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Ask HN: We found a cracked version of our software on the web, now what?

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Re: Ask HN: We found a cracked version of our software on the web, now what?

#121

Post by nebula8804 »

Eisenstein wrote: post #104
nebula8804 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem with pirated movies these days (and for a long time) is that you have so many variations: garbage like different encoding schemes because some loser still watches the films on their DivX player or re-encoded in other methods. Then you have different release groups releasing their own variations and you have to keep on top of all these silly labeling schemes on the filenames. It all leads to clutter on the sce…

Neither of those things you mentioned (poor/strange encoding, silly filenames) are a problem beyond minor inconvenience. Any standard release will be x264 or x265 with AAC or DTS, and a simple program like Filebot will lookup all the files on imdb and rename them for you automatically. It is great to support the industry that makes things you like, but ripping blu-rays is orders of magnitudes more work (I do it thoug…

It depends on your perspective. If your intention is to enjoy the film with the best possible quality, then it goes from being an inconvenience to being a real problem. If you don't care, then yes it is just an inconvenience. I'm not saying it is a dealbreaker for everyone, but it is a dealbreaker for me.

Re: Ask HN: We found a cracked version of our software on the web, now what?

#122

Post by devwastaken »

1. The reason someone has taken dozens to hundreds of hours to develop the crack is because your software is prohibitively expensive.

2. Downloaders of cracks are not 1:1 with buyers. Overwhelmingly people buy legitimate software if their business actually relies on it. If Photoshop cracks didn't exist there would be far less professional users.

3. You cannot remove it from the net. Any legal attempts are a waste of money, you will only ever catch the lowest quality users, and trying to go after them in court will not only cost more, but will put your company on the permanent shit list - meaning more clout, more notoriety for cracking future versions.

4. Congrats, you've made a product people want. Focus on making it better, and buyers will come. If you focus on drm and fall into the trap of "theft prevention", you will ultimately end up locking your legitimate customers out before the crackers. Crackers don't play by your rules.

5. If you do actually see a tangible and significant hit in profits, then tie your software to online services. Can't crack what isn't executed locally. This will again reduce quality for legitimate customers.

Re: Ask HN: We found a cracked version of our software on the web, now what?

#123

Post by dmurray »

luckylion wrote: post #37
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could always do the Windows 10 Activation model. If you don't activate Windows 10, you have no ability to personalize your PC (change wallpaper, colors, Lock Screen image, etc.) But you can still use it - which makes it annoying, but still functional. After a few weeks without activating, it also adds an always-visible watermark warning to "Activate your PC." But it still lets you use it. Perhaps the OP could do…

The risk in any of those measures is mis-identifying a copy as "cracked" and refusing to function fully for a paying customer. Sometimes that customer will be understanding, but sometimes they'll just plain angry that you're selling them a license for thousands of dollars and then mess with their ability to get things done. And they usually won't be silent about it either. You can totally do that when you're Microsof…

I think the idea is to put out a company-approved nagware "trial" version. It makes piracy less likely (because the benefit of a full cracked version is smaller) and gives you a sales channel to those who would have pirated it.

The downside is, people who would have paid might discover they're quite happy with the trial version.

Re: Ask HN: We found a cracked version of our software on the web, now what?

#124

Post by qwezxcrty »

I mostly agree with others saying don't care too much. If someone use cracked version of your software, it's unlikely that you can persuade them to purchase at least at the current pricing available to them. And in some situations, being pirated do help one earn popularity and even have vendor lock-in effect. There must be a reason that COMSOL comes with up to date FlexNet licensing 11.16 but only uses it's non ECC short SIGN with well documented method of cracking.

Technically, it's very hard to stop a determined cracker once they get your binary. VMProtect, Themida or other strong packers maybe to some extent can, but those do degrade user experience, so not really popular for professional software. Dongle based solutions by Gemalto or Wibu? They are expensive. One need to physically post the dongles. And they are still crackable unless one have been really carefully implementing the protection scheme (never seen one yet).

See how the cracker's tools (well, reverse engineering tools) are protecting themselves: IDA and JEB Pro are two prominent examples, they don't get pirated until someone leaked the installer. They watermark their distributions, and then they can trace who leaked the binary and act accordingly.

Re: Ask HN: We found a cracked version of our software on the web, now what?

#125

Post by heavyset_go »

Find out the host, send them a DMCA takedown requests.

If it's on BitTorrent, you can get crazy about it and monitor people who share it and send them letters/notify their ISP, but I think that's a lost cause.

