In my earlier thread I proposed the following scenario: You purchased a license for Poser 5. Curious Labs has decided to use machine-dependent activation. There is some concern in the rumor mill that Curious Labs is in fragile financial health. (I am not saying this is true, just that there are rumors.) You plan to purchase a new computer in six months and you want to use Poser 5 on that machine. Is it ethical for you to obtain (for your own use only) a copy of the hacker program that will crack the Poser 5 activation? (I know that this is no longer necessary because CL has backed off their machine-dependent activation scheme. This is a "what if" scenario. And I am not asking is it "legal"; I am asking is it ethical.) Some people said that it IS unethical to do this: to obtain a cracked version of Poser 5 (or, more accurately, what is actually available is a key cracker, to defeat the activation code in the legitimate copy of Poser 5 -- not an actual version of Poser that has been cracked). There is an important aspect of this scenario that was never addressed that I believe deserves some consideration. I'd like you to examine this scenario once again in a slightly different light. There are several key points to keep in mind: 1) You have a legal copy of Poser 5 to which you have purchased a license. It ran on your old computer which has now died. 2) You had legitimate reasons to fear that Curious Labs was in frail health. For example, a) CL seemed overly obsessed with protecting their product and willing to go to great lengths to protect themselves at the expense of the users. b) Many in the user community are up-in-arms about program bugs and CL's other stupid business decisions and many threaten never to purchase another version of Poser as long as they live c) Poser 5 was released prematurely with significant bugs, which could be interpreted as a sign of insufficient cash flow d) CL has a reduced price sale shortly after introducing the product, which could be interpreted as a sign of insufficient cash flow 3) You download the cracker tool, but don't actually use it on Poser (because you have a legal copy and don't need to use it) 4) Curious Labs does go out of business before you buy your next computer. 5) Because of insufficient sales (for whatever reasons) and the unhappiness in the user community, Curious Labs is unable to find a buyer to take over the product because all potential buyers are afraid that it would be an unwise investment. 6) For whatever reason, Curious Labs does not have sufficient resources to develop or is contractually prohibited from providing a universal key to unlock Poser. (I believe the activation scheme is licensed from another company and they may not allow CL to provide a universal key because it may compromise other products that use the same scheme. Even if this is not the truth, assume it to be so for the purposes of this discussion.) 7) You buy a new computer. 8) Because the only way to install and continue to use Poser is to use your cracker tool, is it unethical to do so? It seems to me that a number of people said in the earlier thread that "Yes, this is unethical." Since I have expanded the original scenario slightly by noting that (1) there is no new company that owns Poser and (2) no universal key has been provided by CL, I am asking again, do you still think it is unethical to crack Poser? I didn't mention (but should have) the last two points in my earlier discussion because I thought (incorrectly) that is was self-evident: If a new company had purchased Poser or if CL had provided a universal key, there would be no need to crack Poser. So, if you still think this is unethical ... why? 1) Is it possible to have an ethical obligation to an entity that no longer exists? 2) If "yes" ... why? 3) Is anyone suffering harm by your action? 4) If "yes" ... who? If "no" ... how can it be unethical? Thanks for your participation (and for all the great ideas that were shared in the prior thread)!! P.S. The only reason I'm "picking on" Curious Labs is because they are "in the news". I could just as easily have used FXRealm and their product Creature Creator with which a very similar situation once existed.

Sigh why did you have to say Creature Creator? I have a copy that I purchased that I cannot use because they have never replied to my emails. If I could find a crack for that one I would use it since I paid too much for it in the first place and am not able to use it at all. I would do it. If the company was out of business and even if another bought it. Why should they hand me a key? As long as I own my copy and am not sharing it with anyone then yes it is ethical. Is it ethical for a company to do this to their customers knowing that they will no longer be able to use the product if they can't get a legal key? Marque

