http://www.imesh.com/ Apparently you can "share" versions of poser through this system.

This is illegal because it violates the licensing agreement on most software. The only legitimate way to get poser (or any other non-freebie software is to buy it...

This seems to be just another peer-to-peer file sharing system like the infamous Napster. They've been popping up for the last couple of years and can be used to transfer whatever you like, legal or illegal. I'm sure someone on the iMesh network might be "giving away" Poser, Microsoft Office or anything else you can think of. With the growing presence of high speed internet connections, it's difficult to prevent any digital content from being hijacked. In a reaction, a lot of companies are pushing for laws that will allow them to do things like remotely disable their software via the internet I'm all for protecting people's intellectual property but some of the steps they'd like to use in doing so are just a little scary. BTW searching their user forum, the only reference to poser I found is this: "The Win95.CIH.1003 (Chernobyl virus) has been found in these Poser files: Daz3D - Millennium Girls Morphing Clothing Pak 1 Zygote Daz3D Victoria - Changing Fantasy Suit If you have these files and have not scanned them yet, please do so. This will prevent your machine from being infected and will stop the spread to other users. Thanks!" Sounds like the pirates got burned :-).

lmckenzie, That's what I find so hard to understand... so many pirated files carry viruses and worms (they are not from trustworthy sources in the first place)... and it takes forever and two weeks to get a system disinfected... so why would a person take that risk? Over and over? Figure that a clothing pack costs, what, $30? Suppose that a thief has a dsl line and can get 10 items for "free" during his little evening download spree... you might get better odds playing russian roulette. $300 versus losing everything on his system and 2 weeks of his time? Yep, Smart all right. It is even better if he shares disks with his buddies and they all end up sanitizing their computers. Carolly

not only that. there have been rumours about companies themselves "giving away" own products for filesharing networks but with some fault. when you later ask about that problem in some forum - gotcha!!

Doesn't Curious also blacklist registation numbers of copies they find on pirate sites - so folks who "share" theirs can't register an upgrade?

discreet, alias, curious labs, and adobe all have blacklists I believe. I read an article somewhere that Adobe now actually hires people to search these networks for their products using keywords and download the pirated versions, where they then blacklist the serial numbers, record the usernames of their sources, and then redistribute their pirated software with edited code that sends information back to Adobe about whoever is running it. They then notice who is downloading their edited software and run a search on that user to see what else HE is sharing. The people downloading their software aften have large amounts of other pirated software that they are sharing. This changes that person from someone who is pirating software to someone who is distributing pirated software, giving Adobe a much larger legal weapon. They gave an example of Adobe downloading a copy of Photoshop 7 from kazaa 2 weeks before it was officially released, editing the code to send a guid back to adobe when it was installed, and then redistributed it through kazaa. They had something like 30 downloads in 2 days. They ran a search for files from the same user on the person downloading from them, and found files for several other adobe products as well as plugins and other warez (they didnt specify what the user had, but we can guess). They said legal action was being taken, I'm not sure what happened. The point is, using these programs to acquire software is definately pirating, and sharing makes you an accomplice. If you are pirating using peer to peer networks, you never know when you'll get caught.

I suspect that in some cases, folks download stuff and then never actually install it, not unlike that free stuff item that looks so geat, I'm sure I'll find a use for it, well maybe. Like kids in a candy store, 'wow! PhotoBlast 9 - grab it.' Anyone who has the knowledge or incentive to actually install and use some sophisticated program probably knows enough to run a virus check, have a firewall running to catch a program "calling home," etc. Not to diminish the problem but I think that unlike mp3's which any idiot can enjoy, folks with the brains to use software often have better things to do than troll the internet looking for another half-dozen programs to master. Poser is actually in a rather bad position I think. CL is a small company with a rather unique product, no freeware or shareware equivalents, no real commercial equivalents and a fairly reasonable price. I doubt that most people who download a cracked copy of Maya were ever going to shell out two grand to buy it if you held a gun to their heads. They might however shell out the price of Poser it it weren't avaliable any other way. Some people criticized CL's amnesty program but I think for them, it was a good idea.

This Adobe sting operation is wishful thinking!!
its too dependant on the internet.
if someone downloads an installer from the web
burns it to CD and installs it on a PC with no web connection
what then??.

and disabling someones software remotely is still illegal hacking
despite your claims of "evidence" that it was stolen.

try breaking into some ones home in the middle of the night
because your "Database" says he may have a pirated copy
fo your intellectual property and see what a judge says about it when you get caught!!

it's a legal quagmire that adobe would be wise to avoid.

