Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!sci.ccny.cuny.edu!phri!roy From: roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: Caught in the act of piracy Message-ID: <1990Mar1.143510.5584@phri.nyu.edu> Date: 1 Mar 90 14:35:10 GMT References: <1990Feb28.003201.10614@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> <1088@philmtl.philips.ca> Sender: news@phri.nyu.edu (News System) Organization: Public Health Research Institute, New York City Lines: 63 In article <1088@philmtl.philips.ca> ray@philmtl.philips.ca (Ray Dunn) writes: > Auto-reporting mechanisms have been around on shrink-wrap software for some > time now [...] This is a good reason to avoid running pirated software on > machines with internal modems, or even too close to a touch-tone phone.... I didn't see a smiley face, but I have to assume you're not serious. You're not, are you? There are technical problems to be considered, but I suppose it would be fairly straight-forward to have a program peek around and discover what your system configuration is (i.e. if you have a modem, and if so, what type). The same goes for figuring out what phone number you have to dial (might have to dial 9 for an outside line, etc). If it called an 800 number, you would never see a record on your phone bill, but you might just happen to be around watching while it tried to do it. Figuring out what information to pass might be more difficult. It doesn't do much good to call up and say "I'm a copy of program X running on some PC somewhere" if you can't somehow identify who owns the PC or where it is. On some machines, mostly networked timesharing systems, it would be a lot easier. On the Sun on my desk, for example, it would be trivial for a program to send email to pirate_spy@evil_company.com (although they might pick a less obvious name, knowing my mail log would have a record of it) and let my MTA worry about how to get it there. It would also be trivial to figure out that it was running on a 3/50 with such-and-such serial number, IP address, domain name, etc, that it was run by user "roy" (with my full name, phone, and room number kindly supplied by finger), etc. So lets assume that it is within the realm of technical possibility that such a thing could be done. Are there actually companies that do that!? Please note, I'm a rabid anti-pirating type. Don't let my choice of meta company name above delude you into thinking otherwise. On the other hand, if companies really do create auto-reporting software as described by Ray Dunn, I think that's despicable vigilantism. One interesting approach to copyright protection of shrink-wrap software is used by Interactive Data Design. When you buy a copy of IDD's Dreams (a reasonably good CAD-type program for the Macintosh), you get two disks. The Dreams executable comes in two halves, one on each disk (possibly because it's too big to fit one one?) You need to use their custom installer program to copy the two pieces to your disk and reassemble them. Along the way, it customizes the copy *on the original distribution disk*, so when you start it up, you get a banner saying "Dreams version XX, copyright IDD, customized for Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute". You can then freely pirate the customized version, but at least there is a note staring you in the face every time you start it up telling you that it's stolen. Also lets people like me (who do tech support) know what's what. When sombody asks me for help, I watch what happens on startup and can (if nothing else) make snide comments like "Oh, you're name is Joe Jones too? Funny, there seem to be so many people with that name around here!" Microsoft does a similar thing with Word, but not quite the same. With Word, the first time it runs, it asks you to customize it. However, you can just copy the virgin program off the disk and run it first on your hard disk. With Dreams, there is no virgin copy left -- you original distribution copy gets customized. The only hitch with this is that it requires you to put your distribution disk in the drive without being write protected, and thus exposed to virus infection. One only hopes that the Dreams installer is very very careful about (for example) checksumming the resource fork (or even the whole disk) to avoid contamination, although I doubt it actually is. -- Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy "My karma ran over my dogma"