Oh my... this is a very specific scenario. Feels like a typical legal case (as a lawyer, I have to deal with those on a daily basis). But your question was about ethics... Due to the very specific nature of a software product (with the abstract notion of licenses most people find very hard to understand), i'd say that it's not unethical in this case. It may be illegal, but that's another question. Moreover, I think that software companies (and music publishers) are missing the mark when it comes to copy protection techniques. When you look a round just a bit you'll find that there are no fail-safe methods. Within days of its release, I already found several warez versions of Poser5 floating around in cyberspace. The same goes for every popular title (you name it : MAX, Lightwave, Photoshop, etc...). The more sophisticated the copy protection scheme, the greater the challenge for the crackers and the faster you'll find these illegal versions (sounds like a paradox, doesn't it ?). There really is trouble in paradise when the copy protection technology actually degrades the product (amply demonstrated in the initial Poser5 release) and when warez versions are actually more stable and reliable than the official product. That's where I draw the line. Instead of spending large amounts of money on (per definition) flawed copy protection schemes, these companies should go back to the basics : proper service, good documentation (when did you last encounter a good printed manual for an expensive piece of software ?) and support... For the record : I frequently hang out on hackers forums and know my way around in the software underground,... BUT I DO NOT use illegal software (one of those principles I tend to live by); I'm just curious how this movement works. (hackers don't just do it for fun, as some people mentioned in previous threads. That much I've learned over the past few years.)

I try to avoid these threads because of the self rightous people the feel obligated to procliam they paid for thier copy of "winzip" or other shareware BLah Blah .... BUT in reality you pay for a lisencse to use a software package We all know that ANY program can be "Kracked" Im not here to pass judgement on any one But i know of Companieswho own legitimet Seats of Max But run kracked copies on important projects because of random false "FAILURE TO DETECT HARDWARE KEY" incidents that hurt production time. A buddy of mine wanted to install his purchaed copy of Lightwave3D on his laptop that he takes to client sites ,but when he realized the risk fo having his little purple Dongle Lost or Damaged during travel he Downloaded the "Kracks" to run his Legit copy of lightwave without the hardware dongle. But newtek Got thier Money for his Liscense BTW if CL goes under and no one Buys poser( Not Likely) it becomes "adandonware" ,free for all like Meta C dance studio. People are going to do as they please with regards to software I personally see no point in posting Hypothetical scenarios to see peoples reaction to your possible use of a "Kracked" version of something. if you are going to do it ,its easliy done so, do it and keep your mouth shut about it. if you feel you cant justify it morally/ethicly, then dont do it .

Abandonware is not free and illegal.

I am going to complicate more the scenario: If you buy a software and this software has bugs, then you disassemble it and correct the bugs, so you have a bug-free version of the software?????? If CL or others have the right to put protection schemes to protect their interests, you also have the right to protect and defend your own interests. I all related threads most people defend the interest of the Companies with legal and ethical excuses, but you have forgotten that consumer has rights and laws also, maybe they are weak, but they exists, is the task of everyone to make these rights and laws stronger, unless you have a lot of stocks of these companies..........

Well said. Let's stand up for consumer rights. Here's another question: is it unethical to read someone else's copy of the newspaper, when the newspaper publisher loses your money as a result? According to CL, software should be like a book - only one person can read a copy at the same time. Quite right. And I can lend the book when I'm not reading it to whomever I like without referring back to the publisher. I can sell it secondhand or give it away without reference back to the publisher as well. And I should be able to do the same with software. It's like a book.

Interesting that this question came back up. I noticed in the prior thread, someone mentioned that even the existance or owning a "crack" program is unethical. The justification is that by doing so one encourages the warez community. The situation that bitplayer clarifies here is not abandonware. It would not be legal or ethical to post copies of Poser 5 for free distribution if (as in the situation above) CL went "under". That is not the question here. The question has to do with the rights of the consumer when a product / license has been legally and ethically obtained. It is my oppinion that in the described situation, using a crack program to allow continued use of an ethically obtained license is ethical. To answer the specifics above: 1 - There is an ethical obligation to a now "defunct" entity. (One cannot even in that case freely distibute the product) However, it is not unethical to continue to use one's own license (even if the code must be modified to do so becuase of the now defunct status of the company). 2,3,4 - The ethical obligation exists still (as described in 1) because there is still ownership of the product. It or some portion of it's ownership may someday be sold to another company. The potential value of that sale is undermined if the product is freely available and distributed. But, as in 1 above, no one is harmed in the use of a crack to allow one to continue using one's own license. (Side note: I don't necessarily agree with the concept that if no one is harmed that any particular decision is ethical. It is possible to make unethical choices and still harm no one.) Interesting thread...