Well, the pandora's box got opened when the DMCA guaranteed digital content owners the rights to protect their products by any means at their disposal. It's only just now beginning to look like the courts are going to get forced into some awkward fights between privacy rights, property rights, access rights, and freedom of speech. The fact that Congress, in their ignorance, and due to pressure from industry, gave such sweeping rights to content owners, is reflective of the fact that copyright law, as a whole, needs a major overhaul. Unfortunately, very few legislators will consider the Herculean task of revising the volumes of legislation that are currently in place. Paul

Wouldn't Adobe also be guilty of being pirates themselves? Or if not a "Pirate," at least spreading a virus? I realize those may not be the exact words but the point is that if they're spreading something that is checking people's computers and transmitting data from those computers - without the owners' consent - they're guilty of the same type of thing that the inventors of "Melissa" or the "I love You" virus are guilty of. I can just picture some stupid twelve-year old downloading warez. He's busted. His Dad finds out how it was discovered. His Dad (who "owns" the computer) is a lawyer. Adobe gets sued for more money than they ever "lost" because of warez. In other words, "Adobe, listen to the Wolf!" 359 that is.

If transmitting data from a personal computer back to a parent company is illegal... so are all those cookies (even the ones from your ISP), the update managers, and even our good buddy, Micro$soft and its latest operating system... not to mention the BIOS itself acting as spyware. Even twits who can't use a program like to brag that they have it. Carolly

"DMCA guaranteed digital content owners
the rights to protect their products by
any means at their disposal."

But it Does NOT grant them broad authority
supercede existing privacy laws and start dispensing
PUNISHMENT( viruses etc) to suspected warezers who have not been
formally charged and afforded the same Due process provided to
suspected muderers and rapists etc.

This thread reminds me of the good ol' days when I used to play adventure games on my high-powered, state of the art, 48k Sinclair Spectrum. I remember reading a PC mag where someone wrote asking for help getting out of a creepy graveyard in the game, stating that no matter what they did, they got strangled by a pair of skeletal hands. The computer mags reply was, 'Gottcha!' The company had programmed this in somehow, and it only happened in pirated versions. I think the best revenge for Poser pirates would be to give them a version that worked perfectly for, say, six months or so - then quietly deleted itself and all the works it had created. LOL... But seriously, the worst thing about pirates (apart from the obvious one of stealing other peoples' work) is that they drive (or provide the excuse for) companies to take intolerably intrusive measures - like the the excrable 'product activation' idea. That's the sole reason won't buy XP on principle, as I don't think this behaviour should be encouraged. On a similar note, I've noticed that my (totally Kosher) Poser accesses the internet every time I fire it up. Is this to check that I'm not blacklisted, or something? I wrote to ask CL about this, but they didn't reply. John

the internet is worldwide a network two computers networked together is a local area network poser scans all networks looking for duplicate serialized copies of itself photoshop Quark and many others do the same

I'm running out of room on my computer. My hubby and I share the Cable connection. I have several programs, I just moved to his computer.(Don't use them but didn't want to re-install them if I did) I have Poser sitting on his pc too ,(just as a back up) No one use's this it just sits there. I have cds of all the products I've bought. But you know what a pain this is to find stuff. Also have to burn the cds on his computer since my doesn't have a burner. Now it sounds like to me, What I'm doing for back up is wrong?????? I need a new computer-huge just for Poser. LOL. :O) I'm getting so I trust no one. It's like one day up pops this message You need to Download the new Explorer6. I did, but how did they get that in my computer???

