Dev.SN

How Can Software be Protected from Piracy ?

posted by janrinok on Friday March 21 2014, @10:37PM   
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 ?"

• Re:You can't Re:You can't (Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday March 21 2014, @11:18PM

  by The Mighty Buzzard (18) <themightybuzzard@soylentnews.org> on Friday March 21 2014, @11:18PM (#19588) Journal

  It's even worse than that. It's saying we N developers are so damned good that the whole of humanity's engineering expertise pales in comparison. Anything that can be built by humans can be taken apart by humans.

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• Re:You can't Re:You can't (Score: 1, Troll) by Angry Jesus on Saturday March 22 2014, @07:59AM

  by Angry Jesus (182) on Saturday March 22 2014, @07:59AM (#19669)

  > Anything that can be built by humans can be taken apart by humans.

  That's why private key crypto is such a waste of time!

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  • Re:You can't Re:You can't (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday March 22 2014, @08:15AM

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) <themightybuzzard@soylentnews.org> on Saturday March 22 2014, @08:15AM (#19672) Journal

    Okay, point for communications but for DRM every legit user has all the private keys at some point. It only takes one knowledgeable user to find them and strip or work around the DRM and then the cat's out of the bag.

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    • Re:You can't (Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Saturday March 22 2014, @02:19PM

      by Angry Jesus (182) on Saturday March 22 2014, @02:19PM (#19765)

      My issue is that your entire point revolved around the use of the word anything which is false. Your response seems to be to cite a case of the mis-application of private-key crypto -- where the keys are not private. That still doesn't negate the fact that not everything built by humans can be taken apart by humans.

      This isn't a case of pedantry either, your whole post relies on that one falsehood. A correct version of your statement would be, "Most things that can be built by humans can be taken apart by humans." That's not on the same level as a perpetual motion machine, nevermind "worse than that."

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