Abandonware is deadware. If there is no longer any support for it, and you did not take legal and appropriate steps to insure that you had continuous use for it before the company died, then too bad; life sucks that way. Will you get punished for running a cracked bit of software that came from a now-dead company? Prolly not. Is it therefore ethical? Definately not, unless you bought the rights to do so from that defunct company. Don't like it? Then choose to spend your money on software that guarantees your right to continuous usage (and perhaps eve modification) even if the company who wrote it dies. You collectively determine the market - just that most consumers are too resigned to "the way it is" to realize that fact. Many in this thread act as if you have a right to the use and manipulation of the software you buy. Thing is, you don't, unless the software author gives you that right. That's exactly why I prefer Linux and Open Source software (even if it runs under Windows) whenever and wherever I can find it, because I am guaranteed those rights from the get-go. If Red Hat or Sun or whomever dies, the GPL and other licenses like it guarantee that I can do what I want or need to insure that my copy of software still runs just fine, even allowing me to upgrade it or to iron out bugs myself if needed. For isntance, I use GIMP because I know that unlike Photoshop, I can do pretty much the same things for post-work, and if gimp.org died tomorrow, so what? I have the source code right here, and can do pretty much whatever I want to with it if its for my own use. The whole question is moot point though, because the latest Service Release from Curious Labs disables the hardware registration scheme entirely - all you need is a valid serial number. If you crack Poser 5 now, you are warezing/pirating/etc, since there would not be a need to do so, even if Steve Cooper and Larry Weinburg both died two minutes ago and Curious Labs got sucked up by a freak tornado. /P

"BTW if CL goes under and no one Buys poser( Not Likely) it becomes "adandonware" ,free for all like Meta C dance studio."

If CL goes under the parent company retains ownership and rights to Poser.

I'm just surprised nobody has put a DEAD HORSE picture in this thread yet.

An interesting but misleading discussion. There is only one true scenario and it is that someone owns a product and has released it for use under a prescribed set of conditions. Any attempt to circumvent such conditions is subversive. It does not matter if these conditions are unreasonable, unfair or inconvenient nor are they subject to modifications based upon some hypothetical future or set of circumstances. Using it otherwise is in direct opposition to the owner's stated desire solely for self benefit and is therefore ultimately unethical if ethics is defined as including a moral philosophy granting intellectual and property rights to originating individuals. Now I won't lose any sleep just because some stranger decides the rules do not apply to him or her. But such strangers may benefit if they simply admit to this rather than seeking validation through some convulted process of self justification. A whore who insists upon being married in a white gown fools none but herself. (not that I have any moral qualms about prostitutes) An ethical stance is adopted for one's self, not for another. As such it does not matter if the target of your behaviour still exists or not. Nor does it matter if anyone is harmed by your action. Any action contrary to one's personal beliefs is a betrayal of such beliefs. In such circumstances one must either admit to moral weakness or re-examine one's ethical code. Either way, one simply discovers that "ethics" is a fluid, ever changing state of being- a chimera. Not surprisingly one also discovers that "ethics" is not consistent from one individual to the next. Therefore discussions of this sort, while mildy amusing, will remain always unresolved. Of course, "ethical" should not be confused with "legal". The law has much sharper teeth than philosophy's. - Jack

