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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 Reziac on Sunday March 23 2014, @04:27AM
Back in the olden days, WordPerfect Corp's support was extended even to pirated copies. The goodwill that generated sold a lot of upgrades. In my observation, WP's market decline wasn't initiated by the Windows/Word thing, but rather by a shift of policy to only supporting proven-paid customers... which kinda killed that previously-healthy "chomping at the bit to buy an upgrade" market generated by pirated copies.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.