"if they're spreading something that is checking people's computers and transmitting data from those computers - without the owners' consent - they're guilty of the same type of thing that the inventors of "Melissa" or the "I love You" virus are guilty of." Alot of Microsoft software does this same thing.

ok to clarify one point a company producing a version that reports back any information without the users consent or does damage to that users system, under UK law (data protection act 1984, Computers and misuse act 1984) are guilty of hacking and computer damage. this is punishable by a term of imprisonment, a fine and confiscation of equipment. It does not matter if you are adobe, CL, M$ or my uncle fred.. that is the Law.... so if they have done so... methinks there's gonna be a court case soon....

of course the one thing people seem to have missed, get yourself a firewall, don't let these programs access the internet & they can't report back. end of story until they find a way round the firewalls. The best defense against it tho is don't bother with warez. Rob

If a standard version of an app "phones home" you should be told in the docs, and you certainly "agreed" when you clicked on the license page of the installer. A modified version that phoned home would not document the feature and would thus be in breach of various laws as noted. Also, if a company put something up in the expectation of its being distributed they would surely be held to have given implicit consent to such distribution, so the people they caught wouldn't really be pirates per se. If warez copies of PS or whatever are phoning anywhere it probably ain't Home.

Hi, The way I hear it, Imesh was the least popular of the P2P solutions out there, it's got lots of unhappy users at download.com :) There are apps out there to help you screen apps with the ability to phone home, I've disabled a few of them to stop them doing exactly that, (vgirl for instance) I do actauly legally own the anims, I just don't want it sending me porn popups at work. It also coninually pings it's home server which rings bells on the firewall... Then there is the mighty "Zone Alarm" and the lesser known, but well respected tfw (Tiny firewall) The PC team here use it. I use Zone Alarm myself, it's great, it'll stop anything, even the OS, from accessing the network. It even tells you when a program requests server privilleges, and can make you machine invisible to anything on the 'net. Wonderfull bit of kit. All you need then is a Virus checker, (Norton for preference) and you're sorted. Won't stop new viruses. But you can mitigate the problem by using prodcuts other than the MS defaults. Avoid Outlook like the plague! and try not to install IM software or anything else that keeps contact lists. If you've got XP get "XPanti-spy3" to stop your OS, and browser from doing the dirty on you, improves broadband bandwith too. later jb

Attached Link: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~fapp2/steganography/

Oh yeah, as for Adobe, you gan get serial number generators, the algorithms are well know, simply click the button for a clean one. I still reckon you'd be dumb to do it, for reasons outlined in other posts. Most of us will have no idea where to begin with photoshop, and who's to say it's not embedding the Serial # into your picture, along with anything else they feel like reading. Do you know what your jpegs are saying about you? :) later jb

Do you know what your jpegs are saying about you? :) They say 'Created with The GIMP'. :D

It never said anything about doing damage to your computer, just sending information, so I dont know if that would be considered hacking or spreading viruses or not. It never said anything about malicious code or viruses. I do believe that the law allows you to edit the code of your own software, I dont know how it would react in a case like this. I didnt write the article and certainly dont vouch for its authenticy, I was just relating what I had seen somewhere. As for the sending of information, there are lots of programs out there with spyware that do this, and you agree to it whenever you click yes on that License agreement, so it isnt "without consent". And your right, just about any firewall will stop these programs from accessing the internet. In this case, I assume that the users Kazaa program did have access to the internet, that was where they found the software available. In this case, I dont see how it would be different than finding an internet site online that provided warez, I believe the company would be able to say something about you running an internet site that provided warez for download. perhaps the new laws would use this instance as a precedent. And I agree with the earlier statement, if it does contain a virus, its prolly not the software producer that put it there ...

Ah, yes, "Evenin' Wilbur!" :) later jb

Interesting that the program seems to be similar to the new icq2002a that allows a folder on the desktop where authorized contacts can transfer files. While it may be fun for two Poser or Bryce users to collaborate on a work, using this to give or receive files from others that are in violation of the license agreement is wrong. If you collaborate, make sure your partner ownes the same stuff you do.

Attached Link: http://www.infoworld.com/ucita/

Anyone interested in privacy to look into the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA), which has been adopted bu Maryland and Virginia. "UCITA is filled with language that encourages software publishers to secretly deploy remote disabling devices in their software and offers them legal protection should those devices be discovered and exploited by others." UCITA is being continually debated and revised but clearly has some interesting implications for privacy. If you think terrorists are dangerous, watch out for corporate America protecting its interests. Don't look for help from the government either as long as lobbyists and corporate campaign contributions call the shots in DC. "...state of the art, 48k Sinclair Spectrum." I still have my Timex-Sinclair 2068. Wasn't life simple with only 48K of RAM and no internet?