Ethical - unethical... This whole discussion is bogus. All those die hard ethics-junkies will probably be the first ones to start-up WinMX and download a crack for Poser 5 if CuriousLabs goes down the drain. I have no problem at all with having or using such a crack with a legitimate version of Poser. I bought this product and I have a right to use it. Either CuriousLabs provides me with the codes I need to do that - or I will do so myself. I see nothing unethical about this. When it comes to CuriousLabs, I have changed my opinion a lot in the last year. At first they seemed to be a really well working group with good ideas. But when they started with their hairbrained copyright-protection-schemes they really started to go down the drain. Even Quark - a software corporation known for their paranoid protection-schemes - learned that this was not the way to go if you want to keep your customers. Quark 5 has almost no copyright-protection at all - and Quark still exists, sells software that is seriously overpriced and thrives. And what does CuriousLabs do? They come up with an even more restrictive way to protect their bug-ridden software. Hey guys, have you read any news lately? Restrictive copyright-protection-systems are a waste of time. They get hacked in no time and only bug legitimate customers. Sometimes it helps to stick your head out of your think-tank and get a reality-check. Fine with me... I will wait for DAZ to come up with their new software.

... so why do you folks keep raising the question? "All the other kids do it" was never justification for bad behavior, nor is it now. Carolly

"All those die hard ethics-junkies will probably be the first ones to start-up WinMX and download a crack for Poser 5 if CuriousLabs goes down the drain." One more time: With SR2, you don't need a crack to run Poser 5 - just a valid serial numberbecause the patch removes the Hardware Protection Scheme Nurse? I need a bigger Clue-by-Four, please. /P

here ya go Pen.. Vicki wielding the latest, industrial-strength, clue by SIX (with high impact polystyrene handle) for those really stubborn point that need to be reenforced :-)

You have the "It's mine and I'll do what I want." crowd vs. the "I'll carry my bleeding child an extra block to the ER because jaywalking is against the law." crowd. The vast majority of people fit somewhere in between. In this scenario, most people who want to use the software are going to avail themselves of a readily available means of doing that if no other alternative exists. Some may feel varying degrees of guilt over using the cracker, but in the end, they use it. To me, this is common sense over ethics taken to a nonsensical extreme. The company got their money. The customers got to use the product the paid for in good faith. Obviously, other people feel differently. In this specific case, I don't see (what I think most people would do) as being unethical or somehow corrosive to the moral basis of society. On the contrary, I'm not sure I'd want to live in a world where most people would simply stop using Poser. Perhaps that's an outlaw attitude, but I'm more concerned about a society in which people slavishly adhere to an ideal, however noble in concept, without questioning it's real harm or good. BTW, the current popular ethical quiz seems to be, "Would Jesus drive an SUV?"

Yeahyeahyeah... But does anyone have a free copy of Poser5 they can float me...?

Cooler, that's a nice prop. Is that Vicky 3 wielding it?

thanx for the kind words but nope that's V2 with my bib overalls tex/trans/bump maps for the catsuit. I hadn't gotten V3 yet when I threw the clue-by-four together

jval, post 12: I wonder if maybe your argument fails to take into consideration the very real (but admitedly vague) concept of "fair use" which is well established in law (at least in U.S. law).

Bitplayer: I am aware of the "fair use" concept but consider it to be more of a legal argument than an ethical one. (You asked if it was ethical, not legal.) As the final remark in my initial posting suggests, I do not consider the two to be necessarily equivalent. Basically, I think it is unethical to agree initially to a set of conditions and then later ignore the fact of your agreement. It seems very much like acquiring something under false pretences. Please note that I do not claim to always act in concert with my conscience. As I also suggested, I frankly do not believe that most of us are completely governed by our ethical postures. This is probably a good thing as ethical codes tend to be somewhat inflexible by nature. The root problem is that ethical standards are inherently artificial constructs of our imaginations and desires. They are not natural laws of the universe such as gravitational attraction or the speed of light. And so we have a tendency to adapt our ethics to our circumstances. This of course makes a mockery of the entire concept and, historically, ethical stances have indeed proven to be a moving target. I appreciate that some feel otherwise about the sanctity of ethics. However, the mere fact that we have found it necessary to invent saints implies that this feeling is far from universal. - Jack

lol, cooler! Great image!

