PureBasic Forums - English

If history has taught us anything, it is 'Don't elect another Bush!' No, wait, I mean 'Any form of copy protection can be foiled eventually'. All you can really hope for is to make it difficult for the would-be pirate to copy. (The 'professional' pirates consider it a challenge and just keep trying).

Dongles and CD Keys are easily thwarted, and just inconvenience the legitimate users, as was said. So what can be done?

A different activation code for each user and each version e-mailed directly to them would be a good start. And maybe using a 'download assistant' (small) to check the CURRENT version on their system to see if it's legit before downloading the update...

Or having the code that checks for ligitimacy be compacted within the exe and only unpacked during runtime, so that the it can not be easily de-compiled to see what that piece of code does, etc. Copy protection can get REALLY complicated!

Russell

and then?

the Pirates would just buy 1 copy you wouldn't know who they are because bugging/signing the compiler with a persons name and then decompling to find out if it legit or not is a rather gray area of invasion of privacy, mean while that 1 pirate is spreading it the masses.

Personally I think some common sences has to brought into this along with a health dose of compashion, because there are those that don't intend on making money with the 'software' (not just PB) they'll obtain thru illegal means, they do not intend on making themselfs a millionare with it at all, infact some just want to write software for free so that others can use it, this in the case of PB is a good thing, it gets it noticed so that others can buy it (the oh wow you didn't that in PB thing), simular in some respects to the old computer industry before the internet if your "computer" / "game console" didn't have many titles for it the company in some cases just went bust.

The real nasty people in this whole mess is the people that illegal own software they should not and are making money from there ventures and not even bothering to buy it when they have made funds for the software, that I believe personally is the greatest crime, it's one thing to steal something because you can't aford it, quite another to steal something when you can aford it.

And this sounds a bit like I am going back on myself with the comment that is had nothing to do with money, but it needs saying I think.

When I was a child on my own Atari 8-Bit and games and even applications could be obtain in there orginal form for about £1-£2 a tape that was afordable everything I owned was orginal, now this is arguable and I know there are many points agaist this statement but I think in those days significantly more work needed to be done to write anything on those small machine, infact I think I picked up Kawala Art for about £5.0 , nower days ? £500 before you even sniff the roses.

So in someways, these large corperations deserve all they get. but by no means by anything I've said here and I trying to make it "right" it will never be right so long as I live, theift is theift, period.

Sorry inadvance for spelling errors and content that people might object too.

p.s what key?

uhmm maybe I don't have one because I am a beta tester ?

So you're justifying pirating for people who are not selling it? Just think if EVERYBODY could get a free copy. Even if they don't sell it, Fred has lost all of that potential revenue.

And true, once there is a 'cracked' version of a program on the net, it can be spread rapidly across the whole planet. But there are some methods that can at least slow this down (methods that change with each update, for example). If PB were much more expensive, say over $200, then maybe no copy protection at all (other than serial numbers, etc) would be the most cost effective way to go, especially if Fred charged a fee to update. Then at least some revenue could be recouped. But PB's is a special case because it is cheap to begin with, not copy protected and has free updates. It's a shame, but we all do it sometimes (haven't we all downloaded an mp3 and NOT bought the album?).

Russell

Amiga5k wrote:If history has taught us anything, it is 'Don't elect another Bush!' No, wait, ...

I'll see that and raise ya two Clintons!

lol

Political poker, eh? Do we throw out the 'jokers' or play with a full deck...

Russell

*** 6510: If it were 32 bits wide and ran at todays clockspeeds... would it beat a Pentium 4? ***

No. Don't think I ever heard of/played with a 6510 but I do still have an Acorn 6502. Processor and parallel port on one euro card, cassette interface, hex keypad and hex display on the other euro card. Still works!

Amiga5k wrote:lol

Political poker, eh? Do we throw out the 'jokers' or play with a full deck...

Russell

if we throw out the 'jokers' there'd be too few cards to have a game!

Too late, I have it on good authority that Batman took care of the Joker already and he's not available.

So you're justifying pirating for people who are not selling it? Just think if EVERYBODY could get a free copy. Even if they don't sell it, Fred has lost all of that potential revenue.

Amiga5k: wrong end of the stick, I am not justifying anything just looking at it from a diferent prespective, and it's not what I am saying.. what I am say is;

If someone pirates "software" and they make money by using that software, then that is a greater crime because then there make money and they have the funds to pay for it and also there freeloaders making money off of the hard work of others.

Obviously pirating software and selling it on is also a crime.

But if you don't make any money from using the pirated software and don't intend too then that is a lesser crime. and to me benifts the software by means of publistity, so in a way you become a walking billboard.

But a crime none the less.

"But by no means by anything I've said here and I trying to make it "right" it will never be right so long as I live, theift is theift, period. "

Perhaps one small essential file that changes every update should not be available on the PB site
but is e-mailed to registered users.

