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I have a second hand encounter with this so called "hard reset" protection by Pocket Mechanic. My friend at work tried PM and it wiped out his SD card clean. Legalcopy or not, not sure... probably not - he has a LOT of software installed and not all of it is legal.
I agree 100% that taking aim at the user's hard drive is totally wrong, and I hope it's totally illegal.
What can you do against a pirate? Sue them. Like they should (and I hope WILL) sue a developer that crashed their system ON PURPOSE.
Where to go to ask for protection? Dont you have a lawyer? The lawyers for the movie and music industry seem to be doing well against the rugular Joe who dowmloaded the digital media on P2P servers.
Just like police putting away students for smoking pot. Get the REAL criminals!
BTW, I f#cking hate lawyers!
All of these arguments are very interesting but the bottom line is that if software buyers believe that there is code in a program that may cause a hard reset, they probably won't buy. In other words a developers sales, or a large part of their sales, are gone.
I have a second hand encounter with this so called "hard reset" protection by Pocket Mechanic. My friend at work tried PM and it wiped out his SD card clean. Legalcopy or not, not sure... probably not - he has a LOT of software installed and not all of it is legal.
I agree 100% that taking aim at the user's hard drive is totally wrong, and I hope it's totally illegal.
What can you do against a pirate? Sue them. Like they should (and I hope WILL) sue a developer that crashed their system ON PURPOSE.
Where to go to ask for protection? Dont you have a lawyer? The lawyers for the movie and music industry seem to be doing well against the rugular Joe who dowmloaded the digital media on P2P servers.
Just like police putting away students for smoking pot. Get the REAL criminals!
BTW, I f#cking hate lawyers!
Come on guy, what are you saying? Read my previous posts. Most of the warez sites are located in countries with no laws againt piracy. There is not way that you can sue them.
In another hand, what do you think that we are. Rich guys driving mercedezes? A lawer will coust the amount of money that we never get from our sells.
I donīt know why but users picture us developers like guys driving BMWs with a lot of girls around us drinking bears in a local bar.
All of these arguments are very interesting but the bottom line is that if software buyers believe that there is code in a program that may cause a hard reset, they probably won't buy. In other words a developers sales, or a large part of their sales, are gone.
That's exactly right. And that's what happens every time one of these cases gets publicity. That is the reality and these discussions prove it. You can't stop all the bad people in the world from doing bad things. Just protect your software within the limits that customers find tolerable and move on, as Brad said so aptly.
__________________ James Kendrick Microsoft MVP - Tablet PCwww.jkontherun.com Lockergnome contributor- Mobile Lifestyle...using mobile devices since they weighed 30 lbs.
All of these arguments are very interesting but the bottom line is that if software buyers believe that there is code in a program that may cause a hard reset, they probably won't buy. In other words a developers sales, or a large part of their sales, are gone.
I agree with you. But Iīm sure that Anton is thinking that he will lose less sells than what he is losing with that illegal key. Do you know how we usually detect illegal copies? when we start to receive in our websites 1000s of hits coming from one specific site that usually post the key to your software and a link to your site telling the others where to download the software. I read the number twice please, I said 1000s of hits per day. You can think now how much money you are losing.
All of these arguments are very interesting but the bottom line is that if software buyers believe that there is code in a program that may cause a hard reset, they probably won't buy. In other words a developers sales, or a large part of their sales, are gone.
That's exactly right. And that's what happens every time one of these cases gets publicity. That is the reality and these discussions prove it. You can't stop all the bad people in the world from doing bad things. Just protect your software within the limits that customers find tolerable and move on, as Brad said so aptly.
James, we have being doing that all this time, but believe me, it reach a point where you want to take a gun and shoot.
I do not ignore the damage that this bad press is going to give Anton and even me defending Anton. But that damage is nothing compare with the economic lost that we are suffering. And believe me. The damage that you get from this bad press is not going to affect his sells. I even think that the bad press helps to sell in the same amount that it does a good press - of course if you are doing well what ever you are doing. And I belive that nobody doubts that Antonīs programs rocks.