The most important thing about ethics is that we hold to our own, despite pressures and inveigling by neighbors, peers, and bosses. Once we decide upon a standard, wherever we draw the line, it is up to us to live by it. It isn't up to me to impose my standards upon a scientist, a secretary, or a kid on the street, but I can make my opinion and example known to others. Providing an example is perhaps the strongest statement we can make. Do we shun thieves or accept them and their warez? A decade ago I was interviewing an artist for a position in a game company. When he found out that I didn't have a certain software program worth about $3,000 (I believe it was Lightwave), he opened a folder full of disks and offered me not only that program, but software from his former company and other stuff... whatever I wanted. I told him simply that I didn't accept software, but bought what I needed. I was outraged at the attempt to bribe me, but maintained my calmness, finished the interview, and escorted him out. I told HR that as soon as he got his paws on our products that bumbling puppydog would have spread them everywhere, so there was no way that I was going to hire him. If there were no johns, prostitution wouldn't exist, and the same thing goes for prostitution of the soul. If there were no takers, the people who deal in warez would have to find something else to sell or some other way to be accepted. Carolly

I told HR that as soon as he got his paws on our products that bumbling puppydog would have spread them everywhere, so there was no way that I was going to hire him. Indeed... of course, the one thing most folks don't bother to think of is that if your company gets a BSA audit, a single bit of copied/cracked software and the whole company gets hammered with a $150,000 fine - per copy found. At home folks can feel a bit more smug about it - there's no way the BSA has anywhere near the resources to chase down every single user. OTOH, DRM (Digital Rights Management) is coming, and with Win2k Service Pack 3 and Win XP Service Pack 1, you agreed by EULA to give MS the right to pop on into your hard drive any time they want and search for priated stuff (which is why I don't keep anything important on my Windows partitions.) And if you don't patch it, it remains open for every bug that comes along. Where do you want to go today? (evil grin)... I strongly suspect that if CL partnered in Microsoft's upcoming DRM program, fully 1/3 of Renderosity's Poser users would be shit out of luck, as DRM kicked in and disabled Poser.exe outright, then notified CL that so-and-so at IP addy such-and-such whose OEM Windows serial number matches to Joe Sixpack... well, you get the picture.

*"you agreed by EULA to give MS the right to pop on into
your hard drive any time they want and search for priated stuff"

"as DRM kicked in and disabled Poser.exe outright, then notified CL that so-and-so at IP addy such-and-such whose OEM Windows serial number matches to Joe Sixpack... well, you get the picture."

pardon me but doesnt all this "IP Snooping "requires an internet connection!???

exactly how Will MS "POP IN" and check a hard drive not connected to the internet???
I know about XP's activation scheme but doesnt XP pro forgo this scheme??

This is silly !!!!
ALL the fearmongering in the world wont stop unliscensed use of
In my opinion

"exactly how Will MS "POP IN" and check a hard drive not connected to the internet???" Good point, but you're going to have to get the warez somehow, aren't you? That, or you're going to have to get a second computer and park 'em on that. .Net is also moving towards this thing called "application service providers", where the box will be online whether you want it to or not, else the thing will just crap out after a period of time. I never said that warez kiddies would be stopped cold. However, most warez users (average folks who think it's okay to steal software for various reasons) have a single computer, and it is usually hooked up to the Internet. The rest just falls into place from there. Sure, the die-hard punks will still have their illegal goods, but the vast majority of everyone else won't all the sudden, and the punks who do survive will have to put up some serious obstacles and jump through some mammoth hoops (for both software and hardware) to keep MS from snooping but still use pirated MS-compatible software. This will discourage even more kiddies from playing the game and instead go legit. When it comes to popping warez kiddies, 3/4 glass of water is far more refreshing than an empty one, yes? BTW, it's not "fearmongering" at all. DRM is already well underway and is discussed heavily in IT watching circles (ferinstance, search for "DRM" in http://www.theregister.co.uk ), and you have only to read the EULA in SP3 for Win2k or SP1 for WinXP... You don't have to take my word for it - go find out for yourself. /P

jval, carolee Um...what was the reason for the copy protection in the first place? If that reason is gone and you can no longer validate your LEGITIMATE purchase, I see no ethical problem at all with defeating the protection. Emporer's clothes.

