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Software Deletes Files to Defend Against Piracy
teamhasnoi writes "Back in 2004, we discussed a program that deleted your home directory on entry of a pirated serial number. Now, a new developer is using the same method to protect his software, aptly named Display Eater. In the developers's own words, 'There exist several illegal cd-keys that you can use to unlock the demo program. If Display Eater detects that you are using these, it will erase something. I don't know if this is going to become Display Eater policy. If this level of piracy continues, development will stop.'"
Considering that in our legal systems two wrongs don't make a right (and three rights make a Nazi demo...) vigilante justice like this should be punished. That developer better hope the court he'll face accepts EULAs as valid and he never travels into a country where they aren't.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I do not agree with this as a means. To protect software.
The keys should be none fuctional not setting off a logic bomb when used.
I can see a class action becaus some people will enter the wrong info (typo) On there legit copy and loose there computer its just plain wrong in my books.
DRM at its worst. It is right up there with Sony's rootkit
My 2 Watts
At least here in the UK, I believe this would be a criminal offense. Of course the pirates might not want to report his crime, but he's still breaking the law.
Wow. He's certainly convinced me to give his software a try...
This guy's the limit!
what it deletes is an install file for the program, hey all the power to you.
But even if I were pirating your program, you have no right to damage my computer.
Also I don't run as a root.
And I back up my files.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I hope this developer never sells any copies - he is equating piracy with destroying people's information. If you pirate some software, you don't deprive the developer of his copy of he software (or source code), so why deprive the pirates of their own files? I know the argument of each pirated copy is a lost sale, but that blatantly isn't true. I hope this guy gets sued.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
"There exist several illegal cd-keys that you can use to unlock the demo program. If Display Eater detects that you are using these, it will erase something ... If this level of piracy continues, development will stop."
Uh, no. Development will stop as the police collect your computers as evidence that you are the developer and distributor of software that intentionally erases files without user permission.
Seems to me that this is an ideal way to court legal action after a hapless user installs software "a friend gave me" and then ends up with a years' worth of financial records gone bye-bye.
Clearly, piracy is not a contentious moral issue in the case of small software developers charging reasonable prices for their work, but this appears to be going too far. If one can detect the key's pirated and disable the software, why be an asshole about it? This could *so* come back and bite him in the ass.
sig:- (wit >= sarcasm)
Just try it with my PC and see how quickly you get sued into non existance, and perhaps even get hit criminal charges after i collect my money..
You dont have the right to delete files due to a person mistyping some numbers. You do have the right to disable your software, nothing more.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It might just be an idle threat.
It seems there would be too much liability to try and pull of a scheme like this
Why can't he comprimise and have some sort of reporting done when the suspect numbers are entered?
Jack V All the IT vacancies in one place
With cracked executables and loaders, this protection still won't do really anything. All it does is tell the pirates, "Hey! Don't use serialz or keygens. Crack & Patch me instead!". I remember all sorts of brilliant protection schemes that were made to prevent things like this cracked in no more than a week. If there is a demand, it shall be cracked.
To me, it seems that this protection scheme will only scare away the casual pirate and not the hardcore ones.
Fallout 3 will suck.
That's vigilantism, pure and simple. Doesn't matter if the person was a pirate or not, you're not allowed to commit a crime to protect your "property."
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
Excuse your hasty comments? This is Slashdot - we practically demand hasty comments.
When I first read the link to the author's comments, I noticed that he doesn't actually say what will be deleted. So I was thinking maybe he deletes something that disables his own program - which wouldn't be that outrageous to me; it'd be a hassle to reinstall all the time and would discourage pirated use.
It's mentioned in the older Slashdot story, though, that he's deleting home directories. That's bad.
Also, we should note in the interests of factual correctness (something Slashdot doesn't demand) that he would delete only for cases where a pirated key was used. It doesn't say anything about incorrectly entered keys, just pirated ones. That's a little better, but I still think he's going way too far.
Sure, might be a small chance, but even ONE chance is enough for him to be sued and pershaps goto jail too.
I also dont care what the EULA says, he cant even ask for the right to destroy your files.
There are limits.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
So, if his EULA included the clause that you must give the developer your first born child, do you believe that the courts would uphold your "contractual obligation?" Just because you have agreed to a contract (and I personally find it hard to accept that an adhesion contract like this is entered into freely) does not mean that the terms of the contract are enforceable.
Don't worry about the mule, just load the wagon.
I only use FOSS software these days.
...on a side note, Bush has taken care of that.
;)
parasight.de
Like a virus!
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
He can do whatever he wants with HIS software, and his software's installation area.
He CANNOT deliberately do anything malicious or damaging to another's PC. As others have pointed out, it's illegal, to start with. And additionally, what he is doing IS immoral.
It's not an effective way of deterring pirates - it's a FAR more effective way of deterring anyone from ever using your software, period.
I write a shareware program (BlueBox Invoices) that lots of people have registered over the course of the past 9 years it has been around.
It is a fully functional program WITHOUT registering, yet many people take the suggestion to register, and it pays for continued development.
If you're going to get your panties in a knot over some people using your software, you probably should be writing some software more innovative than a screen caputure utility. The world is already filled with those.
If that is done, I see nothing wrong with it at all.
Not if he puts a static list of 'pirated' keys in the binary or an attached library or something.
Additionally, while I agree with the sentiment, some people prefer to review a product's full functionality before deciding to buy it. Apparently there is a 15 or 20 -MINUTE- trial period in which to examine and profile the application. There was discussion about this in another thread in the discussion area for this product (linked in the article), and how woefully inadequate it is.
At least give a full 24 or 48 hours if you want to have a time limited trial, for crying out loud. 15-20 minutes? That's absurd.
That, alone, could be seen as justification to a lot of folks to pirate the software rather than ponying up the cash in the first place.
I will never buy any software that has such functionality built in.
I know its meant to triggered by pirated keys only, but I wouldn't take the risk that this couldn't ever get triggered by some bug.
If that clause is in an EULA, it may in fact render the EULA invalid, or at the very least, that clause WILL be rendered invalid.
Y'know, I'm just about done responding to your idiocy. You're doing a bang-up job showing just how much you DON'T know.
Attention Users! Version 2099.0999 X of my software now comes with a special new feature! File deletion! To enable this great new feature, please find a pirated software key on the web and enter it. Any files that you have in "C:\Documents and Settings" will be deleted.
FAQ for possible problems using this great new feature:
...never ever in his life used illegal software. Or did he?
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
Because it's idiotic. It's like Best Buy packaging a blasting cap and several ounces of plastic explosive with every DVD player, and triggering them with the sensor that normally beeps when you walk out the door. You shoplift, we blow your legs off! Great system, eh?
There's a reason why that's both illegal, and would get them sued in civil court -- it's ridiculous. People don't expect products to explode and kill them, nor do they expect software that performs one function, to magically transform itself into a virus and wipe out their data.
This isn't even vigilantism, it's just booby-trapping at its worst.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
This is similar to what CDRWIN did back in the 90s. CDRWIN, which consisted of GPL software with a windows GUI sold for a profit, which had a similar anti-piracy feature. It would behave normally for a few days before the trojan kicked in. Once activated, it would abort mid-burn and fill the hard drive with randomly named files.
This had an unfortunate side effect of occasionally blowing up when a proper license key was entered, resulting in some rather unhappy customers. The author eventually dumped the malware from his software and instead just went to failing to burn disks properly if it detected a pirated version.
Dekker Dreyer
This guy must have one high opinion of himself and one low opinion of his customers. Why would I ever want to use this guy's product if it can willfully and maliciously destroy my system. Even if I am registered correctly if he changes my good serial number to be a pirated serial number then the next time his program phones home, *poof* there goes my digital videographic proof that I'm Anna Nichole's kid's true father and heir! What happens when I mistype my serial number? I've had serial numbers with both 0 and O in a font that did not distinguish the two well.
Peter
Downsize DC Today!
I agree that THAT program is his but the files his program is deleting aren't. It would be more appropriate if the program deleted itself instead. In either event, this is a small time operation that depends on word of mouth to propagate and I would NEVER recommend a program to anyone that even remotely has the chance of doing damage. So when his program withers and dies due to lack of users, legitimate or otherwise, he will have nobody to blame but himself.
B.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
It doesn't only delete your files, it also seems to eat you display.
So what would happen if he happened to use the wrong key set and all the legitimate buyers got hit? Talk about losing customers.
This is why I use Windows. It's far too easy for malware to get onto a Mac and start deleting user files. PCs got over the delete random files / reformat phase of malware years ago. There's far more money to be made by keeping the machine alive.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
Now the page shows it rated at the lowest value possible in all categories, and the comments are full of "don't buy this software" as well. I also noticed that searching for "Display Eater" on the site no longer returns anything, which seems to indicate they removed it from the listing.
Talk about a moronic idea -- if piracy was already a problem, the result of this will be much greater than the problems piracy ever created. And ironically enough, this will make pirating the product a safer proposition. Do you want to use a legal version, which has this file deleting "feature" that might one day go wrong and nuke something? O do you get the pirated version with the file deleting code removed from it?