Perhaps an index file which provides access to other resources and is completely different for every update.
As suggested above, this file could contain a hidden user id.

I'm sure we would all suffer just a little inconvenience so that Fred gets his just reward and PureBasic has a viable future.

not a good plan, because then you'll get what I call the Zip/Rar scenario, less than a day after the release it's cracked, the problem here is this;

The Nightmare Scenario
----------------------------

Having been in a group many years ago, (when I was a child) I wasn't part of the illegal side of the group so don't worry about that too much, it was the general rule of thumb to the people that did, that small time software developers got left alone, by and large this is still in some cases the same, where as the larger companys the ones that could aford it got delt too, except in some cases.

The group was Digital Corruption or ^DC, and I was a member of the programming staff that delt with application development on the Amiga for the constuction of ICQ, it was my task in those days, to build a GUI interface for the protocal (MUI / ClassAct), we constantly batteled with Marabouls (spelling maybe incorrect) today it's called ICQ Inc. and to no avail, did they give us the protocal (we asked repeatedly & nicely, it was because of politics that Amiga wasn't a viable machine), so we resorted to other means to obtain it, without which today the Amiga wouldn't have had the kick start it needed to get ICQ going (any perhaps it might never have perhaps.), anyway that is the background for me being in such a group, in hynsight I probably shouldn't have joined it. (but kids do stuppid things.)

Now then, some software used to come in that was relitively unprotected or from a small time company, and was left alone. from time to time people would request it to be cracked but never was, it wasn't until the author applyed what is classed as medium to heavy security on it that there was a influx of masses of people request it to be cracked, which brought the attention of the people that delt with protection removal, and thus the software was then a pirority, eventually protection became so heavy that one of the people brought a copy, and distrobuted that instead, oh sure the key had the name of the person in it but it was obviously a fake name, but now they had a legit key to workout the algorythm, I think the author spent more time writting protection for his software than actually adding features, and ultimately went bust I believe the story goes.

The more unnoticed by crackers software is the better, and the only way to do that is to sercumvent the need for there attention, which means no protection at all, and just hope and pray that there are enough honest people out there, and they do exist!.

Once your in the RAR/Zip Scenario your software has attention, from the sounds of it PB in this case may do, although my searchings for such things have come to nothing, couldn't find a single one. ( this was after someone saying that there was a pluage of cracks on the net, so I went to see if they existed, not on my sights they do not. )

Question is here, does anyone here want poor Fred to be sitting at his PC dreaming up protection systems for PB instead of adding new features to it, because that is where it will end up.

The only real way to protect your software is not to allow anyone to have it, this I think is coming one day, where your PC turns on and logs onto www.microsoft.com and your OS boots off of there servers, software you own is on there servers, your PC has a hard drive enough to store data you've created/made/saved yourself but not the software, when that day comes, piracy will be finally on the back foot.

Standard Disclamer [ this is a point of view ]

Question is here, does anyone here want poor Fred to be sitting at his PC dreaming up protection systems for PB instead of adding new features to it, because that is where it will end up.

That is why it makes much more sense to package your software with a protection system from a company that does this for a living instead of wasting your time trying to develop your own.

The companies that sell software protection spend 24 hours a day 7 days a week working on protection schemes so that software developers can keep developing... and these companies do a fantastic job not only because that is their job, but because it is their companies reputation on the line.

Just something to think about

That is why it makes much more sense to package your software with a protection system from a company that does this for a living instead of wasting your time trying to develop your own.

The companies that sell software protection spend 24 hours a day 7 days a week working on protection schemes so that software developers can keep developing... and these companies do a fantastic job not only because that is their job, but because it is their companies reputation on the line.

(no offence but [tbh])

ROFLMAO!!! this is truely the funest thing I've heard all year. if there so good why on earth I they getting smashed 12 hours or less after release, Microsoft Window XP, no one needs informing of how much budget they put into secruity systems, XP was appearenly copyed in less than an hour of the first release, and it's serial was gen'ed, if Microsoft can't stop them for more than an hour, what hope does anyone else have.

Reason: because crackers are far more intelagent that the people that write to protection.

-- uhmm, I sound like I am advocate of them.. I'm _NOT_ I personally faced facts along time ago, you ain't going to stop them or the people that download them, anytime soon with the current framework that computer operate under, it isn't going to happen, and the sooner everyone else accepts the fact that it's here and here to stay, maybe we could start educating the young to provent this sort of thing happening, and instead of an all out war, just accept that it's around and provent the younger generation from doing by educating them that it is wrong.

unfortunately it's still "cool" and "hip" to be l33t!

Reason: because crackers are far more intelagent that the people that write to protection.

IMHO, that's not true, but maybe thinking that makes crackers feel good. It's far easier to destroy than to create. I would like to see any of those cracking geniuses that crack XP in less than an hour coding a simple disk OS in less than a year.