Hmmm, prostitution, warez - the oldest profession meets the newest? When hookers start distributing their favors for free ala P2P that will indeed be something new. Fortunately or unfortunately, prostitutes usually don't act out of a desire for recognition or as an intellectual exercise.

BTW, the current popular ethical quiz seems to be, "Would Jesus drive an SUV?"<<< No, he wouldn't. He'd be a more socialist-leaning member of the Green Party and ride a bicycle. ;-) Take care and be well. casamerica

So many people and so many different "valid" ethical points of view. What's wrong with, "If it's legal it's ethical; if it's illegal, it's not ethical." Sure would simplify things a lot.

"If it's legal it's ethical; if it's illegal, it's not ethical." Small catch, slavery was once legal - not ethical. With the likes of Ken 'Enron' Lay, etc. bribing - excuse me, lobbying our lawmakers to look the other way while they loot, pollute and generally abuse the rest of us for their own profit, I'm no more assured of the ethics of some laws these days. Jesus would probably ride a donkey or walk as he did back in the day. More like, "Klaatu barada niktu! Fallwell et al, You're toast. Everybody else, Let's Party!" OK, so it's my religious belief :-)

I think there is a difference here between ethics and legality which isn't fully being picked up on, and that relates to this EULA business again. Penguinisto writes: "Will you get punished for running a cracked bit of software that came from a now-dead company? Prolly not. Is it therefore ethical? Definately not, unless you bought the rights to do so from that defunct company" It can be argued that you do have the right ethically even if you don't legally. There is good law and bad law. A law that allows companies to write any old rubbish into a EULA (such as the right to hack users' computers) and pretends that somehow users "agree" to this, is not good law. Agreement is an act of volition. You cannot tell me what I agree to; it's up to me to tell you what I agree to, or the word has no meaning any longer.

Attached Link: NO WAREZ JUST BOOBS

*".Net is also moving towards this thing called "application service providers", where the box will be online whether you want it to or not, else the thing willjust crap out after a period of time."* Oh yeah.... Like Larry elison's( Oracle) Ill fated network computer device that was going to supplant the PC/MAC and Put his arch enemy, Bill Gates in the Poor house He He He!! NIce Plan until he realized that Such a device ,where you do all of you computing Via network software on a central server, required a T1 line in every users home even then processor intensive tasks like photoshop and 3D work was not Viable and what about those darn Laptops !!! this get funnier and funnier :-) BTW ever heard of firewall technology??? MAC OSX has such a rigd Fire built into its unix Kernel that My own ISP "Comcast" Cant even ping me much less "Pop in" to Look around. beside even if consumers were Stupid enough to subcribe to some "application server thingy" the system could never handle all the naked vickies from the poser community and would crash :-)

"BTW ever heard of firewall technology???" Yep. OTOH, that firewall had better be a real nice one, and it'll have to keep your machines from dialing out, as well as the external ones from dialing in. There is more than one way to skin the proverbial cat, and eventually it all settles down to a question of how much work, expense, and time you're willing to put into something just to snitch a copy of some bit of software for free. There comes a point where defeating the protections will outweigh the costs of just buying a legit version. In either case, I refuse to argue with any brick walls on the subject, since the facts are already present and verifyable, and if a warez kiddie wants to be misled into thinking it'll be easy, it'll only be that much more fun to see what happens when they discover that it isn't. Like I said, and you can mark it for posterity: If Curious Labs got serious about piracy and partnered with Microsoft in their DRM project, I predict that fully 1/3 or more of Renderosity's membership will be exposed as wareze kiddies, and will find that they can't operate their stolen goods anymore. As I mentioned earlier, the hard core warez kiddies will still get their stuff and use it, but they'll find that they have bigger and bigger hoops to jump through before they get their prize. Once it was a simple matter of finding the right website, or hitting up Napster. Now, you have to endure a zillion porn popups and a huge chunk of the warez is either corrupt, misleadingly labelled, or infected. The vast majority of warezers (that is, all those ordinary folks who leech off of KaZaA and such) will be stopped cold by all of these hazards, as well as by the measures they'll have to take just to get and use the stuff. /P