This is a more extreme version of what happens with other sorts of copy prevention. There are games out there that run faster and more stable with the CD check disabled.
This would be shaky legal ground for the developer if he damaged someone's computer. The courts tend to take a dim view of deliberate sabotage, regardless of the perceived merits.
There's a reason even the asshats at RIAA haven't gone this far.
Welcome to the software business. If you can't deal with the realities get into another line of work.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I just wanted to say thanks for operating this way, and I hope you've received enough from registrations to make it worth your while. I don't use BlueBox, but I appreciate the thought.
I will admit that I have way too much pirated software on my system at home. Of course, I'm also not using most of it. For the most part, I prefer to demo software I've never used - it's just too hard to get through the marketing hype to determine if it really works for me. I must have thirty or forty apps for video conversion. I use three. No, scratch that - I'm down to two now. One is freeware, and the other I registered.
Sadly, 15 day - and sometimes 30 day - trials just aren't enough. Because I'm busy, I may install something to try it, and then not really get to try it out fully for a couple of months. Which means I either get a cracked copy to try it, or I pass.
While I may not have all the software I own registered, I make sure to register those that really help - even those that don't require it. Since I'm not a programmer, I do rely on these "little" apps to help out. Rename1-4a, IrfanView, and a couple of others I find indespensible. I always make sure I pay for anything I'm still using after 6 months. If I 'm still using it, it's got to be good enough to pay for. Oddly, I still have some crakced versions I use becuase I'm too lazy to enter the real SNs. I have two or three versions of Nero floating around, not all of them with legitimate SNs, but I have three consecutive version retail registry numbers I paid for, so I'm calling it even.
Anyway, thanks for being generous. Some of us out here really appreciate it.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
File Eater instead.
nemesis. Home of an experimental fe code.
Maybe i'm using his software becuase his EULA is invalid in my state? Btw, by you responding to this comment you agree to granting me the right to kick you in the balls.
On the one hand, I don't blame him at all for being really sick of all the warez people. On the other hand, I do blame him for choosing a harmful way to deal with it.
Why not just, say, phone home with any useful information (user name, IP address) available to the program every time it's run, and then he can sue?
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
The existence of vigilante software like this is, in my mind, one of the strongest arguments for capabilities-based security. In traditional systems with ACL-based security (i.e., every popular PC operating system today), we really don't have a way to say "I trust this program to record video from my screen, but not to delete all of my documents." A properly-implemented capabilities system, on the other hand, could give us just that.
See http://www.eros-os.org/essays/capintro.html for a better introduction to capability systems than I could possibly provide here.
Make a typo when entering the license key so it matches one of the "bad" keys, and all your data is gone. I wonder if this guy thought about that scenario?
Dave K. Mt. Laurel, NJ USA
Only as consideration for your promise to replace my 23' display that I knocked over.
Don't worry about the mule, just load the wagon.
The article and submission build on a misunderstanding. I conducted some research of my own and I've found that it does not attempt to delete the full home directory. It only deletes the ~/Library/Application Support/display_eater/ directory, i.e. files created by the trial version of the program. In fact, the developer says that the program will delete something from the home directory, but doesn't say what.
While I didn't acquire one of the pirated serial numbers that trigger the behavior, I have disassembled the program and these are my conclusions: The deletion is done by a function destroy() at offset 0xd148 that takes a single argument specifying the path to delete. destroy is called from a single location in the program:
+276 0000d3e4 3863a020 addi r3,r3,0xa020 ~/Library/Application Support/display_eater/ +280 0000d3e8 4bfffd39 bl _destroydestroy() loops over each thing contained by this directory and deletes it. I've invoked the function in this way, and it does not delete anything since that directory does not exist on my system.
So, while this anti-piracy tactic sure won't convince any potential pirates to actually pay for the software, it is not as egregious as the summary suggests.
It would be nice if someone would verify these conclusions, perhaps using a real pirated key.
He has already distributed them a copy of his software. It is impossible to steal an intangible item. Can't be done. Almost everyone who pirates software doesn't buy software and therefore would never have bought this software. Since it is a digital copy then pirating the software costs the developers nothing (except some bandwidth that they would have expended distributing their demo anyway). If anything piracy helps grow the userbase of an application. Look at winzip, it is pirated so heavily that people actually think its free. If it weren't for piracy nobody would have ever heard of winzip.
This is not a piracy deterent anyway. It is a developer who thinks the software belongs to him (copyright items are literally ideas and therefore unownable, he owns a copyright and that is it) and that anyone who manages to get a copy without him getting a chunk of change is stealing from him. This pissed him off and pissed him off some more until he implemented this measure out of spite figuring that if he couldn't stop the piracy he would at least get revenge. This is also illustrated in his comments that if piracy doesn't stop then development would stop. This is not rational thought, since piracy has little or no impact on legitimate sales he is simply picking a target for his frustration and venting on that target.
Finally, whether i am pirating your software or not, you have no right to do ANYTHING on my machine without explicit authorization.
No moderation please, I just want this to be on record for google to find.
F BBG&&
a rd.com
a rd.com
a rd.com
Display Eater (Software that maliciously deletes user data on entry of banned
registration key)
Just in case someone needs to subpoena him and to forestall him taking down his
site trying to make it harder to track him down here are his details:
His domain is reversecode.com and to this date he has a www.kagi.com
shop at http://order.kagi.com/cgi-bin/store.cgi?storeID=6
and his domain record for reversecode.com follows.
Registration Service Provided By: NameCheap.com
Contact: support@NameCheap.com
Domain name: reversecode.com
Registrant Contact:
WhoisGuard
WhoisGuard Protected (575e59eacfa44540b56fee1b6f116b63.protect@whoisgu
)
+1.6613102107
Fax: +1.6613102107
8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd
8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd
Westchester, CA 90045
US
Administrative Contact:
WhoisGuard
WhoisGuard Protected (575e59eacfa44540b56fee1b6f116b63.protect@whoisgu
)
+1.6613102107
Fax: +1.6613102107
8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd
8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd
Westchester, CA 90045
US
Technical Contact:
WhoisGuard
WhoisGuard Protected (575e59eacfa44540b56fee1b6f116b63.protect@whoisgu
)
+1.6613102107
Fax: +1.6613102107
8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd
8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd
Westchester, CA 90045
US
Status: Locked
Name Servers:
ns1.networkredux.net
ns2.networkredux.net
Creation date: 26 May 2004 23:51:49
Expiration date: 26 May 2007 23:51:49
You can't take the sky from me...
How exactly is it illegal?
what law, exactly, has he broken? his software works exactly as advertised: put in a pirate serial number, and it deletes something. assuming that the notice is clear and not obfuscated, it is not clear to me exactly what law you seem to think he has broken. does the existence of "rm" also break laws because it works as advertised?
You have artificially created a wall that says that he can do what he wants with 'his' software. this is a completely artificial construct that you have created, since most other software interoperates. his software works 100% as advertised.
...by your findings - all it does is erase itself? Oh no! the shock and horror!
"But what if a user placed some important documents in that folder?"
rofl.
People. Come on. This is a $17 app. Yes, deleting files (even if they're the pirated files in question) might be questionable or downright illegal - but copyright infringement is illegal, period. Copyright infringement on a $17 shareware application.. well.
Maybe the author could detect the bad keys and instead of just going nuts from the get-go, make the application display:
"
You are about to attempt to register this product using a pirated key. Please note that if you continue, not only will this application remain unregistered, but it will delete itself from your system and various details about your computer submitted to the [company name] servers for further review.
You must read and agree to the above terms to continue.
[ ] I have read the above terms.
[ ] I agree to the above terms.
Continue? [Yes] [No]
"
If the pirate in question is not only silly but downright stupid and marks the checkbox and hits Yes, I'd say carry on.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The summary is right. It indeed does wipe the whole home directory. http://www.versiontracker.com/php/feedback/article .php?story=20070204234239880
- The software may be accidentally bought pirated, but it is PURPOSELY sold pirated. By any legal interpretation, responsibility rests with the seller.
- The concept of second hand software should be made clear. Much software sold via the interenet / with keycode is sold on a strictly non-transferrable basis. this is simple and fair. personal responsibility means understanding the terms of sale that you agree to. in either case, it does not sound like this would trigger his 'atom bomb.'
- and if you are legitimately the victim of this, you can sue the developer. if the developer is smart, he makes this statisticall unlikely, and/or attempts to contact the 'legitimate' keyholder via his registration details before putting this key on the atom bomb list.
- the developer is responsible for his bad code if it does not work as advertised. however, by using a simple test for static pirated keycodes, it seems that the chances of this are somewhat slim.
I agree that there is always a chance for the developer to mess up - in this case, he should be responsible, just like the programmer of minesweeper should be responsible if a subtle bug causes your monitor to catch on fire.To see what the fuss is about, I downloaded the 'demo' and took a look inside the executable. (No way am I running the damn thing!) There are some really amateurish icons and bitmaps, and the the string table reads like it was written by an emo kid. I'd reproduce some of them here, but fucking slashcode seems to be eating the long strings.
