays the price for software piracy - so I'd like to ask Symantec the same question I asked Microsoft a couple years ago - are you going to reduce the price of your products now that all those previously unregistered copies are bought and paid for? Anything else seems like a grab for profit under the guise of protecting intellectual property.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
I've always thought it's a bit strange that a piece of software that has to phone home to work well (i.e. download signature files) was so incredibly easy to copy. I installed Norton Antivirus on my parents' old computer, and when they bought a new one I thought I'd have to go through some more or less complicated procedure to get the program to run on it. But nope, I installed it and not only did it work, I got 12 new months of free updates (only one year is included, then it's like $10 per year).
Martin
If Symantec, M$, et al really care about consumers, then they should change when consumer's credit cards are charged for buying the product. If the box and CD are useless until product activation, then consumers should not have to pay until they have successfully run the activation procedure.
I have nothing against antipiracy/product activation per se. But I do object to schemes that force people to pay up front and then jump through a series of hoops that have a non-zero probability of failure. Until a company delivers value, it should not expect consumers to deliver payment.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I, for one, am happy with Symantec's decision and hope that many much more Windows software companies do the same. The more obnoxious they get the more likely people are to go and look for alternatives that actually allows them to do their job instead of going in their way.
This trend looks like the proprietary software industry trying to shoot itself in the foot to me, and I welcome them to try.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Now sure, you can right click on the file and test it for viruses before launching it (surely, everyone does it, right? or compile from source just to make sure or you know the other options...).
Anyway, just wanted to ask if anyone else had noticed that. I'm sure that on 98, the software was running low level enough to prevent virus installation (I tried that by opening an infected mail in outlook express and I got a text screen telling me about the infection) maybe it's a different story with an NT core...
no, they cracked the earlier version of the highly specialized softawre. read carefully.
I've also noticed that after a recent "Live Update" and reboot of my machine that one of the Symantec executables (ccApp.exe I think) insists on contacting crl.verisign.com when it didn't before...
Personally, I am getting tired of all this extra effort just to use a damn piece of software I purchased legally. I'm also tired of every single application wanting to contact the mothership for some reason.
-Phil
Shoot questions, first ask later...
It is possible that some technical users might be more comfortable taking the plunge with Linux/BSD than having to buy a Symantec license. Im not condoning piracy, far from from it, but the reality is that most home Windows/Office/Outlook/Antivirus users out there today do, or at least have in the past, used a pirate copy of (insert product name here).
In fact, there is evidence that the big players even tolerate a bit of this kind of thing because they recognise that to penetrate this "lower end" of the market, "free" is the way to go. (The subtext here is the recognition that today's Business Studies student with a bent copy of Office is tomorrow's Managing Director of Ford. - IBM failed to recognise this with OS/2 - and said future MD will go gut/comfort-zone when buying IT systems: guess where the comfort zone will be at).
I am therefore hoping that some of these users on a tight budget will find themselves squeezed by a pricey antivirus solution to a (mostly) windows-only problem and see Linux as a viable alternative due to its price (nil), security (better IMHO) and the number of pathogens out there (minimal).
I wish at was Friday, but I dont want to wish my life away. So I wish it was last Friday.
Imagine if every bit of software on your computer was tied to that one computer. All of your games, all of your utilities, your office software, etc. Everything.
Now imagine thinking about buying a new computer. You have all of that money invested in software which is tied to old computer. Suddenly, the cost of that new computer is a LOT more because you have to buy your software all over again.
Of course, defenders of product activation will say that you'll be able to remove the software from the old system and install it on the new system. But do we know that for certain?! It certainly didn't work that way for TurboTax users.
Essentially, switching will become a risk. You might be able to use some of your software, but some you will not. Plus, that old computer will have absolutely no software on it, thus, it'll be rendered useless.
Some will argue that installing software on two computers you own is illegal. They'd be right, BUT, and this is a big BUT, CONSUMERS ARE USED TO IT. They've been doing it that way from the very beginning. When consumers get used to doing something one way, they get pissed when it changes.
