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From: haitex@pnet01.cts.com (Wade Bickel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: About Software Piracy!
Message-ID: <2308@crash.cts.com>
Date: 8 Jan 88 19:16:14 GMT
Sender: news@crash.cts.com
Organization: People-Net [pnet01], El Cajon CA
Lines: 62

bishop@skat.usc.edu (Brian Bishop) writes:
>In article <2273@crash.cts.com> haitex@pnet01.cts.com (Wade Bickel) writes:
>>
>>	  Furthermore, if done correctly, a program could notice if it
>>	were operating without it's dongle and subtly torpedo the pirate.
>>	Perhaps waiting until a choice moment to strike, kind of like a
>>	virus.  In this way, a pirated dongle-protected program would be
>>	a risk to use for anything serious.  Confidence in the cracker
>>	would be required, and since most people wouldn't know who did
>>	the cracking...
>>
>>
>  BZZT! First off...I immediately question the wisdom of creating something
>"kind of like a virus". The creator of the (first) virus claims he meant no
>harm. Look what happened. Now we will create a virus that will only harm a
>certain set of people. Think about it. Think about how well some copy
>protection works today (like Garrison, for instance). I don't find it at all
>far-fetched that some innocent people would be hurt, and I, for one, would not
>use such a setup.

        This would be virus-like in that it would run "underneath" the 
main program logic.  However, it would have no reproductive capability,
and it would only damage data relevant to the progam it is protecting,
and only when it determines no dongle is present or that an attempt to
by-pass the dongle chech had been installed.

        Since the dongle would be a factory item, why worry about its
failing?  There are any number of parts of our systems that can fail
at any time and cause the reliablility problems anyway.

        If a program such as WordPerfect were protected in this manner,
they could sell it for half, maybe a third of what it currently sells for.
Sure, some of the people who would pirate it would not pay for it even at
the lower price, but many would.  And we could expect better support for
the product because there would be a bigger (paying) customer base, and
more profit potential, and more threat of competition.


        I once had a job with an engineering/manufacturing company I'll not
name because I don't want to get dragged into court (and have no supporting
evidence anyway).  My bosses wife's work purchased WordPerfect.  She photo
copied the manule and he showed up with it at work.  He made a copy for the
company V.P. and the technical service rep., and who knows who else.  I've
seen a few other cases of this type of thing and it makes me sick!


        =========================================================


        Is there a technical difficulty in implementing a dongle such as
I've described?  I am not a hardware engineer so maybe I've made a mistake.
If so would someone please explain?


                                                Thanks,


                                                        Wade.

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