Really, the whole thing looks like it was written by a goofy high-school kid. Since he is displaying the Apple Universal Binary logo on his site, I suspect he's in violation of the logo licence agreement, and I suspect Kagi, his payment processor, won't be too pleased with him, either.
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
Then this appears to be reasonable behaviour (since it's not removing anything that the user already has a right to, although take that with a pinch of IANAL (TM) brand salt).
I'd suggest that the author(s) were foolish not to make this clear from the start, instead of making vague threats that may have been intended to frighten pirates, but are likely to cause even more damage to their reputation.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Me too!
As long as you get warned, I don't see how this is morally wrong at all, and I think everyone saying that he should be sued is completely overreacting.
43rd Law of Computing:
Anything that can go wr
fortune: Segmentation violation -- Core Dumped
I was going to just not care, then I noticed the link to Version tracker. Yep, it's an OS X program, so now I do care, and I'll make sure to spread the bad word about it when I have a chance. Stuff like this is an accident waiting to happen. What if someone were to mis-key a code in such a way that it triggered the "protection"? What if some bug caused it to activate anyhow?
Two wrongs don't make a right. Especially if the second wrong is a bigger wrong.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Your arguments refuted in the order you bring them up
... as long as it remains undiscovered and unreported.
1. He might destroy property and cause damages many times his net worth.
2. Vigilanteism doesn't require law enforcement resources
3. You bet, but the only problem I have with this is (see 1.) he'll file bankruptcy.
4. He might consider other avenues of profiting from his work like bundling adware (if he is upfront about it)
or if it is something larger and worthwhile he might sell support for it. Piracy is here to stay and
it's the numero uno promotion tool. Personally I would LOVE to see my software pirated bigtime because
then I'd know that if only 1% out of a million go legit, that's 10000 copies sold which is as good
as it gets for a small shareware tool.
Thats an acceptable thing to do when your software detect a pirated key.
However, im not so sure that pretending to work and destroying disks is legal. Thats intentional damage, once again.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Gather every bit of info it can to identify the user and send that off to a server, and then take appropriate action from there. Yeah, some firewalls might complain... heck, just call it authentication or whatever and make the software be able to establish contact regardless, do it through a public port, and throw a thing on there to call support if this needs to be bypassed.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Is "Eye for an Eye, Tooth for a Tooth" the kind of society we're going for here?
Sounds good to me.
The victims end up blind and toothless, *just like they would anyway*.
The attackers end up blind and toothless, as well, *teaching them a lesson*.
OF course, with "Eye for an Eye, Tooth for a Tooth"in place, I beleive there would be fewer attackers, because people would think twice before attacking. Which means there would be fewer victims. Which is a good thing.
Koingo Software admit that they were investigating the competition. If they're the competition, they could have a motive to spread FUD about Display Eater. Maybe Koingo Software "investigated" the DE and found some strings suggesting that it had some vigilante piracy fighting and then they drew their own conclusions and decided to exaggerate in the review based on what they thought would happen if they entered a pirated key.
Or, it could be that their home directory was actually deleted -- maybe they were using an older version or destroy() function malfunctioned. It could happen. The developer has probably rarely _tested_ the anti-piracy functionality, which means that it might not behave as he thought it would. I've seen programs that always crash when the trial expires -- the developers were presumably always using the full version.
I doubt that Koingo, as serious Mac developers, would go to such lengths as to use a pirated key just to "investigate the competition". Which is why I suspect that they "embellished" their story about permanently losing data.
Either way, I could have made a mistake in my 10 minute investigation and would welcome someone else to actually try it on a dummy (non-admin) account and see what happens. Personally I will never ever install a program by this developer on a production system.
The author doesn't get paid when his stuff is pirated. The fact that its digital software that can be copied unlimited times without cost is wholly irrelevant. The most important viewpoint is that of the author. If we want good software to continue to be made, not horribly bad user interface wise open source software, then you have to make sure the developer can get paid.
Simple as that.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
The second-hand software point might not apply to this case specifically, it was more of a general response to the concept of anti-piracy vigilantism.
All of your counter-points revolve around the idea that the user getting screwed is somehow OK in the pirates vs. software developers conflict. As if it's fair game that a few innocent people take hits because that's just the price of fighting piracy. Except it isn't. Whether the user can sue the developer after the fact is irrelevant, the point is this should never be happening because it's a reckless act of spite, not a legitimate attempt to prevent piracy.
This method won't stop anyone from using the pirated software that existing non-deletion methods wouldn't, all it does do is provide additional grief for the user whether they're guilty or not. It's not the software developers place to be judge, jury, and executioner as this guy seems to think. His method here isn't about preventing more piracy of his software, it's about getting revenge on those people who he decides are trying to wrong him.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
In the developers's own words, 'There exist several illegal cd-keys that you can use to unlock the demo program. If Display Eater detects that you are using these, it will erase something. I don't know if this is going to become Display Eater policy. If this level of piracy continues, development will stop.'
The sheer audacity of this guy's attitude over this problem is downright sickening. He's like one of those whiny little brats who'll only play a game until he starts losing, then trashes the game so no one else can cintinue playing.
If you're going to develop software, then you have to accept piracy as one of the negatives. (Though, personally, if a piece of software I wrote was being pirated, I'd be flattered knowing people wanted it bad enough to invest their time into doing so.) It's not like this guy never saw this coming (given he already keyed the software ahead of time), so why screw you're paying users over by threatening to cease development over it when it backfires? Besides, these "pirates" likely wouldn't bother using the software at all had the keying stuff been made unbreakable to begin with.
In the meanwhile, what happened to all this "trusted computing" junk that's supposed to "protect" us from stuff like this? Why aren't we sand-boxing all applications so that they only have basic read/write privileges, rather than having free reign over the system itself? Shouldn't we start looking into creating a centralized install/registration system where the OS itself handles the entire installation and approval/denial of software keys based on data the developers provide in the installation archive? That way, it is the OS itself that decides how to handle a pirated software key, rather than allowing individual developers to act as judge, jury and executioner without recourse. The developer in this article is exactly why we need such a system in place.
8==8 Bones 8==8
There exist, for his program, known keys that are not valid keys. In fact the keys were generated by a pirate program designed to allow a non-paying user to use the program. Because these keys are known, and a valid user is unlikely to have these keys then there is no reason NOT to have bad things happen. If you attempt to use these known pirated keys to use the program---bad things will happen.
Frankly I'm not surprised that Microsoft doesn't do bad things if you attempt to use a know pirated CD key if you attempt to install XP or Vista. Well, it does phone home... but they could do worse than that, you know. If you attempt to use a known key for installing XP or Vista, just make it so the hard drive won't boot. Your casual pirate will be fucked because they might not have the skills to recover the system.
We're not talking about any ol' random keys here, but known "hacking his program" pirated keys... ya really gotta applaud his giant brass balls for going as far as he has.
When will people learn? You don't throw down an open challenge to the programming community this way. I'll bet a "fixed" version of this software is everywhere soon. Not that I would want to use it. A reminder to the developer is that the majority of the most successful software products started out with no copy protection (or a relatively liberal use system)
First rule of business, the customer is king (not a potential criminal).
Second rule: Don't piss off the Slashdot community.
We bought a webcamming system from a company called Datetopia. If the php side of the software detected $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'] wasn't the one it was registered to (eg: if you decided to buy video.mydomain.com and use that for it), then it would drop its tables in the database.
The softare was badly written (used register_globals, etc), and lots of the code was put in an eval() (potentially a security nightmare), and obfusicated (base64'd, etc). We decided to scrap it, rather than reverse engineer it, so we wrote our own.
--"These are not refutations"
No problem. Join our reality or create your own. Come back and bring a friend.
Roll your own ethics or borrow ours.
If he deletes something he is risking a lifetime in debt. Gunning shoplifters
down as they try to leave your store with an automated machine gun is vigilanteism
even if you put a sign up you're doing precisely that.
Deleting other people's data as they enter a blacklisted serial number is
vigilanteism even if you put a warning message in the registration dialog you're
doing precisely that.
As was posted earlier in the comments, see The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
1) You have no evidence that the average person downloading Display Eater is warned of the potential damage beforehand. I've read the articles, and the comments so far. Nothing indicates that the users are guaranteed (or even likely) to be warned. The only warning comes from an independent software tracking/review site, which is certainly not the only way for people to discover the steaming pile o' radioactive crap that is Display Eater.
2) Say I own a grocery store, and I post a sign on the front door saying, "If you walk in here with muddy feet, I'll shoot your dog," and then follow up on the threat. Just because I warned you ahead of time doesn't matter; I'm still dishing out vigilante justice. If you think you can legitimize extralegal behavior simply by warning people ahead of time, your understanding of our legal system is... lacking. Or maybe you live in a country where they don't have one.
