Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!dcl-cs!aber-cs!odin!pcg From: pcg@odin.cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: Caught in the act of piracy Message-ID: Date: 4 Mar 90 22:54:16 GMT References: <1990Feb28.003201.10614@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> <1088@philmtl.philips.ca> Sender: pcg@aber-cs.UUCP Organization: Coleg Prifysgol Cymru Lines: 26 In-reply-to: ray@philmtl.philips.ca's message of 28 Feb 90 18:16:29 GMT 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. Their availability was really the only reason that the software industry was willing to stop copy protecting their software. I am all for respecting the rights of authors, as I am FSF supporter. On the other hand, probably any such scheme, if really operational, is illicit, or at least very dangerous. Let me be more precise: it is not probably illegal, because after all when you license/buy software no representation is ever made as to the what the program functionality is, so you have (in the supplier's intentions) no ground to complain if among the program's functions is one that rings up the Pentagon and asks for a nuclear strike on your coordinates with valid codes :-). 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 think that it is unlikely that any publishing house would be that prepared to risk trouble. On the other hand some publishers of networking software seem to use copy protection schemes (random broadcast of packets) that can cause big trouble on a net. -- Piercarlo "Peter" Grandi | ARPA: pcg%cs.aber.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!aber-cs!pcg Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk