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: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 22 2014, @08:06PM
tl;dr answer: It can't.
Longer answer: Protecting it from piracy is equivalent to giving someone a locked box, along with the keys to the lock, then asking them "please - don't use the keys to steal what is in the box".
And that is just the trouble. No matter what you do to the software, it ultimately must be "released" from its shackles to be used by a legitimate user. But that same "releasement" for a legitimate user can also be exploited by a nefarious user to pirate the software.