Piracy on usenet, would it be wrong to do this...
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John Cardinal wrote: Is this a bad idea? Yes. In rather the same way as attaching a "kick-me" sign to your rear when working around people wearing steel-toed boots. I wonder how much work it would take to trace the author of a USENET post though... Give 'im a visit... bring your steel-toed boots...
Shog9 --
Exchanging a walk-on part in the War
for the lead role in a Cage
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John Cardinal wrote: Is this a bad idea? Yes. In rather the same way as attaching a "kick-me" sign to your rear when working around people wearing steel-toed boots. I wonder how much work it would take to trace the author of a USENET post though... Give 'im a visit... bring your steel-toed boots...
Shog9 --
Exchanging a walk-on part in the War
for the lead role in a Cage
I feel sorry for you but I agree with Shog9. Also, you might even be really unlucky and get a lawsuit filed against you by someone you didn't expect, like an ISP. Fighting fire with fire never works. See RIAA as an extremely tired example :) You will have to find another solution.
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[EDIT]I've been convinced this is a bad idea or at the very least a waste of time.[/EDIT] There are roughly 4 usenet news groups completely concerned with software piracy. We've traced our own pirated software license keys and they almost inevitably start their life online in one of these newsgroups then flow out to 'warez' sites around the world. I have a strong urge to write some sort of program that floods those newsgroups with bogus but seemingly useful random information for both the perverse pleasure of it as well as bringing down the ratio of useful content. There is no way to get them shut down as far as I can determine, no official responsibility anywhere for them etc. Is this a bad idea?
Everybody knows that the bird is the word.
John, Yes, this would be a bad idea as you would only damage your own online reputation or get your ISP to cancel your account. The impact on the newsgroups will be very close to the absolute zero. With the risk of repeating myself I suggest you spend your programming effort into implementing the ability to deactivate any license keys at any time. Don't try to change the world, try to adapt instead. Ivor S. Sargoytchev
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John, Yes, this would be a bad idea as you would only damage your own online reputation or get your ISP to cancel your account. The impact on the newsgroups will be very close to the absolute zero. With the risk of repeating myself I suggest you spend your programming effort into implementing the ability to deactivate any license keys at any time. Don't try to change the world, try to adapt instead. Ivor S. Sargoytchev
Ivor S. Sargoytchev wrote: Don't try to change the world, try to adapt instead. Yes, of course your right. It's just really annoying, but there is no useful purpose served by trying to get these things shut down. We are already working on our licensing system for the next version. We've gone over it again and again, but there is no practical way unfortunately of being able to shut down a license key at any time. There are a lot of other things we can do to make it impossible to use a publicly divulged key, but no way to shut down a key in use on demand. We can always (and do currently) make a key useless for future releases and anyone who downloads our latest build of the current release.
Everybody knows that the bird is the word.
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Ivor S. Sargoytchev wrote: Don't try to change the world, try to adapt instead. Yes, of course your right. It's just really annoying, but there is no useful purpose served by trying to get these things shut down. We are already working on our licensing system for the next version. We've gone over it again and again, but there is no practical way unfortunately of being able to shut down a license key at any time. There are a lot of other things we can do to make it impossible to use a publicly divulged key, but no way to shut down a key in use on demand. We can always (and do currently) make a key useless for future releases and anyone who downloads our latest build of the current release.
Everybody knows that the bird is the word.
What about the internet activation that was suggested. That's seems a pretty cool way to me. I think so many programs do it now that most people are used to it. I think the way Musicmatch seems to be foing it is pretty clever, When you enter the key it checks it's status online. For some reason if I have been reinsatlling a lot or the key has been entered a lot the software gives me a provisional license until someone can take a look at it then a day later or something without my knowledge it verifys and there was no other action to be taken on my part. This is only guessing but had I been using a bad key the software would have disabled after a day or so. (Again I am the only one with my key so I'm not sure) But then you have to worry about cracks that disable calling home and that kinda stuff. Like has been said many times it's a neverending battle....
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Ivor S. Sargoytchev wrote: Don't try to change the world, try to adapt instead. Yes, of course your right. It's just really annoying, but there is no useful purpose served by trying to get these things shut down. We are already working on our licensing system for the next version. We've gone over it again and again, but there is no practical way unfortunately of being able to shut down a license key at any time. There are a lot of other things we can do to make it impossible to use a publicly divulged key, but no way to shut down a key in use on demand. We can always (and do currently) make a key useless for future releases and anyone who downloads our latest build of the current release.
