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AnonTechie writes:
"Echoing a question asked on programmers.stackexchange.com - How can software be protected from piracy ?
It just seems a little hard to believe that with all of our technological advances and the billions of dollars spent on engineering the most unbelievable and mind-blowing software, we still have no other means of protecting against piracy than a "serial number/activation key." I'm sure a ton of money, maybe even billions, went into creating Windows 7 or Office and even Snow Leopard, yet I can get it for free in less than 20 minutes. Same for all of Adobe's products, which are probably the easiest. Can there exist a fool-proof and hack-proof method of protecting your software against piracy? If not realistically, could it be theoretically possible? Or no matter what mechanisms these companies deploy, can hackers always find a way around it ?"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by einar on Saturday March 22 2014, @09:36AM
Simple example: MythTV, a linux-based media center suffered from the lack of an electronic program guide; at least for central Europe. Collecting the program data and distributing it would have cost money. Some TV stations charged you for this information. So, you have to invest money which you might later get back over license or subscription fees. Years ago, on a popular German MythTV board, I started a small survey to learn who would be willing to pay a monthly subscription for an electronic program guide. The survey showed interest but also revealed that the majority would be willing to pay one euro "because they can then share the data". Estimating the user base, my business case felt apart. Back then, I did not establish an EPG for MythTV for central Europe.
Now you can argue, ok, obviously not enough people wanted to have it. However, back then, I believe there would have been enough people interested in the software. MythTV users suffered really from not having one. Yet, already from the start you could feel that piracy would break your business plan. Better not to start.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 22 2014, @11:23AM
Germs are good because they force organisms to react in ways that make the organism stronger. Sometimes they make the organism develop better germ fighting tools, sometimes they kill the weaker organisms and narrow the gene pool down to the fittest. If you raise children with no exposure to germs, they become very ill when they're later inevitably exposed to germs. If all the "bad" germs were completely eliminated one day then for a while people would seem to flourish, but eventually things that weren't considered dangerous before the bad germ elimination would become dangerous to those who hadn't developed defenses. Germs are bad because they make people sick and kill people, but there is a reasonable balance of some bad germ exposure being healthy.
Sometimes a germ will come along and kill off an entire species. That's almost never good. Sometimes someone will make it virtually impossible to incentivize good software. That's almost never good.
Software piracy is much like fighting bad germs. There are times when it is prudent, or even critical to combat it, but its existence and prevalence ensures that some work is put into researching and testing ways to stop it. That makes it possible for people who couldn't effectively minimize piracy on their own to learn or reuse strategies which are effective.
Don't go around licking people's shoes. Taking too many chances with germs is bad, just like having a software piracy free for all is bad. Do get enough exposure to the real world of germs and software piracy so that you are able to understand and react appropriately when you encounter them.
Sometimes the best way to fight piracy is to not bother fighting it because your standard defense of trusting reasonable people to compensate you is enough. Sometimes the best way to fight piracy is to force anyone who needs to use your software to come to your secured site and divest them of electronics and monitor everything they do. (Yes, there is such a case, and I'd love to have a tour but I don't expect they're giving any unless you're a money man... and maybe not then, plausible deniability and all.)