No wonder once Elton John said "it does not matter if they talk bad about you, the important thing is that they are talking about you" (I canīt remember the exact words)
Come on guy, what are you saying? Read my previous posts. Most of the warez sites are located in countries with no laws againt piracy. There is not way that you can sue them.
In another hand, what do you think that we are. Rich guys driving mercedezes? A lawer will coust the amount of money that we never get from our sells.
I donīt know why but users picture us developers like guys driving BMWs with a lot of girls around us drinking bears in a local bar.
Ahaha. LOL no i'd never picutre a developer in that way. I picutre a geeky guy with thick glasses eating cold pizza and potato chips at his PC, coding til 5 am. No BMW's... He frequents pron sites so no chick either.
Like i said on the other forum reply to you - enjoy your time in courts if you are in US.
Just protect your software within the limits that customers find tolerable and move on, as Brad said so aptly.
Thank you! There are MUCH less radical alternatives then this more then likely highly illegal, not to mention potentially VERY costly way of protection.
Pop a message or uninstall your own program or make it unusable... but DONT hard reset the device! Amazing!
Well Anton is Russian - so he was raised in a way that probably approves of these measures. Welcome to the American judicial system, zemlyachok. Enjoy your time in the US courts
Well Anton is Russian - so he was raised in a way that probably approves of these measures. Welcome to the American judicial system, zemlyachok. Enjoy your time in the US courts
Well, thatīs what I wanted to say next, anton have paid piracy with the same method. I can't and he can't do anything against Chinese or Russian warez sites in the same way that american users wont be able to do anything against Anton.
Well Anton is Russian - so he was raised in a way that probably approves of these measures. Welcome to the American judicial system, zemlyachok. Enjoy your time in the US courts
Well, thatīs what I wanted to say next, anton have paid piracy with the same method. I can't and he can't do anything against Chinese or Russian warez sites in the same way that american users wont be able to do anything against Anton.
ctitanic, I think you are missing the point. American users that legally pay for his programs can and will do something against him. They will stop using and buying his programs. Is that what he wants? I don't think so. We're talking about unreasonable actions that negatively affect his image with his real customers. THey stop buying his programs and then what does he do?
__________________ James Kendrick Microsoft MVP - Tablet PCwww.jkontherun.com Lockergnome contributor- Mobile Lifestyle...using mobile devices since they weighed 30 lbs.
As a software reseller I would not want to sale any software that could cause my customers devices to be reset, as this would be damaging to myself as a reseller and in the confidence in the developers product. What if you I was a corporate using the same software product on all of my Pocket PCs, and lets say for example I had 10 users using an application and I had registered the first one under my business name and the others under user names; then to make deployment and support easier used the license registered under my business name on all of them. Unknowingly one of my support guys illegally takes a copy of the software and license and gives it to a couple of friends and in tern the software and license ends up on a warez site. Later I upgrade to a newer version of the software only to have all 10 devices hard reset, causing a support nightmare. Do you think Im going to thank the developer for his anti piracy code? NO.
Bottom Line here is it "WILL" affect Tomovs sales in a negative way. I used to use Pocket Mechanic as well as another well known progrma of Tomovs, both legally purchased and licensed. But I have uninstalled both programs and am encouraging all my friends with legal copies to do so as well. We don't need our systems "Hard reset" by accident or any other means just to stop the illegal uses. I "WILL NOT" purchase another piece of software ever again from Anton and as I said I will be encouraging all of my associates to do the same.
You have to accept the fact that some people will pirate your program to a certain extent no matter what you do. Accept it and move on because the one's pirating your program would probably not purchase it otherwise, therefore it is not lost revenue because you never had it!!!!!!
