CBombC

I agree with you ctitanic, and I think there should be ways to prevent pirating software, but as others have stated, what if one makes a mistake entering or something else goes wrong, does that warrant a "punishment" like a hard reset?
It actually serves the person right that gets the software unetically, I think that's kind of funny, only to that unethical person. But to others that are innocent, that may make a mistake...that's not worth the risk.
I understand what you are saying and its unfortunate, especially for the developers, that people feel the need to "steal" from them. To those "theives" I say, "You got what you deserve!"

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ctitanic

Originally Posted by CBombC

I agree with you ctitanic, and I think there should be ways to prevent pirating software, but as others have stated, what if one makes a mistake entering or something else goes wrong, does that warrant a "punishment" like a hard reset? It actually serves the person right that gets the software unetically, I think that's kind of funny, only to that unethical person. But to others that are innocent, that may make a mistake...that's not worth the risk. I understand what you are saying and its unfortunate, especially for the developers, that people feel the need to "steal" from them. To those "theives" I say, "You got what you deserve!"

But, I can tell you that the chances of a mistake in a key are almost null, unless you have visited one of those WAREZ, IRC or P2Ps ;) That´s the point that it´s hard to understand by us developers, that we know that such mistake does not exist. Of course in another hand I can understand legal user´s concerns because they don´t know what is behind the code and they could have the feeling of a "TV with a Bomb inside" ;)

If you look around you will find ONLY a complain from a theive. NO a complain from a legal user. Of course, you will find 1000 of complains from other that were not affected but think that they may be affected someday. ;) And STOP, I´m not saying that they may be affected because they are stealing too, I´m talking about those who use legal software and think that they may be affected by mistake.

Well, one of the option of Tweaks2k2 is a Hard Reset, it took me about a year to add that procedure just because I thought that it could scare people to know that there in somewhere inside of my program was "that bomb". I finally included because many of my users asked for it. And I have to say, that in more than 2 years, I have not had ONE users saying that he activated the "bomb" by mistake. ;)

ungluud

[QUOTE=ctitanic]But, I can tell you that the chances of a mistake in a key are almost null, unless you have visited one of those WAREZ, IRC or P2Ps ;)



I would like some more info, please. I think the little post I put in earlier got overlooked, and I was wondering if the code is in previous versions of PM. Also, are you saying that if I'm entering my registration code and I fat finger a key, the "bomb" won't go off? Does it take more than this accidental key to activate it?

I'm not trying to be rude, I really don't know. I bought PM and am very impressed with the support I got when I had problems, so I want to continue using it. It's a very good product.

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ctitanic

[QUOTE=ungluud]

Originally Posted by ctitanic

But, I can tell you that the chances of a mistake in a key are almost null, unless you have visited one of those WAREZ, IRC or P2Ps ;) I would like some more info, please. I think the little post I put in earlier got overlooked, and I was wondering if the code is in previous versions of PM. Also, are you saying that if I'm entering my registration code and I fat finger a key, the "bomb" won't go off? Does it take more than this accidental key to activate it? I'm not trying to be rude, I really don't know. I bought PM and am very impressed with the support I got when I had problems, so I want to continue using it. It's a very good product.

Like I said before, you can be sure that your copy with you key wont blow up even if you make a mistake. I don't know more details, I just know that author and I have talken to him lately about this topic in private. I have gained his trust by telling him always the true no matter if what I'm telling him is not what he want to hear from me. I repeat, you don't have to worry if you are using a legal copy.

vjack99

Originally Posted by CBombC

I WAS considering Pocket Mechanic until I read TADW's post. NO WAY! I'll never even consider owning anything by this developer. I have purchased everything I own and support developers fully, but this is down right rude.

I'm in 100% agreement with you on this. I'll make sure to never buy anything from this developer.

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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
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ironchef

I am a writer, among other things. I have seen my books traded on usenet as PDFs. It's amazing the effort people will go through... scanning pages, doing OCR... Anyway, my point is that I am a content creator too, so I know how you feel, but even if I could I would not nuke a pirate's computer. That is going over the line.

As a software publisher, you have the right to alter your software but nothing else on the host system. Anything beyond that isn't vigilantism... it's vandalism.