When product activation is widespread, Dell, Gateway, and every other computer manufacturer can kiss their asses goodbye.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
We went with sophos for the school networked machines, for much the same reason.
However, we do use Norton AV on the school laptops (teachers) as the auto-updates and pop3 email scanning are a lot better than Sophos.
However, since their activation will only allow you to activate up to 5 times, that will probably shaft us. We use Norton Ghost Corporate to clone the machines, i.e. they all use the same serial number. Not a problem for XP, as we just use a corporate licence key version, but we won't have that option with Norton AV.
Time to see if I can get sophos to check pop3 mail clients, by the looks of it. And setup an autoupdate off the server install when the client connects. Sigh. Thanks a bunch, Norton.
What's to prevent the counterfeiters from creating a bogus product activation screen? They might even be able to sucker unsuspecting people into revealing important personal information.
Last time I talked to Symantec Tech Support about this, the support representative said that Norton SystemWorks was the most pirated software in the world. He sounded proud. He said that all copies that are "CD only" are pirated, as are lots of the others. He said that the price should never be less than $60. (SystemWorks includes Norton AntiVirus.)
Even some of my distributors, very legitimate companies, offer a pirated SystemWorks, apparently unknowingly.
Allowing piracy until now seems to be a deliberate marketing policy of Symantec. The idea seems to be that people invest time in learning how a product works. Those who discover they have pirated copies may not want to invest time again. They may then buy a legitimate copy.
If allowing piracy is not a deliberate marketing policy of Symantec, does that mean that no one at Symantec is smart enough to use Froogle? It's not as though finding the illegal copies is an expensive task.
Microsoft seems to have used this as a way of destroying competitors to DOS back in the old days, and with Microsoft Office more recently. There was a time when ALL local distributors were selling pirated copies of DOS (often unknowingly). I don't know if it is happening now, but at one time everyone who bought a computer from local builders was offered a "completely legal OEM copy" of Microsoft Office for $50. I called Microsoft and was told that all such copies were pirated.
Apparently, Microsoft's policy of allowing piracy was a way of killing competitors. Instead of Microsoft Office for $400 and Corel Word Perfect for $50, it was Microsoft Office for beaucoup moolah and Microsoft Office for cheap. It was impossible for Corel to establish Corel WordPerfect as a reasonable alternative. All second-tier products were crushed by the piracy of the most popular products.
Here's a question: Doesn't allowing piracy as a marketing tool invalidate the copyright?
When companies allow piracy, that makes it difficult for legitimate companies like ours. Our price doesn't seem competitive. Piracy as a marketing tool makes it seem like we are over-charging customers. It damages our reputation, and often prospective customers don't even give us a chance to explain.
Legal notice: I'm stating here my long-standing opinion only. I'm not saying I know anyone is a pirate, or a piracy encourager, only that they appear to me to be.
God forbid they should make it so people need to buy their product. Welcome to capitalism.
Who doesn't like free music?
I'm using some one elses internet to view this site.I can't get phone service and have no internet. I can not use activation based software and still do not use WinXP and others that use it. I've been looking into Linux now because this stuff is pushing me out of Windows altogether and if it continues out of all commercial software completely. I wish Symantec the best but I can't use it. I never had any luck w/ McAfee so maybe I'll try Panda? I don't know. I'm not a geek but I had to say something.
Not everyone is constantly a self-serving attention whore.
That's pure baloney, as anyone familiar with the corporate mindset would understand. The reason that Symantec is going for product activation is to try and make more money. They try to make us believe that it is for the user's benefit, but it really has nothing to do with that. Product activation hasn't been working for Microsoft (in terms of reducing illegal copying and increasing revenues) and it is unlikely to work for a major brand such as Symantec. And given the highly competitive nature of the anti-virus business, I suspect that many users will simply look elsewhere rather than deal with being prejudged a criminal. I certainly will, and I've been a long-time Symantec user. Oh well. Not my bottom line.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.