Similarly with other P2P networks, you often make direct connections with sharers, and you can use IP addresses to report them to ISPs.

That or you can do what studios/rights holders so with movies and poison the well with broken downloads, bogus files, etc.

You can obfuscate binaries, it's just a matter of how determined crackers are and how much effort they want to expend cracking them.

If you want to prevent this, tie your product into remote services that require authentication with your servers. New features are now implemented in the cloud, and the binaries you ship are just clients to those remote features.

Re: Ask HN: We found a cracked version of our software on the web, now what?

#126

Post by no_time »

heavyset_go wrote: post #125

Find out the host, send them a DMCA takedown requests. If it's on BitTorrent, you can get crazy about it and monitor people who share it and send them letters/notify their ISP, but I think that's a lost cause. Similarly with other P2P networks, you often make direct connections with sharers, and you can use IP addresses to report them to ISPs. That or you can do what studios/rights holders so with movies and poison t…

>That or you can do what studios/rights holders so with movies and poison the well with broken downloads, bogus files, etc.

Can you provide some proof of this happening? I'm curious because I've always thought about this but never actually encountered it in the wild.

Re: Ask HN: We found a cracked version of our software on the web, now what?

#127

Post by heavyset_go »

no_time wrote: post #126
heavyset_go wrote: post #125

Find out the host, send them a DMCA takedown requests. If it's on BitTorrent, you can get crazy about it and monitor people who share it and send them letters/notify their ISP, but I think that's a lost cause. Similarly with other P2P networks, you often make direct connections with sharers, and you can use IP addresses to report them to ISPs. That or you can do what studios/rights holders so with movies and poison t…

>That or you can do what studios/rights holders so with movies and poison the well with broken downloads, bogus files, etc. Can you provide some proof of this happening? I'm curious because I've always thought about this but never actually encountered it in the wild.

Look up movies that haven't been released yet or were just released in theaters on public BitTorrent trackers and you'll see a bunch.

Re: Ask HN: We found a cracked version of our software on the web, now what?

#128

Post by non-nil »

junon wrote: post #111
iLoveOncall wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crysis 3 would let you play an hour or two and then some special weapon wouldn't have ammunition essentially soft-locking you out. Great way to sell too.

Mirrors Edge too. You'd get through the first couple of levels then she'd just slowly come to a halt right before the ledge and you couldn't move anymore.

I first misread this as Microsoft Edge and found it funny, if perhaps a little convoluted.

Re: Ask HN: We found a cracked version of our software on the web, now what?

#129

Post by jeffwask »

paxys wrote: post #82
jeffwask wrote: post #44

Nothing. Almost all of the research points to piracy having zero impact on sales for example, https://corsearch.com/content-library/blog/does-piracy-impac... It's been shown time and again in gaming no matter what you do people will crack it and your measures to stop them will have more negative impact on your paying customers than it does on pirates, see Denuvo. Honestly, the best thing is probably working on your c…

Denuvo's purpose is to stop piracy for the first few weeks of release, since that is when the bulk of a game's sales happen. No one cares if it gets cracked after that. Many publishers themselves remove Denuvo protection from their games after a set period of time. By those measures it is an incredibly successful and effective piece of software.

And none of that changes the fact it's a tool to solve an non-existent problem that often impacts paying customers disproportionately.

Re: Ask HN: We found a cracked version of our software on the web, now what?

#130

Post by 13415 »

Advice from good old shareware days (I never did any of this in my own shareware but have seen it many times):

Defeat the crack when you put out new versions, create more complex protection and obfuscation, but make the more complex check only after a few weeks of running the software. Most crackers develop a crack and when it works release the program, so any kind of delays and double and triple license checks defeat them for a while. Make sure to never tell the user "this software is cracked." Instead, make it fail with obscure errors or work only partially. Be surprised by the support requests you get from users of the cracked version. Put out your own fake cracks with complicated installation instructions that sort of work, but not fully, etc.

Repeat indefinitely, with many releases. Do not ever use any intrusive DRM or hacks like installation of licenses in "secret" places, system modifications, etc., and make 100% sure your legit users have a perfect experience all the time.

Basically, it's a cat-and-mouse game whose goal is to frustrate the users of the crack. At the same time, consider giving legit users better deals and more flexible pricing options. Maybe you can even give away older versions of the software for free or cheap.

Finally, please remain polite even to users of the cracked version (they'll be on forums asking for help). Most of them simply do not have the money to buy a license, but might become legit customers later in their life when they earn more money. Some of them also aren't serious users, i.e., no future customers anyway.

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