Only 1/3rd, Peng? I'd be willing to bet it's more than HALF. I have no proof of course, just a guess. :) At work, where I'm a system admin, we use login scripts to run a complete software audit on the pc everytime a user logs in (and there is no getting around logging in, we have everything locked down so tight). If it finds something that is not in our list of authorized software, it uninstalls it, reboots the machine, and alerts us. Pretty slick. This includes wallpaper apps, which hamper our ability to work on these machines remotely (some are four states away) due to the time it takes to redraw the screens between connections. Eventually, most of our folks just stopped installing games, naked girl desktops, and unlicensed copies of MS Office. They decided it wasn't worth it. The fines are steep, that's for damn sure.

" "BTW ever heard of firewall technology???" Yep. OTOH, that firewall had better be a real nice one, and it'll have to keep your machines from dialing out, as well as the external ones from dialing in. " Ever heard of a CAT 5 cable? Just unplug it.

I'm not as sure as Penguinisto about the future. History has no example of such a system an I don't think technology alters the fundamental equation. If enough people want something, someone will find a way to make it available. Even punishment doesn't seem to work, as witnessed by the continued popularity of drugs, etc. Since Microsoft, et al don't have a monopoly on brainpower, I don't see this changing for any significant period of time. The best solution is the contemplated inclusion of such schemes into the hardware itself. Even then, there's the possibility that genius hacker (not a warez kiddy) will find a way to circumvent it. There's also the matter of public acceptance. Intel found this out with their processor ID number. People are becoming more concerned with privacy and at the same time feeling less and less assured that business and government have their (the people's) best interest at heart. Big business and their legislative cronies have managed, by persistence to get their way in some cases but I think an important confrontation is looming. We'll just have to see how it plays out. Folks may grudgingly accept measures in the workplace because they feel they have little choice. Privacy and control in their homes is another matter Strangely, I think many people are more willing to give up personal freedoms and privacy because of a perceived fear of terrorism than they would be if you start messing with their precious hard drives.