A publisher that does vandalize a system in retribution for piracy at least should post clear warnings on their site and in the product itself, so that potential customers who have a problem with the tactic are adequately informed. You might even scare a pirate into going legit. If you nuke their system, they'll be so mad there is no chance of that--if they even understand what happened.

In a larger sense, as a business owner, I think it is a good idea to take the high ground regardless of how frustrated you are. It's the right thing to do. Any job that is high profile will get you some arrows in the back. It's the cost of doing business. You just need to find a reasonable way to minimize them.

Just my $0.02 as a former publishing guy, businessman and author. (And I am a registered user of Tweaks 2k2, though now every time I upgrade I will be holding my breath...)

ctitanic

Originally Posted by ironchef

(And I am a registered user of Tweaks 2k2, though now every time I upgrade I will be holding my breath...)

:hide: :) There is not any hidden bomb in current version of Tweaks2K2 and wont be any in future versions. You don't need to hold your breath :D But... I will be a proud member of any developer alliance where programs of the members will not work if an illegal copy of any of the members programs is installed in a device, no matter if the user have paid for the rest of the programs, of course, telling him to uninstall the illegal copy if he want to continue using the rest of the programs.

ironchef

OK, whew, I misunderstood you!

coolabah

I have been teaching my young kids that it is NOT alright to copy music CD's from friends, it is NOT alright to download songs on the internet. Problem is it seems everyone else's kids do, their parents (who seem typical of a large number of individuals nowadays) seem to have some sort of logic different to mine.
Now this whole piracy/punishment topic is a curly one- I wish I knew the right answer. All I know is that like err- the oldest profession- piracy has been around for a long time and I suspect will continue to be so as long as there are individuals who feel that just because they can, they will . Who of you are old enough to remember the early PC days ? My (of course legit) copy of Quattro Pro (on a 5 1/4 inch floppy of course) would use a flag when it installed itself on your hard disc as an ant-piracy measure, so once installed you could not install again from that floppy until you "uninstalled" from your hard disc and the flag was cleared on the floppy. All well and good until you get a HD crash or courrupted .exe file ..... Then everything went "no piracy measures just enter code on CD case"....now full circle to online activations for PC programs. I am afraid that although the idea of a software thief's PPC hard re-setting itself causes me an embarrasing level of amusement, I think that may leave the developer in an uncomfortable legal position. Bit like the house burglar who sues the home owner when they trip over the garden hose. FWIW, I don't currently own Pocket Mechanic but still plan to buy it when I can afford it. Why on earth would I be worried about the code enclosed that would never execute on my machine ? As for the wasted 50 bytes of my RAM, now that's another story..... ( :) )

gt24

Originally Posted by ctitanic

<snip> So far, your words don´t seem to me of any help neither to this community either developers to find a better solution than what Anton have done.

My words won't be all that helpful, but I suppose I wanted to try and point out why I am not liking this whole hard reset thing.

Just my 2 cents, for I like to chime in every now and again. I have a ton of respect for Tweaks2k2 (yay contest prizes!! :)). Yet, I have a feeling on the hard reset feature...

Hypothetical situation... say the registration algorythm is broken... the person who figured this out could either release a program that would generate keys, or just sprinkle keys here and there as older ones are blacklisted. The second measure would be harder to detect... we will call this situation A.

Hypothetical situation... somebody tries to fish for the information by spaming people stating that, in order to continue to recieve updates to said program, you need to send your registration key to this person, in a reply e-mail... then you'll still have updates... situation B.

In either situation, the user is not having any issues, until the next program update. They update, and they have a hard reset instantly. The pirates in this case didn't really get harmed, because they know what keys work in which versions and they know not to update. The end user on the other hand (aka, the person who PAYS money) got really hurt, and they most likely won't recieve a warm reception at technical support.

Both situations, thankfully, are still hypothetical. However, with the added incentive of this hard reseting, there may be some users who would not only want to harm the developer by providing illegal keys, but also harm the developer by discovering keys that are currently in use, effectively causing the whole userbase to start hard resetting.... this isn't just a customer support issue anymore, this is a MAJOR black mark on the developer, and this most likely will cause some slight economic problems with future sales of that program.