One thing developers could try to discourage people from using warez is to release free or limited versions of their software that is say 3 or 4 revisions behind. That way people are likely not to use the warez version, and if they like the product enough will probably buy the current version
Bottom Line here is it "WILL" affect Tomovs sales in a negative way. I used to use Pocket Mechanic as well as another well known progrma of Tomovs, both legally purchased and licensed. But I have uninstalled both programs and am encouraging all my friends with legal copies to do so as well. We don't need our systems "Hard reset" by accident or any other means just to stop the illegal uses. I "WILL NOT" purchase another piece of software ever again from Anton and as I said I will be encouraging all of my associates to do the same.
You have to accept the fact that some people will pirate your program to a certain extent no matter what you do. Accept it and move on because the one's pirating your program would probably not purchase it otherwise, therefore it is not lost revenue because you never had it!!!!!!
One thing developers could try to discourage people from using warez is to release free or limited versions of their software that is say 3 or 4 revisions behind. That way people are likely not to use the warez version, and if they like the product enough will probably buy the current version
Thats a very good constructive suggestion! I agree
BTW, i posted to Tomov's web forum with links to this and other forums discussing this new "feature". The man deleted it and canceled my user id.
What a hyppocrite. No freedom of speech for the old country anymore. Viva Putin!
This looks like a great thread so I decided to leave my thoughts here too
First - PocketBreeze and not any other SBSH software will hard-reset your device if you'll use a warez version in any case...
I believe as a developer that fighting warez is the wrong thing to do, this is pretty much a similar mistake the music industry did when they tried to shut down Napstar - now they've got Kazaa and let's see them deal with a software without any server...
Before I explain my self I will state that I'm completely against warez! which is obvious as a developer who is working with the support of users who pay for our software.
As someone who used to play a lot with stuff when I was younger I know that hacking a software is a pretty simple task no matter how much the developer will work on a good locking method, there are still many 16 years old kids that will be able to hack it pretty fast (unless if it is a key activated through internet connection, but this will make the source code much larger which is something we don't want to do). The time developers invest in working on smart locking methods is a real waist as I see it, instead of understanding that even warez can help developers.
As a simple scenario, someone downloads PocketBreeze as a warez from one site and installs it on his device. A few days later he shows it to a few other people he works with at work. Three of them then go and download it, but one of them is an honest guy that decides he likes PB and decides to pay for it as he suppose to.
I know it sounds stupid - but this is how things work in life. In general, I think that working hard to lock your software is not a smart move.
Ok... now feel free to grill me here
Amit, finally a voice of reason!
Honestly, this flap over Anton's program is not about piracy at all- it's about how his legitimate customers are reacting to what he has done. And that is worse than all the warez copies of his program floating around.
__________________ James Kendrick Microsoft MVP - Tablet PCwww.jkontherun.com Lockergnome contributor- Mobile Lifestyle...using mobile devices since they weighed 30 lbs.
Sorry Brad, I have been helping this community with all my heart, you know that. But I donīt feel that Anton is a destroyer because he was hard reseting the device of someone stealling his program. To me, he looks more like a guy who heard in the middle of the night somebody stealing inside of his house and he took his gun and killed the robber. At least in Florida AFAIK you have the right to defend your self in that situation. And thatīs what Anton did.
I agree that no everybody will do that but if somebody defends hiself in that way I wont condemn him.
You may have misunderstood at least part of what I was saying. Yes, I know you help the community and I would say you are a creator as well. Let's take Anton out of the equation..because I was not talking about him - or any particular person. I am simply stating a philosophy. Just like a doctor who is great at healing people, should not kill the few who don't pay their bills, we create software that helps people...hurting people by destroying data isn't consistent.
This is coming from someone who has seen his software on the warez sites. Who got emails from people warning me that someone had cracked it. It by no means makes me happy, but to waste my time worrying about it or trying to get even is wasted time and energy.