"Ever heard of a CAT 5 cable? Just unplug it." Sure, but like I said - you gotta move that multi-megabyte pile of warez around somehow... and you still have to get those warez somehow as well. Like I said - if you think you'll feel safer by simply unplugging your cable/phone-line or relying on your firewall to prevent the warez cops from finding your shiznit, then go for it. Meanwhile, perhaps y'all can explain to those of us who actually work IT for a living, folks who know that you can barely trust a firewall to keep the script kiddies out, let alone an OEM who wrote your OS and the networking stack you're using to dial out with... how you think you're suddenly invincible. Sure, you can use a Linux firewall - I do that now. I wrote my own custom ruleset for iptables in roughly 30 minutes. I use portsentry to lock down everything but the TCP/UDP ports that I determine, and to launch active tracking and retaliatory scripts against script kiddies who do more than just scan. However, what's to keep your OS from choking up and refusing to run unless it has a clear connection to a phone line? What's to prevent the latest and greatest "critical security patch" from containing code that seeks and deletes software that contains known warezed serial numbers? How are you going to prevent the OS itself from policing your hard drive? Thing is, you can't, unless you replace your OS with something more amenable to privacy concerns. You think you can outsmart the folks who wrote your operating system and the software you use - I'm here to whack you with the holy Clue-By-Four and reveal the fact that for the most part you cannot, and the few instances where you can are beginning to dry up. In order for you to circumvent things, you would have to go to great resource- and time-eating lengths to get around these protections, especially if the creators are serious about it (of which Microsoft is only half-way serious about... so long as they make 800% profit margins off of their OS sales, you've nothing to worry about. When that profit margin starts dropping dramatically, then the fireworks will commence.) Of course, you can always just isntall Windows 98 or an early un-patched 2000 or ME, and just use that, since none of those have DRM. But then, you'll only get a limited amount of use out of them, at least until you discover that even cracked and warezed, Poser 6 can't run on anything older than Windows XP Home, or OS 11.3 or whatever. Even Win2k is three years old this month... Even now, using warez has to be tougher than using legit software for the most part. Take 3D Studio Max for instance. I have seen a kid come in and ask to get his machine fixed, because his computer suddenly lost 3/4 of it's power "for some weird reason." It turned out that he had a cracked copy of 3DS Max on it. Now, for those who have legit copies, you know that 3DS requires a hardware dongle... so how did they crack it? The warez monkey who cracked it wrote a bit of code that launches before 3DS Max' main portion of the executable does, which interacts with the LTP1 and a few other subsystems in Windows, and through them it fools 3DS into thinking the dongle is there and that it is legit. Problem is, that little chunk of code doesn't shut off when 3DS Max does, so all the memory and CPU power that Max ate during execution is still being held, and your OS cannot release it becuase the little "dongle fooler" is still holding it as being active and needed. Open two .max files, and twice the resources get ate. Leave 3DS Max running for too long, and it eventually slows your computer to a crawl as the temp files pile up. I just told the kid to ditch his warez. He told me that he didn't want to, so I sent him on his way and had my students (esp. the one who referred him to our little impromptu repair service) refuse to repair the problem. So - for those of you who are cracking 3DS Max, now you know (partially) why you have to reboot after you run your little bit of 3DS warez, and why it will run like shit after a fashion. How do you fix it? Not my problem - you deal with it. That is the point I was getting at - you have to jump through bigger and bigger hoops to play with your warez. If I wanted 3DS Max and bought it, then as a legit user I wouldn't suffer any of this, and could use it all day long without having to reboot my machine. As for personal freedoms, it's a real simple decision: If you don't like Microsoft digging around your hard drives, then don't use Microsoft products. /P

"LPT1", ie, the parallel port. typos bad... /P

I've been in the computer game since the CP/M days though I am by no means a systems level guru or security expert. No doubt MS and others can make things really tough. I just have doubts that they can do more than shift the boundary somewhat more in their favor on this. Given time, any algorithm can be cracked. Even hardware is not impervious. AMD locked their CPUs to prevent overclocking, someone came up with the so called Goldfinger cards to bypass it. Requiring everyone to be hooked to the 'net to run their systems is unrealistic and unworkable. For every dozen incompetent cracks there will be one sophisticated one that works. Offense-Defense, the age old game in war, cryptography etc. applies equally here. One side may gain a temporary advantage, but only temporary. Sure, MS could come up with a super hardened, phone home crack killing system but they also have to sell it to govenments, institutions and individuals from Bangor to Bombay. There's a certain point where security and intrusion become negative selling points. Penguinisto's vision of the future may be correct, I just wouldn't bet too much money on it.

"For every dozen incompetent cracks there will be one sophisticated one that works." Yes, and I never said that warez would be stamped out completely. However, it will get tougher and tougher, to the point where the casual home user will find it too costly in time or money to make it worth their while. If the boundary shifts that far, then it is effectively stamped out.

Understood. I simply believe that given the free availability of the means and inability to preclude the free exchange of information among talented people (along with public resistance to draconian strategies) will keep the status quo from being changed as substantially as you suggest. At this point, the only thing preventing some small group from building a nuclear device is the diffficulty in obtaining the required fissionable material. As I said before, you may be correct. I think the history of technology and human nature make this less likely. As I also tried to point out, technology does not operate in a vacuum. Issues such as the backlash against copy-protected music CDs indicate to me that business has to walk a tightrope between protecting content and losing sales. The emergence of Linux and open source also makes this a less than ideal time for adopting a digital "lockbox" strategy. Looking at the same facts, we come to different conclusions.