Everybody knows that the bird is the word.
we did it using an internet activation / enabling key ... the system downloaded data from the net anyway so adding a quick trip to our server to verify some data was easy and it works great cos if they hack out the check the software doesnt run ... kinda fail-safe
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we did it using an internet activation / enabling key ... the system downloaded data from the net anyway so adding a quick trip to our server to verify some data was easy and it works great cos if they hack out the check the software doesnt run ... kinda fail-safe
Yup, that's the solution we're looking at. Strong public key encrypted keys, tied to .net assembly signatures and rquiring activation than can only be done for a limited time period from issuing the key. Others have suggested we should find a way to de-activate an in-use key at any time of our choosing. Technically possible, but there is no way to do it without it becoming annoying to our customers and it would be considered spy-ware by most when it start's connecting to our server every time they run it so that's out the window.
It's just a jump to the left...
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[EDIT]I've been convinced this is a bad idea or at the very least a waste of time.[/EDIT] There are roughly 4 usenet news groups completely concerned with software piracy. We've traced our own pirated software license keys and they almost inevitably start their life online in one of these newsgroups then flow out to 'warez' sites around the world. I have a strong urge to write some sort of program that floods those newsgroups with bogus but seemingly useful random information for both the perverse pleasure of it as well as bringing down the ratio of useful content. There is no way to get them shut down as far as I can determine, no official responsibility anywhere for them etc. Is this a bad idea?
Everybody knows that the bird is the word.
Yes, this is a bad idea: your IP will be blocked and you won't even be able in the future to tell that your software has been stolen.
Help me dominate the world - click this link and my army will grow
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Yes, this is a bad idea: your IP will be blocked and you won't even be able in the future to tell that your software has been stolen.
Help me dominate the world - click this link and my army will grow
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[EDIT]I've been convinced this is a bad idea or at the very least a waste of time.[/EDIT] There are roughly 4 usenet news groups completely concerned with software piracy. We've traced our own pirated software license keys and they almost inevitably start their life online in one of these newsgroups then flow out to 'warez' sites around the world. I have a strong urge to write some sort of program that floods those newsgroups with bogus but seemingly useful random information for both the perverse pleasure of it as well as bringing down the ratio of useful content. There is no way to get them shut down as far as I can determine, no official responsibility anywhere for them etc. Is this a bad idea?
Everybody knows that the bird is the word.
I think there's nothing you can do to stop crackers to crack your software. Even if you have the strongest encryption or online verification to protect your software period. There's always a way for crackers to crack it. (just like bugs keep creeping into your software, you can't avoid them all.) I think for those who use serials/cracks/keygens in order to use your software, is that they're Not sure if they'd like to spend that kinda $$ to buy your software yet. Or they don't really need it, but it will be kinda handy to have your software installed just for a few times of use. Or they're just too poor to buy your software, price for PC is cheap nowadays, but when you add a copy of OS like XP or whatever, some office tools, some other software tools, you've already spent over $1000, not many ppl out there can just keep buying every software they need. Sometimes, software Upgrades cost customer more $$ when they should get all those "Upgrades" for free or those "upgrades" shouldn't even Be there, the software should be "PERFECT" in the first place. Piracy a matter of education, product quality, etc... you cannot stop it by just putting stronger encryption keys or other form of protections to your software. I think if you made a real solid product, ppl will feel sorry to not buy it. In that case you don't need to put any protection on your product.
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I think there's nothing you can do to stop crackers to crack your software. Even if you have the strongest encryption or online verification to protect your software period. There's always a way for crackers to crack it. (just like bugs keep creeping into your software, you can't avoid them all.) I think for those who use serials/cracks/keygens in order to use your software, is that they're Not sure if they'd like to spend that kinda $$ to buy your software yet. Or they don't really need it, but it will be kinda handy to have your software installed just for a few times of use. Or they're just too poor to buy your software, price for PC is cheap nowadays, but when you add a copy of OS like XP or whatever, some office tools, some other software tools, you've already spent over $1000, not many ppl out there can just keep buying every software they need. Sometimes, software Upgrades cost customer more $$ when they should get all those "Upgrades" for free or those "upgrades" shouldn't even Be there, the software should be "PERFECT" in the first place. Piracy a matter of education, product quality, etc... you cannot stop it by just putting stronger encryption keys or other form of protections to your software. I think if you made a real solid product, ppl will feel sorry to not buy it. In that case you don't need to put any protection on your product.
akak1997 wrote: I think if you made a real solid product, ppl will feel sorry to not buy it. Yes, and there will be peace in the middle east and Santa Claus will come personally to my house and deliver a shiny new Subaru WRX STI etc etc.:-D Seriously though, I've heard all these arguments before and I can't agree. Particularly after what happened to us recently: http://www.codeproject.com/lounge.asp?msg=625095&Page=2&userid=96&mode=all#xx625095xx[^]
Everybody knows that the bird is the word.