Brute-Force can be easily thwarted by a simple throttle on how often you can attempt to enter a key. Only check fully-formed serials (so partials don’t count against you), apply a throttle, and viola. Good for your end user, good for your security.
“The difference is that when something is really stolen, the
original possessor no longer has it. It was pretty much a Bill
Gates “innovation” to mis-apply the term to copying software.”
Fair enough. How about if I read a comic in a comic book store and
then don’t buy it. Technically I’m not stealing, nor am I breaching
copyright. Am I committing a crime?
My opinion on software piracy (the actual use of software to which you do not own a legal/legitimate license) is that you are appropriating a copy of something which has value, without paying for the privilege to do so. This is a dictionary definition of theft.
You could also arguably define theft as a deliberate loss of value.
I think a more appropriate correlation, Tom, would be to ask if you went into a book store, photocopied yourself the comic, and took the photocopies home. Yes, that’s theft and much more akin to what piracy entails.
Regarding Bill Gates letter – it was a different climate back then. People freely shared their programs and most (but not all) were available for free. The attitude was that of sharing innovations until some people (Gates, Allen, Ballmer and Jobs) saw that there was gold in them their hills. They saw this and went for it, charging for their software.
One thing never changes, piracy will always be around.
I want key for internet download manager
i want bullguard antivirus key
send it immediatly
i want key for driver updater pro please
About the software, Im pretty shore that everyone who posted on this forum has Windows on their PCs. What i want to say is how can a simple person with small budget can afford to buy a Windows and a good PC + extra software, when a Windows Home Basic(a version of Windows witch has nothing but the Media Player and some other software)is about $200, AND the Ultimate is about $320 witch has software but not so useful for people who dont do to much on their PC (not useful). I have Ultimate, OEM, with geniune license:) but I recommend, and i think Ill do the same thing soon. BUY APPLE! GOOD USEFUL AND NOT SO EXPENSIVE COMPARED WITH A PC WITH WINDOWS VISTA BOUGHT FOR IT! RIGHT? A GOOD PC IS ABOUT $1000+200 Home basic, I recommend Apple because i saw what can a MAC do. MONEY SPENT WISELY . Cheers
FOR WHO DID not understood my opinion about piracy is that SOFTWARE PIRACY IS BECAUSE THE Price Is to exagerated. I support Original software but what i don`t support (and not only me) is the way they increase their soft prices. REDUCE FOR MORE USE :)) I made a slogan, ha ha. Bye
i quite enjoyed reading you’re article/rant, i agreed with most of it too. Personally i have no problem with keys…but i think there should be no protective softwares preventing the copying of your disc more than three times. Not that you ever need to back it up at all, but it’s nice to be able too without counting one,two,three. i agree that the keys should be divided with - because it helps you keep track of what section you’re typing in. 
a unique software
Whats my reigistration key?
“Tell me as soon as I’ve entered a bad value in the key. Why should I have to go back and pore over my entry to figure out which letter or number I’ve screwed up? You’re the computer, remember? This is what you’re good at.”
Surely that would defeat the purpose? If it tells me which is wrong then I can keep changing it until it’s correct and work out a valid key.
(unless you only allow 1 or 2 wrong in the whole lot)
This brought back nerve-wracking memories of trying to install Neverwinter Nights. Not only did it apparently have both 0 and O in the key but it was printed in a deeply ambiguous squared-off font which made 0, O and D almost entirely indistinguishable. Also V and U were almost indistinguishable. It took about 45 minutes to type in the key from the box and actually get the software installed.
Deeply unhelpful.
James Justin Harrell: you might not pay for software, but don’t forget to tip the developers or donate to the bandwidth bills.
I was just thinking about the comparison with music. Very many people use LimeWire to get their music, some even boasting that they’ve never bought a CD. Sales of mobile phone ringtones are massive, billions of your chosen currency every year. So there must be a significant portion of LimeWire users who also pay extortionate amounts to get ringtones for their phones; even though most phones that can play mp3s can use any mp3 you transfer to them as a ringtone. I guess some people’s value systems are a little out of whack. The CD would probably be cheaper than the ringtone! iTunes certainly would be, although that’s a bad example because they charge twice for ringtones. Anyway, ringtones are evil. Vibrate only!
