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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: 2) by clone141166 on Sunday March 23 2014, @03:27AM
Fair point; the definition in my mind would be more along the lines of a "mod attack" being the use of moderation points by a *single* user to *disproportionately* influence the moderation of comments in relation to the moderations applied by other users (regardless of whether they are down-modding or up-modding).
A single user modding up every comment questioning anti-piracy measures would be equally bad, though obviously much less likely to provoke a response.
It is my belief that the transient nature of the mod points in the current moderation system causes them to be somewhat devalued. If you are given $100 of credit that expires in 4 hours, you will probably purchase some necessary/useful items, but whatever is left over you are *probably* (will vary on personality and circumstance) going to waste it on something frivolous rather than not buying anything at all. Whereas if you are given $50 of credit that has to last you a week or a month, you are much more likely to hold on to it and only spend it on things that you absolutely need.
I just think that smaller quantities of longer lasting points would promote a more frugal application of mod points. If someone under these circumstances were to save up 10 mod points and apply them ALL to one story, similar to what has happened here, then you know that at least it was something they *really* cared about, rather than it just being something they did haphazardly to use up mod points before they expire because why-the-heck-not.
It's not really a big deal though, most of the time moderations applied by other users will drown out the problem. For the most part the current moderation system seems to work okay, but there's always room for improvement in any system.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday March 23 2014, @04:19AM
That's my feeling too, and I take moderating seriously. I'd rather not have to rush around... well, what really happens is that I wind up not using most of 'em. When I have 3 days to spend 'em, I too feel that I can be more judicious in how I spend them.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.