3) As I said before, there is no evidence that he warns the user, so most users will probably not be able to "take it into account". Even if there were, there are these pesky things called "consumer protection laws" that often say that the seller cannot do something, regardless of whether the buyer is warned that it is being done.
4) He has the right to disagree with piracy, and take any legal means to stop it. The means he is using are very likely illegal in the extreme.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
- He's not being judge jury or executioner. he's simply saying that this will happen if you do this. it's up to you whether you want to do this. there is a sign that says do not taunt the dynamite monkey. if you taunt the dynamite monkey, expect to get the expected and stated result.
- Your claim that 'this wont stop anyone..' is your opinion. he has a different opinion (one that i happen to share). It may be that you are absolutely right (who knows), but the point isnt who is right or who is wrong - it is that he is well within his rights to offer terms as he likes. as the terms are clearly stated, i can't see how you have a gripe. and even if it was "all for revenge".. who cares? it is his right, especially as the software does as it says it will.
It's not 'fair game' that innocent people get hurt. It's the developers job to make this next to impossible and, if it does happen, to take 100% responsibility if the software does other than as it says it will.A much better solution would be for the program to delete itself, or perhaps "phone home" to alert the vendor that a stolen key was in use.
Deleting other data could open the vendor up to civil or criminal action. If I were the company's lawyer I would advise against causing collateral damage.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
there's nothing in the computer fraud or abuse act that would apply here, as the policy is clearly stated, serves a legitimate social goal (to reduce piracy). whoever 'posted earlier' was handwaving and hoping that something would stick to the refrigerator - the computer fraud and abuse act clearly does not apply in this case, as there is neither fraud (misrepresentation) or abuse ("without authorization"), as authorization is clearly given by the agreed to terms of the software unlock process.
It's YOUR idea, YOU try it! :)
Does it really matter what the EULA says at all? If I'm already pirating the software, can any type of agreement really be construed to exist between me and the seller, particularly given the shaky standing click-through EULA's already have? If an apartment building has a policy that all tenants must take wash their windows once a week or face fines, and that they agree to that contract simply by living there, would a squatter be bound too? That seems far to close to making "by reading this t-shirt you agree to let me punch you in the face" jokes reality.
Seems like a no go to me, regardless of what he put in his "license."
Relax I just want some peanuts.
If a developer does that this is bad news for the popularity of his program. If Microsoft did that (destructive action) they might start loosing existing customers.
Destructive action is an extreme case of fight against piracy and it may even be acceptable, but only if the destructive action damages the installation of the program in question and its data, not the home directory or your hard drives.
The keys that the developer refers are probably valid keys (they unlock the software) that were put in the blacklist because they were used illegally (e.g., someone spread his key around). Programming errors may happen (e.g., an error that triggers destructive action even for a legal installation) and those can be costly. Even if that is a an illegal user you could "convert" his to paying for your software if it stopped working, but not after you trashed his hard drive.
Imagine a car stereo that would blow up the whole car if tampered with. Would you buy such a stereo? What if it goes off by mistake?
1. you're right (in this particular case). I was speaking more in principle. If it does not adequately warn (which i dont know for sure either way here - i was relying on comments in this thread for that info), then it should.
2. the legal test here would be the balance of the warnings given vs the severity of the punishment. for example, let's say i have a pet euthenasia store. i can certainly put up a notice that says 'if you bring your dog here and sign these papers and give me money, i will shoot your dog.' and you can do it, and (as far as the relevant discussion here goes), no law has been broken. similarly, if his warnings / the intented operation of the software were clear, then similarly i dont see where any laws are broken (again, in this particular case - if the warnings were not clear, well, then he is probably guilty of misrepresentation. however, if somebody pirates or attempts to pirate the software, it is not clear exactly that the software developer has any duty of care to provide non-misrepresenting software to the pirate. there's also the reality that most people do not equte loss of files with dog (or human) death, as many people here on slashdot seem to. people are expected to have backups of critical files anyway.
3. find me the consumer protection law that applies to this case. i looked through all possible US consumer protection laws and didnt see anything that applied here.
4. cite the law. no handwaving to 'computer fraud and abuse' act, which has no relevance here.
Here a several other possible scenarios. suppose an employee of the store, where the software had originally been purchased, had already secretly opened and installed the the software. He then had posted the key on the Internet several weeks before someone else purchased the software. A few stores even have their own shrink wrap machines that they use on returned hardware, so he might have shrink wrapped the software again before putting it back on the shelf.
Here is another alternative. Suppose some woman had purchased the software. Her ex-boyfriend or one of her children's friends might have secretly borrowed the installation CD and installed it on another computer and posted her key on the Internet. Then, after upgrading to a new computer she might have later reinstalled the software. She then looses her small business accounting records and the novel she had been writing for the last 6 months. The ex-boyfriend who was the actual pirate would lose nothing.
The software could also have been received as a Christmas gift. The gift giver might have already opened the software, installed it and shared the key. Perhaps the gift might have even come from a vengeful ex-spouse who knew what would happen to their computer.
These are also possible problems with trying to act as judge and jury and delivering mindless automated punishment to the supposed software pirates,
I was curious to see what Display Eater does, and it turns out it's just a video screen capture utility. There has been a widget like this for Windows going many years back, that takes your screen and converts it into a WMV. I get the impression that while it's not trivial, it isn't too difficult to write something like that. You have a handle to the screen device context, and in response to certain events you capture a frame and add it to the stream you're building. That's pretty much it. I would think that on a more open system like OS X, it'd be even easier to figure out how to write something like that. I think there are a lot of talented developers out there working on Macs who might be able to roll something like that in a night or two of intense hacking. Maybe it wouldn't be polished, but the basic functionality would be there. In other words, this seems like a minor utility and I don't see how you could charge for it as a stand-alone app. The guy seems to have delusions that he's providing a great deal of value. Trying to build good PR by deleting people's files just fits a pattern of insanity.
Correct me if I'm wrong--would it be terribly difficult to write a video display capture utility for OS X?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The author should have chosen to just have their application uninstall itself once an invalid key is discovered.
"piracy tends to be a powerful weapon against your competition: you might not make money from the lost sale, but (1) your competitors won't either (2) the pirates gain familiarity with your software, and are more likely to choose it when placed in a situation where they can't use pirated software, or recommend it to friends, and your competitors don't gain this advantage."
That arguement fails if the scale of piracy is so high that nobody is buying the product. His comments seem to indicate this:
"If this level of piracy continues, development will stop."
Sorry, but civil tort (the EULA) does not override criminal law (The Fruad Act).
First there is the FACT that click-thru EULAs are of questionable legality.
More importantly, you cannot sign away your rights to bring criminal actions, only civil ones. And a license does not allow criminal acts to suddenly become legal. For instance, no "EULA" in the world allows the Bank to break federal laws about your accounts no matter how much permission you personally give the Bank in a civil contract.
Add to that, the DELIBRATE and MALICIOUS act of deleting data and or functional parts of a person's computer system that are unrelated to the product... thats pure damage far outside the scope of the product, and is damaging to other functiona unrelated to the piece of software in question, and a clear violation of the CFSA.
Put it all together, it just spells out how wrong you are about this.
Its akin to saying "you put a stolen radio in your car, so Im making it short out your ignition system and ignite your gas tank".
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
kids ... dont install binary programs - please - ktnx. unless its a tar, ./configure, make installation, then it's probably got some big gotchas.
Why UNIX?
OK...I don't know what REALLY gets deleted, but he has IMPLIED that the software will delete unrelated files in my home directory. What happens if someone uses a key generator and happens to come up with my key? I've paid for a valid key and still get my (unrelated) files deleted? Automated justice is never a good thing. Do you want to see an armed robot guarding your office? Everyone knows that the robot will only shoot someone when they present an unauthorized badge and you know that you have a valid badge. Do you feel safe walking into work?
Someone who intentionally destroys (or even just threatens to destroy) files unrelated to the software is displaying a very low level of maturity. How do I know that he doesn't have some other nasty surprises installed (or will be installed on a future upgrade) in the software? What happens when he decides that program Y is just a ripoff of his program and installs a routine to destroy program Y from my computer along with other unrelated files?
There is no way I would use ANY program by this developer. If I find out that he works for another software company, then there is no way I would use software from that company!
And thats the problem. You CANNOT say "if you use a pirated code, some files on your system will be deleted" and thnk that by having the user agree to that you are protected.
An illegal criminal act is always an illegal criminal act, no matter how much civil contract you wrap around it. Federal law doesnt look to see if there was a civil release for you to commit a crime. It looks at evidence: did you deliberately and maliciously (with harm intended) violate this law by damaging or deleting files that did not belong to you on this computer? The answer here is Yes for that author, so he is criminally liable.
PERIOD.
Don't mix up civil (EULA) and Criminal Law (CFSA) - that's your error.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
"Who will watch the Watchmen?" Vigilante justice always ends in bad long term effects...
and here I go thanking that MS Windows just uses DRM... wow
You could randomly change the user's homepage to point to anti-piracy websites. I think the idea of silently deleting files is so crackers don't recognize immediately that the software has a trap in it. Changing the user's background image randomly would also be fun. like a big picture of a chimpanzee in a ping Tutu with a caption "Pirating software makes you look like a dumb ape" or something to that effect.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
His program now has the same level of trust as shady trojaned warez appz.