When I get my 2nd HDD to use as a Time Machine drive to backup my music better I will probably start buying music via iTunesPlus as well as CDs. I haven’t used P2P since Napster, but it goes to show, if paying for something is easy then people will pay.
I think the reasoning behind why the serial space is so large is that it prevents finding a valid serial by brute-force.
You could in theory, write a program that hooks in to the code that the entry panel uses to check the serial is valid and just enter a million serials a second at random and hope you chance on a valid one.
You could say: “If you’re going to that, why not just crack the program?” Well you could do that but then you’ve changed the binary and that might break updates etc.
I’ve heard anecdotal evidence that while people will gladly use a rogue serial, they would rather pay than crack the product.
In that case, having a large serial space makes absolute sense.
Simon.
You cannot stop the people who want to pirate the software. The serials or keygens or cracks will be out there. The serial numbers are just an inconvenience to legitimate users.
The real problem is that because it is so cheap to make copies of software (torrent, CD burners) that what you are selling, a COPY of the software, is valued at near zero.
The economic model is broken. I don’t know how to fix it yet, but I trust the market to figure it out. Perhaps the answer is that there will be no more software billionaires, or perhaps even millionaires, but instead a lot more people making a nice living doing it than there are now by selling open source services and customizations. I don’t know if the market there is big enough to make a real living. Geek Squad makes me think it may be possible, but there would have to be a crash first, and that will hurt the industry.
I write software for internal use. If, perhaps, I wrote PHP web applications, adding functionality or removing bugs from PHP would be in the best interest of my employer, but who would be served by managing the project as a whole, or hosting the whole mess.
I don’t think there is an answer yet, but remember that before Microsoft, software wasn’t generally sold, but shared. This was easier then because everyone who had a computer was a programmer. Now, with it being an appliance for the masses, I don’t know how to make that work. Maybe the OEM’s would be better served to do a collaborative OS and applications. They already pay for it with software licenses. Perhaps paying a few developers would be cheaper than paying for the licenses, but how to keep the moochers from wrecking it for the rest of them?
I think that the software industry, like the music industry, is ready for an extreme shift in business models. I just don’t know the workable model yet. The only thing I know for sure is that the money will be spread across more people, with a lot fewer really rich ones.
Any remember the “Activation Wheel” that they shipped with Hardball 3?
It was three cardboard circles of various sizes connected at the center in a way such that all three could spin individually of each other. Each circle contained a set of images and codes as well as a cut-out portion to allow you to see a small piece of the circle below that one.
Each time you installed the game, the installation would randomly generate 3 images (one for each circle) and then you’d use the wheel to highlight each of the images, revealing an unique code combination you’d need to enter. Very effective, and a pain in the ass to copy.
That was probably 15 years ago, and to think that software activation still depends on some piece of the physical world that comes with it is just baffling.
How hard is it to store all the used registration keys in a database. If the key has already been entered, then you need to prove that you’re the same person who entered the other key… say, with some kind of private identification. A SSN would work well, because most pirates wouldn’t say “REG. NUMBER=a8495jcskjc8”, SSI=********"… but i suppose I wouldn’t trust any company with MY SSN… sigh.
There are plenty of companies making plenty of money selling commercial software that has no such aggravation, like PostgreSQL and Apache.
Really? How much money do they earn in comparison to Microsoft or Oracle? Do they earn money at all, or do they live from spended money from companies like IBM or Sun? Or kill they jobs, which otherwise would nutrify people?
I’m not so optimistic as some naive.
Well, one comment about your scheme where at every wrong character, the system automatically alerts you to the error, that doesn’t work very well. A pirate can easily just type in random value until it works for every value, its very easy. Its the same reason why websites tell you when password and username don’t match until after you’ve entered everything in.