Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!aplcen!haven!udel!mmdf From: kosma%human-torch@stc.lockheed.com (Monty Kosma) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Pirates and swapware Message-ID: <23720@snow-white.udel.EDU> Date: 5 Jul 90 18:49:45 GMT Sender: mmdf@udel.EDU Lines: 34 From: Kent Paul Dolan FelineGrace@cup.portal.com writes: >Kent, what about the guy who has multiple amigas? Does he have to >buy multiple copies under your hardware protection scheme? ... stuff deleted ... >How about demos at a friend's house, at a computer club, at a show? Lots >of 'legitimate' uses are affected by the '1 copy per machine' rule. As I noted in a posting, I just carry my Amiga to club meetings, no problem! okay, but how about this: the serial number is now in a PROM somewhere, so well, rather than just lug my whole computer around, I just pop the chip, and go off to my friend's house, the user group meeting, or whatever. Well, there's at least two bad things about this. I really *do* think that people will do it (pop the chips) (it's different to do that on an amiga vs. your typical unix workstation), and this may decrease reliability on the system (oops! I bent the pin on the chip!) and moreover, what's to stop the pirate from either duplicating PROMS or (probably more likely) removing or modifying the part of the code on the disk which holds the system serial number or which does the actual lookup into the prom. The pirates/ crackers are a pretty sophisticated bunch. I strongly feel that this form of protection isn't any harder for them to crack than current protection. I doubt I'm incorrect on that count, but it's possible--let me know. But anyway, I feel that the piracy which is most serious comes from these guys who crack software and then distribute it all over the world, and they will NOT be stopped by a serial number in ROM. The casual pirate (still a criminal, of course, but on a much lower scale with IMHO less harmful effects to the market than the cracker/pirates) will be affected by this type of protection, but so will the honest user (i.e. me). Seems that this solution doesn't solve the real problem.