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How Can Software be Protected from Piracy ?

posted by janrinok on Friday March 21 2014, @10:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the questions-without-answers dept.

AnonTechie writes:

"Echoing a question asked on programmers.stackexchange.com - How can software be protected from piracy ?

It just seems a little hard to believe that with all of our technological advances and the billions of dollars spent on engineering the most unbelievable and mind-blowing software, we still have no other means of protecting against piracy than a "serial number/activation key." I'm sure a ton of money, maybe even billions, went into creating Windows 7 or Office and even Snow Leopard, yet I can get it for free in less than 20 minutes. Same for all of Adobe's products, which are probably the easiest. Can there exist a fool-proof and hack-proof method of protecting your software against piracy? If not realistically, could it be theoretically possible? Or no matter what mechanisms these companies deploy, can hackers always find a way around it ?"

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 22 2014, @09:23AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 22 2014, @09:23AM (#19681)

    I don't have any real data on this because this software sells in such small volume (both before and after) that statistics are nearly meaningless. The one data point that I do have is that the crack results no longer appear in the first page or two of search results unless you put in terms like "crack" or "registration key" alongside the product name. I think that's pretty good evidence that it was worth the several weeks I spent on it about four years ago. Or, maybe my marketing or Google search algorithm has simply gotten better.

    Face facts: Everybody's fears that piracy would destroy a product or even a company have gone unfounded.

    That may be true, but it was never about that in my case (see the advice quoted from my friend above). It was about fighting back against vandalism. The people who might use the cracks are thieves, but at least they're getting some benefit from it: when they steal it, I can take some satisfaction in the fact that I'm helping somebody in some way. OTOH, the people who create the cracks are just plain vandals: they damage someone else's property without getting anything out of it themselves.

    Oh, except that they get a fun puzzle to solve. And if that's what they're looking for, I've given them an even funner puzzle to solve. (You're welcome. ;-)