However such method will be cracked,and patched versions will be available.
Thats reminds me of case of Sony DRMed CDs,which turned out to be a bad idea for Sony.
Congress didn't decide. Copyright law is over 400 years old. I suggest that you look into the history of it, as well as learn the concept of the 'general will'.
I'm not sure if you have a CS degree, but there is a reason that engineers must do social science courses to earn their degree. Its so they learn not only how to do what they're doing, but why. You lack so much perspective that you place the individuals right to earn money at any cost above all other social considerations; you're historically wrong, legally wrong, and technically wrong.
In any case Congress has already decreed that creators have rights above and beyond those who are merely users, and that of course is the right to profit from their creations.
That statement is moot unless we talk about for how long creators have had that right, what legal protections they have, and what the role of the law is with respect to the advancement of society, technology, and culture. Tell me what those rights are. Tell me in the details. Tell me what those rights were 300 years ago, and tell me what they are now, and tell me how they've changed, and tell me why they've changed, and tell me why those laws were enacted in the first place in the Statute of Anne in 1710. Congress writes the laws because people vote them in there. The laws exist for a social reason, not because its codified in the laws of thermodynamics since the big bang. If you don't understand what the laws are, and why they exist, and why they change, then you've got pretty much zero ability to back up an argument because you don't understand the reason those laws exist.
You seem totally lost, bro.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Simple as that. That STILL isn't the same as a mugging.
You know what's a lot like theft, though? Having all data in your home folder taken away from you, permanently.
If you're looking for something tangible to liken to willfull disregard of copyright for personal use, try "sneaking in a movie theatre". THAT's the same: You're enjoying someone's hard work without giving them anything, but you aren't taking anything away from them.
If you catch people sneaking in your theatre, you can kick them out, you can hand them over to the proper authorities to be dealt with according to the law, but you cannot empty their pockets and trash their contents.
No matter how entitled you feel to your entry fee, you can't dish out vigilante justice.
You can't take the sky from me...
A lot of comments have talked about vigilante justice, unintended consequences, etc... (for example, you make a 1 digit mistake with a legit key, and suddenly your home directory gets deleted).
There is a bigger issue looming here. What if Microsoft, or some other large vendor, adopted a similar policy? Windows Vista already phones home and validates once every 180 days. What if MS Windows deleted files if it couldn't be validated? I can see where MS could take things:
A few years ago I wrote a messaging utility which would encode messages in the executable image. When you started it up, it would display the message, and promptly overwrite the executable file so the message couldn't be displayed again. The idea was that the recipient of the message would view the message, enter a new message (which would be written into the data section of the executable image), and then email the same executable, now modified, back to the sender.
I would think you could easily do the same thing to prevent piracy - when you install the executable on the system, you use something like the Windows Software key to encrypt all but the first part of the executable image. The first part of the image would contain a stub which would load the Windows key, decrypt the rest of the image, and continue executing. This way, the executable would only run on the machine on which it was originally installed.
Now, the interesting part about this is that pirating this software would be very difficult. If your installation program checks that A.) the installation executable image is writable, and B.) it encrypts the installation image with the Windows key, you have narrowed down the potential avenues of piracy considerably. (I assume that the download script retrieves the Windows key and encrypts the installation executable before sending it back to the requesting computer.)
And voila! You don't have to delete anyone's files, you don't irritate your users, and you avoid unauthorized copying.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
As a publisher of commercial software the people that refuse to pay piss me off to no end. It has nothing to do with quality and everything to do with respect. The folks that believe they are owed something from the world around them think nothing of taking, taking, taking. They do not respect the committment to delivering a product that someone makes and decide for themselves that it isn't worth the price being asked. But rather than going to find something else, they feel they can use it without paying if they can "find the key". It is like passing a test or meeting a challange - they win so they get to use the product for free.
I think taking out your frustration on the thieves is an interesting way to go about it. It could have some consequences, but probably not - this is the Internet after all. If more people decided to go about this it would very likely both decrease piracy and decrease non-programmer software use. After all, if any random downloaded software might strike back if you were seen as a pirate what would you trust? Programmers with open-source solutions they could inspect would be able to trust stuff. Non-programmers wouldn't be in the same position - they would have to trust others to verify the version they downloaded.
I don't necessarily agree with the approach, but if this person isn't just being juvenile and has thought this through then at least he/she is doing something.
Proportionate response is a legal principle here in the states as well. But there are lots of good reasons for that law. It's absurd to state that emergency workers are the only reason for the law's existence, and I believe it could be applied to software booby traps by a smart lawyer and a thinking judge. Laws usually have more than one reason for existing, and they are always open to interpretation.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
typical slashdot "lawyer." you just invent reasoning to suit your needs, throw in a few legal generalities / irrelevancies, and pretend it has anything to do with the law. Yawn.
The monkey analogy is also apt, although you miss the crucial point that I and others are trying to make: Strapping dynamite to a monkey is both immoral and illegal. Simply putting up a sign and calling it a contract changes neither of those things. I'm also trying to point out that the monkey doesn't even need to be taunted, it's entirely possible that the monkey will mistake innocent bystanders' actions for provocation and detonate anyway, with no way for the bystanders to know how the monkey will react. Your claim that 'this wont stop anyone..' is your opinion. he has a different opinion (one that i happen to share). It may be that you are absolutely right (who knows), but the point isnt who is right or who is wrong - it is that he is well within his rights to offer terms as he likes. as the terms are clearly stated, i can't see how you have a gripe. and even if it was "all for revenge".. who cares? it is his right, especially as the software does as it says it will. - If it stops any amount of piracy I imagine it'll be directly proportional to the amount of legitimate customers he'll lose in the process. Regardless of that, the point remains, and I don't think there's any way to state this from a new angle that hasn't been covered already by someone in this discussion, from straight legal-speak to explosive monkey analogies: You can't stick anything you like into a EULA and consider it legally binding.
What he's doing isn't justifiable from any stand-point. It's illegal, immoral, he cannot guarantee it's accuracy, the reason behind it doesn't stand up to simple logic. It is, quite frankly: bullshit.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
I'm not lacking any perspective. The right of a copyright holder to earn money from their creations is not causing anyone to be murdered, or raped, or physically harmed. Thus there is no need for it to be abridged. There are no other social considerations in this case. None. Not a damn one. I'm pretty sure a good number of CS grads simply sleep through their "social concious" classes if the class involves anything related to "doing good works for the common good" instead of "doing good works so you can get paid cash money". I'm also sure a good number don't sleep through such classes. But those guys usually don't go on to do great things.
Your second question covers the ground of whether or not copyrights should have been extended beyond their original set limits. I don't really care what the limits are. If enough people dislike them they can lobby their represenatives and Senators to change them. Seeing as how we have yet to have riots in the streets demanding such change, the issue must not be of any great importance. I know WHY the laws exist. Its to promote creation. I don't have to give you a detailed history of each copyright law and amendment to have an opinion on them. What YOU need to do since you are going against the status quo is tell us why things should change in the favor of the uncreative and unproductive user and away from the creators/copyright holders. How will such a change benefit society? How will it promote more creation? And not just any creation, but valuable creation (don't know how to tell the difference between the two? Check out Open Source software for a majority of low value creation).
The biggest indicator of the 'general will' is the free market. The free market has repeatedly decided again and again to reward those who work for money over those who do not. The free software movement has trouble GIVING their work away, meanwhile Microsoft racks up billions of dollars per month charging over $300 for an operating system and office suite. It is absoltuely, morally, socially and legally right that such creation be protected by law. I don't ever want our legal copyright framework to be redesigned in such a way that proprietary developers no longer have an incentive to work thus leaving us at the mercy of autistic free software developers. That would suck on more levels than there are in Dante's Inferno.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
> He, and by extension the software he wrote is the only thing making the decision each step of the way
Don't use his software. Historically bad software (unless propped up by corporate or political interests) falls by the wayside.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
Claiming that someone was trying to pirate the software will not be a successful defense in a U.S. court.
I say he's bluffing.
--- Back to the trees, back to the trees !
"In Soviet Russia, pirated software erases ..." - er, uh
..." - um
...
"In Soviet Russia, 'something' erases pirated software
"In Soviet Russia, before you 'erase something', software pirates YOU!"
I guess it doesn't work well here
Back in 1981 my neighbor dropped about $1000 on Commodore 64 and an accounting package. He used it for about a year until one day the copy protection (floppy disk based, probably because of head mis-alignment) which the software vendor never once mentioned, falsely decided that his program was a pirated copy and wrote "PIRATEPIRATEPIRATEPIRATE" over all his business records. My neighbr went absolutely apeshit (yes, no backups), called his lawyer, and in the end an employee of the computer store spent two weeks re-entering the data from paper.
It was a stupid idea then and it is a stupid idea now.
This kind of defense against software piracy is a bad idea. What if the person got scammed with an illegal copy? The person could have bought the software thinking it was a legal. What if the home folder contains important financial documents? Developer leaves himself open to lawsuits.
I have found the best way to stop piracy is to use Viatech's Elicense.
\
Okay, I'm double-posting here what I just posted on the Version Tracker website...
This developer has placed code in his software that, in his own words, will "erase something" if it thinks it's running using a pirated registration key. Note that he's not limiting it to breaking Display Eater, which certainly would be reasonable; he is saying "I will delete something, somewhere, that's currently on your computer."
Why should this matter to legitimate customers? Simple - it is not possible to develop bug-free code. This most recent version, 1.85, lists four bug fixes. What happens if one of the bugs is in the piracy detection routine?
I personally have little use for a program like Display Eater; but I will NOT be using ANY software from this developer.
#DeleteChrome
Check this out... http://www.reversecode.com/movies/examplemonalisa. mov
In this example movie the user can be seen visiting a message board passing what is almost certainly an illegal copy of Johnny Cash and Trent Reznor's music. You can also see the name of an AIM/iChat buddy, "Moonlight Iris." And you can see that the person is using BitTorrent! There are also a bunch of shots with video games. How much would you like to bet that all those games are bought and paid for?
Now I know that there's no guarantee that the person shooting the movie is the developer, but...I think the chances are good. What a TOOL.
"War makes me sad." - Me
FUD or not, I'd still be concerned that the Destroy function could go awry, and might delete files it had no business touching. That could be as simple a bug as failing to check where it's logged to before it starts killing files.
I'd also be concerned that a mere typo (or the program misreading the input) while entering a legit serial number could trigger this.
I remember some years ago a particular DOS app would delete all files in the %TEMP% directory at exit. Trouble was, it assumed that all users were savvy enough to have moved the TEMP variable away from the default, which happened to be C:\DOS. So when the program was run, at exit it proceeded to delete the contents of the user's DOS directory. (At the time the coder reacted by saying users who didn't change their TEMP variable were too stupid to live anyway... how is that his determination to make? and if so, why didn't he take steps to protect even stupid users' data??)
Several times, I've had legit software refuse to accept its legit key, and had to go find one somewhere on the net to make it work. Not just small stuff either -- in one case, the app was Win98!!
Anyway, my point is... see how easy it is for the coder to make a mistake that could cost legit users bigtime?!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
well, this guy was smart and didn't put his personal information in his DNS entries. But you can still send him flame mail here! 575e59eacfa44540b56fee1b6f116b63.protect@whoisguar d.com
Really ? On what do you base this assertion ?
Free market isn't an entity capable of deciding anything. That said, of course people who are focusing their efforts to making money are more likely to get it than those aren't. What, exactly speaking, did you want to show with this tautonomy ?
Seeing how Microsoft has been convicted of abusing its monopoly to remove competition - therefore making the market non-free - in both Europe and USA, it hardly seems like a great victory for free market, even if you disregard the abysmal quality of their products. Then there's the little issue of your first claim being an outright lie.
Absolutely. Unfortunately, the laws seem to hinder that creation and healthy competition nowadays instead, with software patents and copyrighted file formats and network protocols.
Or did you mean that the means of profiting from that such creation by preventing anyone else from benefiting from it without paying you - also known as copyright system - should be protected ? In that case I must disagree. The right to profit is not a moral right, just a practical (and IMHO failed) means to encourage certain creative actions.
Several commercial developers have invested in developing Linux kernel, which is distributed free of charge, so either they are idiots or they are better at finding incentives than you are. As for the insult, please grow up and learn to discuss matters civilly.
Apart from Dante's Inferno only having 9 levels, and the whole work actually being pretty good, don't you think you're getting just a tiny bit melodramatic here ?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
what total nonsense. WInzip isnt popular because of piracy. Its popular because the demo has no serious usage limitatiomns. And I'm sick of hearing this nonsense about people being placed neatly in the 'legit user' or 'leeching pirate scum' category. There are shades of grey in verything. Many people pirating games still pay for a MMORPG account. Many people who buy all their games will admit to maybe having a dodgy copy of photoshop.
Saying pirates wouldnt buy anyway is just self-justification to make those pirates seem less like leeches for doing what they do.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
I know two steps that are FAR better antipiracy measures than putting in malicious code that can cause you to wind up in a prison:
.NET, use an obfuscater. A basic one is included with Visual Studio .NET, and you can download "community"/free versions of others. As a side effect, most code runs faster after being passed through one.
First step is simple. Update your program, and update it often. Add small new features, fix bugs, fix typos, and try to update every week or two. Have a facility to autoupdate in your program, even if its just grabbing a text file from a web server. Updates make users feel that the program is well maintained by a responsive author or development team.
Second step. If you use Java or
Now, the pirate groups are forever in catchup mode. When they have a patch for version 1.2.1, 1.2.3 is available for download and fixes a number of bugs.
Yes, pirates can work on a keygen, but if you do the algorithm correctly, they most likely will be forced to patch your code, rather just than a keygen. Of course, you can take the step of online activation like Sunbelt does.
Here you go.
Be nice. >=)
In the end, the only thing that matters is how much fun you had.
afaics, piracy exists mostly due to price gouging by greedy businesses
While I wouldn't dispute that for some software (I'm looking at you, Adobe), the fact that cheap shareware is also pirated proves that there is no price low enough.
Blank until
Doesn't anyone remember Jeff Arnolds method of protecting his software? One of his methods was to have his software write coasters, the other was to write hidden, empty files to the hardrive untill the drive was full and the OS failed. There was such a user backlash it was stopped after 3.8.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
1. OMG What has happened to Slashdot. +3 for I am a lazy computer-luser ?
If you pirate software, you should get a really f**ked system. Ok a app deleting a file on purpose is step too far. But do you not think some of this pirated software could be full of spy-ware and Trojans. My money is that you spawning out tons of spam.
This is what really annoys me - it is seen as cool and hip to have pirated software. Yet it does not matter that your machine could be part of a botnet.
In case you ask, 100% FOSS, 0% pirate, 0% spambot.
OK rant over.
This is illegal in the UK. It quite clearly falls under Section 3 of the Misuse of Computers Act 1990.
The fact that the aggrieved party may have been committing a crime by using the software without authorisation does not alter anything. Two wrongs do not make a right. Deleting files from a user's home directory goes above and beyond reasonable force and is a criminal offence punishable by five years' imprisonment and/or a fine.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
by your reasoning, the "rm" command of unix is illegal. the rm command: - does not 'own' the software it deletes - clearly lets you know what it's going to do before you do it and gives you the option to use it or not use it. - you are free to use it or not JUST LIKE THIS SOFTWARE. stop with your bullshit slashdot lawyer tactics. there is no crime committed when one piece of software deletes or modifies another file, double plus so when it goddam tells you that it's going to do this if you follow a certain sequence of steps, even thougn, in this instance, you'd just happen to like it to be. your desires do not make the law.
The software may be accidentally bought pirated, but it is PURPOSELY sold pirated. By any legal interpretation, responsibility rests with the seller.
How about a nice car analogy. Everyone seems to like those. Say you boobytrap your car to explode 10 days after it's stolen. Car thief sells the car 5 days after stealing it. Third party gets blown up. Now, who do you think is going to end up bearing the responsibility for blowing up an unwitting third party? Not the car thief.If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I had a similar idea for a new car alarm. When the vehicle is stolen, the brakes are deactivated and the wheels fall off.
... on how to explain to everybody that the level of piracy is too high and that's the reason why I don't bother to make the software really fly... Now, since many people won't even bother to try this being simply afraid of a posible bug/misbehaviour in this "protection scheme" - the sales will drop close to zero and the dev will have a perfect excuse for not doing anything better "because the level of piracy is too high"... Been there, seen that before. Several otherwise good developers already got caught with this mental scheme: if I create an unacceptable protection (either crippling the soft in a way that really makes no sense to even try it, or threatening with damage to users' data) I will get more sales... which of course works the other way around. The problem that in the end they still blame the "level of piracy" for their failure...
Now, mod me down freely. My karma can't get any worse...
If the app knows it is being pirated, use an embedded http:/// request to a page, then post the IP, and other possible info (any info of files on the pc) to identify the pirate and send to the BSA or other authority.
If Microsoft did that (destructive action) they might start loosing existing customers.
Steve Ballmer: "Loose the existing cutomers! Fly, my pretties!"
Blank until
Public Letter:
I hope the public will read this entire letter.
There has been alot of confusion regarding the copy protection of the program called Display Eater.
It is described here in:
There exists two illegal cd-keys that can be used to register the program without paying for it. When Display Eater detects these keys, it would delete your home directory.
However, this is not the case in reality. The whole purpose was to create a scare campaign. You can download, the file linked from the main page, which is now down(the link is still intact), and check it for yourself. It has http://reversecode.com/index.html
It was my hope that by creating a scare campaign, I could stop wasting time writing copy protection routines to be broken over and over. But, I was wrong, it backfired.