Ah yes, simplr days. My mate was a coder on the spectrum, another mate wrote the compression software used in the "disciple" disk drive. He wrote this program in something like 78 bytes that simply listened to the mic port for a signal and wrote it to memory, at the push of a button it played it back out to the earphone socket. It was while copying some spectrum games one day we accidentally loaded a C64 game, we didn't realise until half way through when somebody noticed it "didn't sound right" but we left it to copy anyway, as an experiment. It actualy worked! in fact it work so well we threw away our spliters and extra tape drives. Serendipity at work! :) For those that will ask the inevitable question about how we got 64K into 48, the answer is simple. The C64 was built with 35K RAM and the rest in ROM, so it fit quite nicely :) later jb

The 2068 box bragged about "72KB of onboard memory." Only in the fine print did it tell you that 48KB was RAM and the other 24KB was ROM. Still, it was a great machine at the time. I see there's a DOS 2068 emulator available. I'd try it but I really haven't used my Atari ST emulator that much.

About Poser 'phoning home.' I only noticed this after I installed a firewall. It spooked me a bit, in case my exe file had been infected by some nasty virus or something. I couldn't find anything about it in the documentation. So I wrote to CL, with a simple question, explaining my worry, and asking if something had gone wrong, or was Poser accessing the net in case there were upgrades, patches, or whatever - it didn't even cross my mind that it might be an anti-piracy thing. This was about 6 weeks ago, and they didn't bother to reply. A subsequent (different) tech support question got an almost instant answer, and when I later wrote an email of (very mild) complaint about the lack of a proper manual for the ProPack, I got another fast reply (agreeing with me, actually). But from a company that seems to be fast and helpful in replying to email, not a word on the 'phoning home' issue. I can't help but wonder why. John

"But from a company that seems to be fast and helpful in replying to email, not a word on the 'phoning home' issue. I can't help but wonder why."

Try asking again, Morphy, maybe it just slipped through the cracks. When this was originally discovered, there was a huge stink, and CL explained it. I doubt that they're trying to hide something that's fairly common knowledge in the community.

Further, I copied this right off CL's website:

Poser 4 English Updater Description

"Some firewall applications erroneously post a warning that states Poser is attempting to establish an Internet connection. This is a false warning; Poser is not looking beyond your local network. Poser is not establishing an Internet connection."

So there's no big secret, no cover-up, no reason to call the Men in Black, Morphy m'man. Everything's cool.

awww.... c'mon Doc. I was just about to round everyone up who wasn't here for the big flap & start selling tickets for rides on the Curious Labs black helicopter fleet. :-)

Legume, Dang! Another Big Conspiracy Theory nipped in the bud. Just as I was working up to a theory that every single poser pic was secretly being transmitted to an alien race... They're trying to work out our strengths and weaknesses, y'see, and just as soon as they work out the best way to defend themselves from a naked swordswoman in a Temple of Ancient Gods, they'll be coming to get us all. I was hoping to publish a book about it. But hang on.. what's the point of just checking the local network, if it's not reporting it findings via the net? I don't get that part. John

It's checking the local network to make sure you're not using the same copy of poser on different machines at the same time. It's ok to have it on different machines, but only for one user at a time. (did that make sense?) Example: I can have my copy of poser on both my PC and hubby's PC but if I'm working in poser he can't have the program running. That's what it's looking for. Kate

Thanks, Kate. Joking aside, I was starting to get scared - I've just put my copy of Poser on my other (networked) machine. I know that you're not supposed to do this with any software, but I reckoned 'what the heck, it's not doing any harm or depriving CL of revenue or anything.' This thread started to make me think that I'd done something that would get my serial number blacklisted or something. I had some vague idea that when one machine was working on a reallllllllly slow render I could go and do something else on the other - It looks like I'll have to drop that idea and go back to coffee and a book during long renders (s) What happens if it DOES find another copy? Does the second refuse to boot, or something? (I'd experiment, but I'm afraid in case both copies implode, or in case my PCs explode and burn down my house or something (s) Thanks! John

To be honest with you, I don't know what happens if it finds another copy. I only have it installed on my PC and I usually have the internet shut down when I'm working so there's nothing for it to access (I don't let it past my firewall and I always click "NO" when the firewall asks if I want to let it on). If I ever DID install it on hubby's machine, I would still deny it access to the network, just so I could do what you're talking about - render one image on MY computer while working on another on Hubby's computer. But I don't render in Poser, so I doubt I'll ever install it on any machine but this one. Kate