Fact is, if I set A.I. to self destruct the Pocket PC if it was an illegal serial or something...the guy who stole it probably would never even know how it happened. You can read about spontaneous hard resets all day long on the support newsgroups. Who says it's a pirated product, or simply an OS issue? It's hard to say. If it's so important to get even, why not simply code in a feature that reads them the "developer bill of rights"...ala "You have attempted to steal this software you are hurting everyone, causing increased software costs, etc. etc.? Set a key preventing any of your software (legit or not) from being installed on that device? That solves both the problem of that product being pirated on that device, as well as all the others you own the right to.
That's my take on it anyway...
The pocket pc is a niche market and depends on support from its small community to survive. Microsoft continues to make a loss on its mobile and embedded devices unit. In fact it lost $24 million in the last six months of 2004 according to this report on pocketpcthoughts.com.
The reality is most people who use enthusiast sites like this one will NOT be warez users because they support the pocket pc and want to see it grow. Interestingly I think this was demonstrated by the thread on aximsite.com. Sneaky Antov attempted to catch out warez users by waiting for complaints of hard resets on the forum thread. From my count there was 1 user who complained of a hard reset and 7 who didn't prior to the issue being revealed. Antov seems to have created many angry legitimate and potential(!) customers. This is not good for him.
Well, for me what Anton has done is to teach 7 or 8 people a very good lesson. And I do not believe that this will affect him in any way. It would be good if all developers create an alliance to fight together against piracy using what ever way we consider fair in this fight. And I repeat, what ever way "we consider fair".
And I do not believe that this will affect him in any way.
This is clearly a ridculous statement. It already has affected him!!
Feel free to believe that ever you want. As developer that's what I believe. Those who said that they wont buy it they never thought about doing so. In another hand all these sites publishing the big news are given free marketing to him. From those coming to read the news some will support Anton and some wont, but that's the same situation than when you are creating a possitive marketing. Even when somebody posts a very positive review about your program what counts the most is the quantity of people reading that review not even the quality of the review. At the end people will buy after they test by theyself the program
No. Actually, he has taught me a very good lesson. I will not use his products. Not because I think he is wrong. Because I do not trust the code not to screw up in my machine. I wouldn't buy a television with a time bomb in it just because it said it won't blow up if I don't activate it. I had a copy of Anton's first overclocking app with access code from him to test and review. That was on a different machine. I'm done.
I don't blame him. I won't touch his work. Not with this kind of code buried in it.
Listening (well, reading actually) to you guys here makes me wonder about how large drug companies feel about generic drugs. The big guys spend bazillons of dollars developing and testing new drugs, and then get an exclusive patent (7, 12 years...something like that) during which time they hope to recoup the money they spent on R&D before the patent runs out and other companies can make clones of their medication. Now, this practice is actively supported by insurance companies, because as we all know, generic drugs are much less expensive than the brand name products.
What about other products...Kleenex,Band-Aids, Post-It's for a few. Do you refer to your Office Depot brand adhesive note pad as a Post-It? I do...and so does nearly everyone else I know. Does that p!ss off 3M? Probably. What can they do about it? Not a hell of a lot.
Now, in each of these cases, this is about copying the main product and creating a less expensive "knock off."
Looking at the idea of P2P file sharing, well...I have a really hard time feeling sorry for the music industry as a whole as "suffering" from it. Perhaps they are, I really don't know, I just can't picture it. Same for the movie industry. I live in LA, and really, the movie industry suffers more from the stupidity of the actors who get doped to the gills and wander the streets than they do from downloading a movie. But, that's another issue.
I appreciate CTitanic's point of view. If I spend that much time and effort creating something, I would want control of how it's distributed. Because I'm gonna be expected to support it, and because I'm gonna be proud of it. AND because I'm a control freak, and I just wanna. Your product however, has always scared me, so I didn't buy it. I like some tweaks, but I'm afraid of messing things up. BUT, to support you, I just went and purchased a copy. I may never use it, but you can have my $$, just so you know that there are good people who go out of their way to do good things as well!