People started buying multiple keys, which I never intended, and in the beginning when the protection was in place, people who did not even know they had committed piracy or what piracy was were left in the dark. Legitimate users started fearing the program, which I never imagined.
A reporter called me today, and suggested that I make it free, and then have users pay for support. Or open source the program. I will consider all of these. -Reza
I am never going to pirate any of this guy's software. In fact, I'm going to do my best to make sure that nothing this guy has ever written ever ends up on a computer in my care. This is not out of any sort of moral outrage. I just value my data too much to trust to it all to his pirate detection code.
Fortunately, he doesn't seem to be writing Linux or Windows software, so there's no chance that I'll accidentally run one of his programs. But just in case, I'm gonna try to find out who wrote Echelon and make sure that nothing he writes ever makes it to one of my computers. After all, someone that irresponsible can't be trusted with my data.
But hey, this will be awesome at reducing piracy. He should be rolling in the dough, now.
(Yes, yes, I know, the whole thing turns out to be a scare campaign. Even so. I findit amazing how many content producers think that reducing piracy is more important than making people want to buy your product.)
One day a legitimate user, one with a license and a receipt in his hand, is going to be rebuilding his hard drive. When he can't put his hands on his registered Display Eater license key, he's gonna say to himself, "I'm a legitimate, licensed user in a hurry. Let me just snag a key off a warez site so I can get working again. A key's a key, right?" A few minutes later all his Display Eater files are gone. This developer is engaged in vigilante activity that, inevitably, will harm an innocent bystander. Hopefully it will be somebody who writes for Ziff Davis. If said writer lives or works in my home state, after the developer is successfully sued, he'll be thrown in jail for computer tampering.
This is not my sandwich.
I see a lot of cracks on slashdot belittling marketing people in the software business, but if this guy had a decent marketing person he never would have made these stupid mistakes.
If he can detect the bogus keys then he could just terminate the program. Value of the bogus keys is now zero. Taking a punitive step beyond that is just idiocy.
Isn't it possible to run the software as a user without enough priv's to do whatever it is he's doing?
There are several good and free display capture programs out there, even for Macintosh. So, really, what this guy is being paid for isn't primarily his software but his users' ignorance.
The free market has repeatedly decided again and again to reward those who work for money over those who do not.
Copyright protected markets are not free markets, they are government protected monopolies. Whether you think this is right or wrong does not change the fact.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
However, this is not the case in reality. The whole purpose was to create a scare campaign. You can download, the file linked from the main page, which is now down(the link is still intact here), and check it for yourself. It has been this way since 2/7/07.
It was my hope that by creating a scare campaign, I could stop wasting time writing copy protection routines to be broken over and over.
It is very difficult to parse this "public letter" because the (ab)use of English is so bad. But how I translate this is that the program never had any code to delete stuff, and that was just a rumour he spread to scare people who would pirate the software.
In simpler English, he lied to his customers. He claims the scare campaign backfired, but I'm not so sure. It seems to have worked perfectly. Now people are scared of his application. I'm not sure why a developer would want to scare people off, but he appears to have gotten his wish.
This whole thing is a crazy mess. How can anybody even trust his words? Even if it is true that there is no deletion "feature," that does not excuse his attitude and his lying. But maybe he is lying again that there is no deletion capability? One can't really tell, because his letter is so badly writtin that it's not clear what he is actually saying. The best course of action would be to treat the software as suspicious, and not go near it.
... and then they built the supercollider.
But this is where you ignore the facts. The users are not warned of this in the license agreement, or when they buy the software. It was discovered via a comment from the developer on Versiontracker. How many users are going to read all the comments on Versiontracker after they buy the application? I love Versiontracker, but I mostly read the site before I purchase software. I certainly don't go back and read all the subsequent comments for every piece of software I use.
Secondly, it appears the "delete stuff" was a lie perpetuated by the developer to scare people. I don't know if this is true, but that's what the developer claims. So, seeing as his "copy protection" is based on a campaign of lying - then how can we trust any further communication from the developer as either "fair" or "transparent"?
... and then they built the supercollider.
I have purchased alot of both commecial and shareware over the years but one thing I have noticed with shareware if the price is proportional to the value of the software most will buy it. If its a trivial utility that might be used on occasion but not enough to justify the asking price of the full version they tend to pirate or find something else. If the author was seeing more pirates than purchasers perhaps he might concider thinking over his pricing scheme and percieved value of what he has created rather than try to go vigilante over people who would likely not pay for it in the first place.
What kind of person argues for the existance of copyright, a government granted legal monopoly (whose existence I support, but whos terms and legal strengths of protection are at the crux of our disagreement here,) with a free-market hand-job? Not to be outdone, you then goes on to cite a company that has been found, by the very same body who enforces copyright, to have violated compeition laws, thereby hindering the forces that need to be at work in order to sustain a healthy free market?
The fact that you're arguing as if I'm against copyright (which is clearly not the case in my original post,) rather than questioning what kinds of legal techniques a copyright holder can use to protect his invement in the creation of his work, speaks volumes. You're blindly striking out against some strawman while the rest of us rational folks are standing aside discussing the nuts and bolts of a system you're too fanatical about to discuss unemotionally.
But those guys usually don't go on to do great things.
Oh snap! Touche!
"Old man yells at systemd"
This story has nothing whatsoever to do with anything every having been stolen from anyone.
Come on, don't be a coward, tell us which software you're making, so I can avoid ever buying anything from you fucking morons. (Not that I assume you could be capable of making something I could be interested in.)
but what do i know, i'm just a model.
He's going to be sued into oblivion the first time any company that has to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley gets something destroyed. They'll do it to recoup the fines they'll incur and the time and labor spent trying to recover the data and clean the PC of his malware.
Was an employee there pirating software?
"Yep! And we fired him as violating company policy as soon as we found out!"
However, that still doesn't give this jackass the legal right to go destroying data on a business' PC.
It's pretty clean-cut and not many judges I know of, nor juries, would spend much time before putting this dipshit in debt.
If it's no longer profitable or worthwhile to you to continue development STOP DEVELOPMENT! Dropping bombs into your app is dirty fucking pool.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/video/displ
A piracy tool gets pirated. Why am I not surprised?
Hmmm, lets see, why would I want to capture a video on my screen to a quicktime movie? It must be because I do not legitimately own the video being displayed on my screen.
This guy was tempting fate from the start. Dollars to donuts its the MAFIAA that is pirating his product.
This product should have been underground to start with, and should have stayed there.
From the website
Useful for recording video game footage, making training apps, recording streaming video and some other tasks.
Why would I want to copy a screenshot of a streaming video to a quicktime movie? Most content providers who stream video over the net would give you a way to save it to you hard drive if they wanted you to do that. This product is actively being advertised as a way to capture video that the providers don't want captured. This product is advertised as a way to "steal" video. Is there any surprise that a lot of your users are "stealing" your software.
--- http://davidnehme.blogspot.com
I develop shareware software in my spare time. My software doesn't do this, or anything even slightly like it. Quite aside from any legal or moral qualms (which of course play their own role), I don't do this for a business reason: I'd rather have people using a pirated copy of my software than a legal copy (whether free or bought) from some competitor. At some point, it's possible that the person in question will be working for a company who will have a policy about buying software. If they've been using my software the whole time, the chances are that that's the software they'll buy. It's the same strategy that MS used to great effect (until recent years, WGA, etc. - at which point, they effectively had the market wrapped up and nothing more to win...).
PenguiNet: the (shareware) Windows SSH client
'what total nonsense. WInzip isnt popular because of piracy. Its popular because the demo has no serious usage limitatiomns.'
There are loads of applications that work as well as winzip and many of them offer fully functional trials as well. With Winzip on day 31 the program remains fully functional and you ARE pirating the software. Simply because Winzip makes piracy effortless does not mean that it isn't piracy!
'And I'm sick of hearing this nonsense about people being placed neatly in the 'legit user' or 'leeching pirate scum' category. There are shades of grey in verything. Many people pirating games still pay for a MMORPG account. Many people who buy all their games will admit to maybe having a dodgy copy of photoshop.
Saying pirates wouldnt buy anyway is just self-justification to make those pirates seem less like leeches for doing what they do.'
Without question but people who pirate photoshop are still people who wouldn't pay for photoshop anyway regardless of whether or not they pay for games. The biggest pirate category is probably those who buy one copy of an application and then install it on all their computers.
Godwined on the first post. Awesome.
I had just tried Display Eater in demo mode a few weeks ago at work, and found it to be buggy as hell. Now, normally I would just assume its early in its development, and they would get them worked out eventually. Usually after finding a shareware app useful, I buy them. But after reading about this stunt, I'm going to make sure I get this crap off my work machine ASAP.
for dealing with this asshattery should be contacting Apple, and recommending they remove this page:
a yeater.html
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/video/displ
Things can backfire, even without malicious intent. I wrote a (crappy) little app back in the day, and was pissed when I'd found folks grabbing the code, changing the name, and distributing it as their own. "I'll put a stop to that", I said to myself, and wrote a (crappy) little self-checker to run a few simple tests to determine if someone had ripped the code without permission, and if so, to nuke the installation directory. I'd tested it, tried to break it, called it good, and posted it.
