Software Piracy - How to prevent?

[crook]

Hello all CEans!

Idea for this thread comes from what I saw on microsoft download center. I tried to download internet explorer latest beta and I was prompted to install an active X control. It would check if my windows software is geniune or not.

I seriously think that this is a good initiative by Microsoft. They won't allow downloads from their site to the people who use pirated windows. This made me think of following -

1. How is geniune software detected?
2. How can one prevent software being copied illegally?

As software piracy is responsible for loss of bullions of dollars, its a serious question. I do not intened to find solid answers to question 2 above, but I think it would be worth discussing on our forum. Who knows, we may find out a way to prevent software piracy

Let us see what CEans have to say about this issue.

Crook

[The_Big_K]

Originally Posted by crook

As software piracy is responsible for loss of bullions of dollars, its a serious question. I do not intened to find solid answers to question 2 above, but I think it would be worth discussing on our forum. Who knows, we may find out a way to prevent software piracy

Let us see what CEans have to say about this issue.

Crook

That is indeed true. Let me quote results from ZdNet news -

Software piracy resulted in a loss of $34 billion worldwide in 2005, a $1.6 billion increase over 2004, according to a study commissioned by the Business Software Alliance

Let's see what CEans have to say about this.

-The Big K-

[crazyboy]

Don't know what will be the answer of this...
But certainly want to comment one things...

Always Hackers are more powerful than makers.....

These are my views...
Based on experience....

--Crazy

[The_Big_K]

Originally Posted by crazyboy

Always Hackers are more powerful than makers.....

--Crazy

That's a debate topic ! Let's have another discussion thread for it under Debate Center.

This thread will be dedicated to discussions on software piracy.

-The Big K-

[crook]

let us take each question one by one.

1.How is geniune software detected?

Can anyone answer this? I'm not a computer engineer

crook

[The_Big_K]

Well, let me drop my $0.02 -

I'm not aware of the existing mechanisms to identify pirated software and how effective it is. But here's something I think might work:

Each software copy must contain a unique id. As soon as the first copy of this software is installed, the user *must* be taken to a software registration page where the user will enter this unique ID and get his/her software copy registered.

A tool, well integrated with the softwarem will gather information about the hardware configuration of the machine on which the copy is installed. So, if someone tries to install the software on any other machine, his/her copy will never be enabled.

Using IP address of the machine, the user can well be tracked. I'm not sure if this will work.

What do you think?

-The Big K-

[The_Big_K]

(Bump) (Bump)

Are we lacking ideas here?

-The Big K-

[crazyboy]

Originally Posted by The_Big_K

(Bump) (Bump)

Are we lacking ideas here?

-The Big K-

No. of idea are not important...How full proof it is that is important..

--Crazy

[The_Big_K]

I wish if we could come up with a solution for a problem which is responsible for loss of trillions of dollars all over the world.

But we do need more ideas, what do you say? If we come up with something, we can take it up as a project on CE forums.

-The Big K-

[instruite]

Originally Posted by The_Big_K

Well, let me drop my $0.02 -

I'm not aware of the existing mechanisms to identify pirated software and how effective it is. But here's something I think might work:

Each software copy must contain a unique id. As soon as the first copy of this software is installed, the user *must* be taken to a software registration page where the user will enter this unique ID and get his/her software copy registered.

A tool, well integrated with the softwarem will gather information about the hardware configuration of the machine on which the copy is installed. So, if someone tries to install the software on any other machine, his/her copy will never be enabled.

Using IP address of the machine, the user can well be tracked. I'm not sure if this will work.

What do you think?

-The Big K-

Presently all softwares have serial keys or ids which are nothing but unique ids you suggested and well someone or other will surely find the way to crack it
Most people dont want to register all their softwares and tracking by IP address is not good beacause IP addresses are not static for each machine, they can be changed, there are range of free ip/proxy addresses available the better way is to use the MAC id of the ethernet card which is unique with each card but again problems like what if I want to change card or computer

Companies are trying different methods for example Norton started something like activation of your serial number and they had some mechanism to not to activate more than one machine for a single serial number online but again they had a option of calling by telephone, telling a code generated by software and getting activation code well hackers even cracked on it and generated that code using software

and one of my friend had told me before that the pirated version of his windows OS was detected genuine by online method of microsoft

[The_Big_K]

Originally Posted by instruite

and one of my friend had told me before that the pirated version of his windows OS was detected genuine by online method of microsoft

Microsoft won't let you download their freeware without verifying your system for geniune Windows software. The question is, how do they verify it?

-The Big K-

[instruite]

Originally Posted by The_Big_K

Microsoft won't let you download their freeware without verifying your system for geniune Windows software. The question is, how do they verify it?

-The Big K-

BY statement about my friend in previous post I meant that he was able to get everything a genuine user will get because his pirated version was recognized as geninue version by microsoft detection method

and as for detection method I had read an article before on same will try to find it and post it here

[kidakaka]

Ok, heres my input ... nice topic to discuss though ...

Has anyone read Soft Wars by Larry Ellison? In the book, Larry talks about a world where the PC would be network PC, wherein the software would not be lying installed on the machine, but it would be lying somewhere on a central server.

Something along the likes of Google Spreadsheets, Writely, etc. So with AJAX capability in the browsers and more and more web applications like the above mentioned coming forth, the software paradigm has shifted from desktop based applications to a centralized platform, lets term it as a Service Deployment Platform (I know stealing this terminology, but it works in this context).

The most prevalent implementation of this model has to be World of Warcraft by Blizzard, wherein, you need a CD-Key which is again cross-checked once you sign-on to the server to use the service (the application here). Now, you do have program hacks and noCD patches running out there, but at the end of the day, the entire play is at the server side where it checks whether there is a one-to-one mapping of player to CDKey. I think Half-Life 2, had tried a similar model through Steam (but it was cracked finally!!).

To summarize, I would say that the best way to avoid software piracy is to offer the product as an online service and have an attractive payment model which ensures repeat usage.

Cheers!

[crook]

Originally Posted by instruite

and one of my friend had told me before that the pirated version of his windows OS was detected genuine by online method of microsoft

This is possible. It might have happened that the actual owner of the windows copy never cared to register with microsoft. In order to verify, microsoft much be checking the registrations in its database. Someone from Microsoft can clarify on this