On the whole, I think the good guys outweigh the bad guys, and I hope that Anton finds that out. Everyone has wanted to punch out someone who wronged them, but don't because it's not worth it in the long run.
What is that definition of stress... Stress is created when the mind overrules the body's desire to choke the $hit out of some a$$hole that desperately needs it. Or something like that.
JDTagish, that's a great point of view. Developers do work hard to craft their product in to meet the demands of various platforms and devices. There is indeed a loss when someone steals it.
I like your quote on "stress"
PS I have used tweaks2K2 for several years. I know that Frank tests this product to the point of exhaustion. I have never had a problem with it on many different platforms. Plus, I have never known anyone to complain about it causing them problems.
He and I can still agree to disagree on the issue of how to handle piracy though
It seems to me that this wilful destruction of data is more an act of retribution rather than an intelligent sales tactic and I believe will backfire immensely upon the author if it is not retracted in future versions.
There are a lot of businessmen out there who use their PocketPC's for many important and critical reasons that would not hesitate to contact their company's legal counsel when it was discovered the reason they lost their million dollar deal was because of this software's protection methods. It would show a lot of marbles on the part of the author to retract such devastating protection and downgrade it to something less serious, such as it's own destruction on the device, with a warning window saying why.
This sort of data destruction is certainly illegal in Europe and the author could find themselves in some serious hot water.
Listening (well, reading actually) to you guys here makes me wonder about how large drug companies feel about generic drugs. The big guys spend bazillons of dollars developing and testing new drugs, and then get an exclusive patent (7, 12 years...something like that) during which time they hope to recoup the money they spent on R&D before the patent runs out and other companies can make clones of their medication. Now, this practice is actively supported by insurance companies, because as we all know, generic drugs are much less expensive than the brand name products.
What about other products...Kleenex,Band-Aids, Post-It's for a few. Do you refer to your Office Depot brand adhesive note pad as a Post-It? I do...and so does nearly everyone else I know. Does that p!ss off 3M? Probably. What can they do about it? Not a hell of a lot.
Now, in each of these cases, this is about copying the main product and creating a less expensive "knock off."
Looking at the idea of P2P file sharing, well...I have a really hard time feeling sorry for the music industry as a whole as "suffering" from it. Perhaps they are, I really don't know, I just can't picture it. Same for the movie industry. I live in LA, and really, the movie industry suffers more from the stupidity of the actors who get doped to the gills and wander the streets than they do from downloading a movie. But, that's another issue.
I appreciate CTitanic's point of view. If I spend that much time and effort creating something, I would want control of how it's distributed. Because I'm gonna be expected to support it, and because I'm gonna be proud of it. AND because I'm a control freak, and I just wanna. Your product however, has always scared me, so I didn't buy it. I like some tweaks, but I'm afraid of messing things up. BUT, to support you, I just went and purchased a copy. I may never use it, but you can have my $$, just so you know that there are good people who go out of their way to do good things as well!
On the whole, I think the good guys outweigh the bad guys, and I hope that Anton finds that out. Everyone has wanted to punch out someone who wronged them, but don't because it's not worth it in the long run.
What is that definition of stress... Stress is created when the mind overrules the body's desire to choke the $hit out of some a$$hole that desperately needs it. Or something like that.
Thanks for your words and support.
I have to say a few more things. The reason why Iīm defending Anton is because I have been on that boat and I know that there is noone to defend you, there is nothing that you can do. And because I know that "Everyone has wanted to punch out someone who wronged them".
I can tell you that Anton eventually will remove the hard reset trap from his program and replace it for a different none destructive method. No because the preasure that you guys are trying to put on him but "because it's not worth it in the long run"
He currently understand that there are other ways to be more effective teaching a lesson and that that effectiveness can by multiplied by many times if many of us developers join together againt this "cancer"
Thatīs all I have to say, and I know that Anton is reading my comments so Anton, I hope you donīt mind if I took the liberty of saying what I just said.
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