One day, I was talking with someone who'd installed the app and was having some trouble. To this day, I still believe he'd jacked around with it against all the warnings not to, but that's beside the point. He'd installed it in the root directory. I was appalled, but at that point, there was nothing else which could have been done.
Moral of the story: learn to deal with copyright infringement in a sane manner - piracy will happen.
You're the one who supported vigilante justice. That's the subject here, not just 'friggin' software. You're the one who talked about matters of law, and is now calling them just "technical issues". You want to claim there's some special group of people who are guilty before a court finds them guilty and another group that can take the law into their own hands, that's your choice, but saying this was just about software is a weasel-worded evasion. You've been claiming that some special priviledged people have a special right to break the law. Yes, I take that seriously. You did too, when you made your claims, even if you're trying to hide that now. Sorry if I lack social graces. You lack honor.
You know how you differ from Stalin? He believed that one group (the prolitariat), could be presumed automatically innocent, and could go outside the law to judge and punish another automatically guilty group (the capitalist 'exploiters') You believe that one group (the software authors), can be presumed automatically innocent, and can go outside the law to judge and punish another automatically guilty group (the end users). He had more power, you have less power. The more I read what you wrote in response, the more I'm sure you use what little power you have just as badly as he did.
Who is John Cabal?
Obviously, this guy doesn't remember his PC history very well.
IIRC, many years ago (1980s), a reporter from one of the PC magazines installed a legal copy of a piece of Microsoft Software. The software printed the message "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. Now trashing your program disk." and his hard drive was trashed. That was when Microsoft (and most other companies) stopped using copy protection. It was the straw that broke the camel's back.
The weed of DRM bears bitter fruit.
Am I the only one who recalls the AIDS "trojan horse"? It is called a trojan by Wikipedia, but it seems very possible that the author thought himself in the right to use this form of extreme copy protection.
It is not clear to me, but I thought different versions deleted different things.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
you cant just claim that and expect it will go unchallenged. You have obviously never worked anywhere where people are using pirated copies of photoshop and 3D Studio MAX. To suggest that a company employing 100 people can't afford such products is nonsense, they steal it because they think they won't get caught. simple.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Now he claims that this was only a 'scare campaign' and the program doesn't actually delete anything. What ever might be the truth, I still wouldn't trust this person.
I wouldn't dare to install anything from this guy, since there would be no way to know what kind of tantrum he was having when he was coding and what nasty suprises might come bundled with his software. Hiring this person would also be pretty risky. If he don't get high enough salary, he will plant a bomb in your companys software.
I doubt that this guy can blame piracy for the lack of money he gets from his software. I think that if you actually write good enough application you will also get paid. And if nobody buys your program, I think you should first look into mirror and at your product. Is it good enough, how many people would actually need this kind of program?
Or are there zillions of pirated copies of Display Eater around and this guy would be a millionaire if it wasn't for those nasty pirates?
Well, after this publicity, there won't be any kind of Display Eaters around. Hopefully. And perhaps this developer should be introduced with the law, just to make sure that he won't be coding any more malware in the future. We have enough of that allready.
Even if Microsoft and RIAA can get away with 'scare campaigns', you might not.
I will remember this name, Reza and keep far away from your 'products'.
>You know what's a lot like theft, though? Having all data in your home folder taken away from you, permanently.
I am using Windows, so I don't need to use the home folder at all.
from http://www.reversecode.com/
Public Letter:
I hope the public will read this entire letter.
There has been alot of confusion regarding the copy protection of the program called Display Eater.
It is described here in:
There exist two illegal cd-keys that can be used to register the program without paying for it. When Display Eater detects these keys, it would delete your home directory.
However, this is not the case in reality. The whole purpose was to create a scare campaign. You can download, the file linked from the main page, which is now down(the link is still intact here), and check it for yourself. It has been this way since 2/7/07.
It was my hope that by creating a scare campaign, I could stop wasting time writing copy protection routines to be broken over and over.
It turned out to be a mistake.
People started buying multiple keys, which I never intended, and when the protection was in place, people who did not even know they had committed piracy or what piracy was were left in the dark. Legitimate and prospective users started fearing the program, which I never imagined.
A reporter called me today, and suggested that I make it free, and or open source. I plan to do both. Once the code is cleaned up, a GPL'ed version will be released.
Since the program is free, this key will activate it, until it is released as such.
display eater
reverse@reversecode.com
PROD-9PNRM6-4RPRY-JUA5D-XW20G-J0MPY-9MTWX-2L9KW-1
-Reza
Hmm, I just wonder what sort of lawsuits would follow if someone bought a legit key but made a mistake in entering it, or the registry entry gets corrupted (something that obviously never happens..).
:-).
This is a simple breach of virtually any computer related laws I can think of. If you have a problem with piracy you're welcome to stop the program from working - you have, however, no right to act as judge and jury and become a vigilante, nor do you have right of access to the computing resources and information your code is near.
In short, if you do that you're no better than a virus author and thus deserve the same treatment.
You can't even plead temporary insanity (well, OK, maybe permanent insanity
Insert
Seriously, the ACTUAL behavior of the program is not dangerous or unreasonable. If you used a pirated key, it wouldn't work, and you'd have to contact the developer for support.
The main problem here is that the developer thought scaring people would reduce piracy, but it has blown up in his face into huge, horrible publicity.
Yes. The analysis above is for 1.8.5. The version available before 2007-02-07 (presumably 1.8.4) actually did delete the home directory, according to Reza's own admission.
By the way, someone else did do the full analysis of 1.8.5: Behind the Curtain With Display Eater -- Yet Another Mac Dev Blog. Nice work.
So in addition to being an asshole, he's incompetent as well? SHFileOperation too complicated for him?
You're enjoying someone's hard work without giving them anything, but you aren't taking anything away from them.
Theft covers both property and services. It is therefore appropriate to use the word theft with respect to software piracy.
I doubt that Koingo, as serious Mac developers, would go to such lengths as to use a pirated key just to "investigate the competition". Which is why I suspect that they "embellished" their story about permanently losing data.
Who's to say that they didn't have data they wanted to keep in that directory (e.g. screen caps they'd taken with the trial version during some project or other)?
Pronunciation: 'theft
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English thiefthe, from Old English thIefth; akin to Old English thEof thief
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
You can't take the sky from me...
If you are going to cite a dictionary you should learn how to use one. You should look beyond the first entry, especially when later entries are domain specific. For example, a definition from a Law Dictionary:
Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law - Cite This Source
Main Entry: theft
Function: noun
Etymology: Old English thiefth
: LARCENY; broadly : a criminal taking of the property or services of another without consent NOTE: Theft commonly encompasses by statute a variety of forms of stealing formerly treated as distinct crimes.
Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law - Cite This Source
Main Entry: theft
Function: noun
Etymology: Old English thiefth
: LARCENY; broadly : a criminal taking of the property or services of another without consent
NOTE: Theft commonly encompasses by statute a variety of forms of stealing formerly treated as distinct crimes. Fascinating.
It does not apply software, but, interresting.
Main Entry: service
Function: noun
1 : the act of delivering to or informing someone of a writ, summons, or other notice as prescribed by law --see also notice by publication at NOTICE, SUBSTITUTED SERVICE, SUMMONS
NOTE: Although service of process is primarily the means for a court to exert personal jurisdiction over a person, some form of service (as by publication of notice in a newspaper) is also usually required for exercise of in rem or quasi in rem jurisdiction.
2 a : useful labor that does not produce a tangible commodity --usually used in pl. b : the maintenance or repair of tangible property
Using a service takes something away from them: Their time spent servicing you.
Software is covered by copyright, but if someone makes a copy without paying the owner, nothing was taken away. Everyone understands this difference, some people ignore it and repeat a fallacious analogy because it makes their complaints sound more rightgeous than they really are. It's not honest to use software that wasn't paid for, but it's not honest either to claim that this is the same as taking something away from someone else.
In short: Stop saying that using warez is the same a stealing a wallet.
You can't take the sky from me...
This is exactly my M.O. - I couldn't've stated it better myself. Instead of feeling guilty about downloading pirated software, I treat all downloads as "extended trial editions". Out of all the games that I own, the ones I like the best I always end up buying - sometimes months or ever years after I first play them. (Granted, by that time the money no longer goes to the developer/publisher, but my econ class taught me that like karma, money magically keeps the economy going.) And honestly, if I didn't have access to cracked versions, I wouldn't even play those games until they dropped in prices dramatically. (Me being a grad student and all...)
The added benefit is that pirated games don't need to occupy my CD slots to be played.
Why would you not tell me? Because you are a fucking coward, obviously. And an idiot (or maybe an asshole that just plays stupid) ... I already told you why I would have liked to know what it is that you have for sale.
but what do i know, i'm just a model.