In other words, hard resetting isn't the silver bullet to solve all piracy problems. In fact, not only is there going to be a public backlash, but there is now also a nice convient "virus" on all devices... a virus that does nothing until someday, somebody manages to start blacklisting keys that are in use... there is the payload... and the harm is done.

Situation A, a key generator like sitatuion, seemed like the reason why Tweaks2k2 has a new key algorythm. So, in a way, this could happen to any program that has a hard reset feature. How many blocked keys are required before it is considered to be too many? How many hard resets does it take before another measure is taken (such as a new algorythm)? Who looses in the meantime? Those hard questions are the basis of many complaints.

Despite the temptation to harm pirates, the fact that end users could be harmed too is the major problem here, and thus the main reason why I'm against it. However, I haven't developed any pocket pc programs before, so I can't say I can see it from your point of view. I, however, was always uneasy with the whole key idea (being that somebody could possibly use their math skills and then make it seem like I gave out my key, instead of them generating it!), and adding in a hard reset risk might make me stay away from even the best software.

Some people go through any measures to pirate software. The developer shouldn't lower themselves to the priates level and therefore do anything, even tremendously harm their user base, to try and strike back.

Just my 2 cents. I value everybody's opinion, and I enjoy reading about this issue as it unfolds.

(sorry if my post seems a little out of sync with the conversation, but it takes me a while to type, and I didn't read any posts on the 2nd page! :) I still feel my post is mostly revelent)

blazingwolf

Originally Posted by vjack99

I'm in 100% agreement with you on this. I'll make sure to never buy anything from this developer.

Talk about over reaction.

Wasgo

Originally Posted by blazingwolf

Talk about over reaction.

I disagree. I'm not going to buy anything either. I cannot even remotely comprehend how frustrating it must be to have thousands of people trying to pirate your software as you try to scrap by to make a living. I honestly can't imagine it. What I can say though is that each individual is stealing $14 from him. Less after commission. Personally, I don't think destroying someone's schedule, their voice memos, any scraps of work and everything else is justified for stealing around $10. He's not taking back $10 worth of thier time, he's potentially taking $100s of dollars of their time. Punishing software theft is one thing. Feeling you have the right to destroy things of theirs is another.

blazingwolf

Originally Posted by Wasgo

I disagree. I'm not going to buy anything either. I cannot even remotely comprehend how frustrating it must be to have thousands of people trying to pirate your software as you try to scrap by to make a living. I honestly can't imagine it. What I can say though is that each individual is stealing $14 from him. Less after commission. Personally, I don't think destroying someone's schedule, their voice memos, any scraps of work and everything else is justified for stealing around $10. He's not taking back $10 worth of thier time, he's potentially taking $100s of dollars of their time. Punishing software theft is one thing. Feeling you have the right to destroy things of theirs is another.

Did you steal the software? I imagine your answer is no.

Then you really have nothing to worry about. Here is a link to a post about this on Antons site. If you are one of the pirates then I have no sympathy for you. If not, continue to use the programs, like me, since nothing is going to happen to your information.

Wasgo

Originally Posted by blazingwolf

Did you steal the software? I imagine your answer is no. Then you really have nothing to worry about. Here is a link to a post about this on Antons site. If you are one of the pirates then I have no sympathy for you. If not, continue to use the programs, like me, since nothing is going to happen to your information.

You're right of course that I didn't steal the software. All the software on my PDA was either purchased or won in contests. But the key difference between how you feel and how I feel is that I do feel sympathy for the pirates. Quite a long time ago we moved away from systems of justice where the penalty was disproportionate to the crime. That's what I feel this is. Anton feels frustrated with the legal system's inability to act (I'd assume), and I can't say in this case thats unfair. More than the vigilante justice, what bothers me is how he unilaterally set a punishment I believe is far too harsh for the crime.

One could argue as it's his software, it's his choice, but the real point is that it isn't. The legal system protects people, even those who are commiting crimes and he has no legitimate right to met out punishments as he sees fit.

So you're right, I have nothing to worry about. But that doesn't mean I'll turn a blind eye to what I feel is unfair either.

blazingwolf

I quess we will have to disagree then Wasgo. I'm thinking that a net loss of $20,000(using your figures) prety much justifies this to me.