Hi,

I was a system administrator of a computer that had a (legally!) licensed version of M.x/MS., which includes an anti-piracy system (the logo was a dog, IIRC). To me was simpler to use a cracked version, because any change on the system (thing that usually happened in that PC) requires to contact the vendor (C.cl.ng 74) to ask for a new phrase to use it. Once I needed to use in a weekend, but I couldn't receive a key until the next week! Even if you buy the program, even if they don't give you the code, you are still not even the owner of the executable. :(

And I did just a google search... It looks like there is a lot of unhappy legal users of programs that complains about the software vendors that uses that technologies [1] [2]

There you can read similar things, like: "So now, the dongle is causing paying customers more trouble than the people illegitimately aquiring the software!"
Or in [3]:  "P.C. doesn’t stop piracy; any copy-protection system can, and will be, defeated. What P..E does do is prevent legitimate users of software products from using products which they’ve paid for."...

But something specially caught my attention of that site is the start:  "Updated: A PA.. Anti-Piracy official has officially requested that we remove an image of the i.ok product...". That's from 2007 (and I don't think they had any NDA). Some companies have exactly the same (stup.d) behavior today than 3 years ago (the year of the censured mail), that's sad. :(


Best regards,
Natanael.


PS: I don't want to cause problems to anyone, so I didn't used any name. But what I wrote/quoted is what I always thought about that anti-piracy systems. And I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one.
PS2: Thanks to all the linux developers to give to the users free alternatives!

[1] Fair use
[2] Dongle terror
[3] Developer to Users: Boycott iI.ok and P.-.CE