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posted by janrinok on Saturday March 22 2014, @02:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the questions-without-answers dept.

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 ?"

 
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  • (Score: 1, Troll) by Angry Jesus on Saturday March 22 2014, @11:59AM

    by Angry Jesus (182) on Saturday March 22 2014, @11:59AM (#19669)

    > Anything that can be built by humans can be taken apart by humans.

    That's why private key crypto is such a waste of time!

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  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday March 22 2014, @12:15PM

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday March 22 2014, @12:15PM (#19672) Homepage Journal
    Okay, point for communications but for DRM every legit user has all the private keys at some point. It only takes one knowledgeable user to find them and strip or work around the DRM and then the cat's out of the bag.
    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Saturday March 22 2014, @06:19PM

      by Angry Jesus (182) on Saturday March 22 2014, @06:19PM (#19765)

      My issue is that your entire point revolved around the use of the word anything which is false. Your response seems to be to cite a case of the mis-application of private-key crypto -- where the keys are not private. That still doesn't negate the fact that not everything built by humans can be taken apart by humans.

      This isn't a case of pedantry either, your whole post relies on that one falsehood. A correct version of your statement would be, "Most things that can be built by humans can be taken apart by humans." That's not on the same level as a perpetual motion machine, nevermind "worse than that."