How I converted a software thief into a customer • Hacker News Board

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#31

Post by quesera » Tue, Jul 17, 2012, 11:40 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #26

cheeze wrote: post #22

Somewhat related, when I was younger I had no money and didn't have much of a problem pirating software (times have changed and I realize how stupid that is). I tried to pirate a piece of software and upon entering a fake key got a popup similar to yours. Basically, it said "I'm not able to stop you from pirating this software, I'm not even going to disable activation for your clearly invalid key. Just remember that…

While sounding fine, its a form of error in reasoning - A fallacy of a kind. The logic does not scale. If I go to the supermarket and buy cheap imported goods, I deprive the local market of the possible purchase of their goods. It is very easy, almost impossible, not to deprive someone of payment if payment is based on who has worked hard and what could have happened. The logic also demand that there is a zero sum ga…

Just because something doesn't scale into the macro doesn't mean it can't be true and relevant in the micro.

Also, you've extrapolated from "non-zero sum, not all equations balance" into "there is no math", which makes your argument more fallacious than that to which you were responding.

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#32

Post by eridius » Tue, Jul 17, 2012, 11:49 PM UTC

joshmlewis wrote: post #9

Torrents wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, I'm thinking like someone who's trying to get software for free. I still don't get it. If they were modifying an existing valid key, it doesn't seem like people would keep using the same one. Unless people are downloading a keygen or something. Any more hints?

To me it seems like these keys were shared on a site somewhere and when people Googled for free blurity key or whatever these came up.

If that were true the author would have been able to find the keys, but he said Google failed him.

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#33

Post by vacri » Tue, Jul 17, 2012, 11:56 PM UTC

activepeanut wrote: post #8

Isn't this incentivising people to pirate before buying a legitimate license?

Can can be tweaked or removed if that becomes popular.

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#34

Post by vacri » Tue, Jul 17, 2012, 11:57 PM UTC

iamdann wrote: post #18

The popup you wrote had a humanizing effect. It's not just a faceless piece of software anymore. It's a a genuinely nice guy who built a cool product and wants to get paid. As a concept, people know that there's a real person behind every application. But it's not until moments like these when they're actually confronted with that person. Much less offered a deal for trying to rip them off.

It may also have had an 'oh my god, I've been caught!' effect - no longer is the user anonymous, in their own eyes.

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#35

Post by gradstudent » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 12:16 AM UTC

Interesting tidbit: > I couldn’t figure out where those numbers were coming from. The people trying the invalid numbers seemed to have nothing in common, and my Google-fu failed me.

You seem to suggest here you track user information to such a degree that you can Google for the individuals in question. That's creepy as hell!

I think you've scared me away from your software forever.

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#36

Post by DanBC » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 12:22 AM UTC

sharkweek wrote: post #5

Notch, of Minecraft fame, is well known for these types of shenanigans, even shaming a Minecraft pirate in a Quake 3 match ( http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120412/07474418467/friend... ) Not sure it's scalable, but sure makes for a fun alternative to perpetual legal battles

That's the quake 3 match with team Avo, the same people who released the minecraft login exploit. (I say released, it wasn't found by them, as far as I can tell, but by Nodus, another griefing groups.)

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#37

Post by nyellin » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 12:22 AM UTC

gradstudent wrote: post #35

Interesting tidbit: > I couldn’t figure out where those numbers were coming from. The people trying the invalid numbers seemed to have nothing in common, and my Google-fu failed me. You seem to suggest here you track user information to such a degree that you can Google for the individuals in question. That's creepy as hell! I think you've scared me away from your software forever.

Actually, I assumed he tried Googling the invalid numbers. And logging browser + geographic information in error handlers is standard practice.

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#38

Post by jbigelow76 » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 12:23 AM UTC

gradstudent wrote: post #35

Interesting tidbit: > I couldn’t figure out where those numbers were coming from. The people trying the invalid numbers seemed to have nothing in common, and my Google-fu failed me. You seem to suggest here you track user information to such a degree that you can Google for the individuals in question. That's creepy as hell! I think you've scared me away from your software forever.

I guessing he probably tried googling for the IP address of the wannabe pirates in question, or their email addresses. Collecting email is normal for software sales, particularly when delivered over the internet and your IP address is logged pretty much anywhere you go online. If you aren't actively hiding yourself behind a proxy or using fake email accounts etc... it shouldn't be to hard to get some idea of who or what company or at least their ISP that you're dealing with.

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#39

Post by gosu » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 12:26 AM UTC

belorn wrote: post #26

cheeze wrote: post #22

Somewhat related, when I was younger I had no money and didn't have much of a problem pirating software (times have changed and I realize how stupid that is). I tried to pirate a piece of software and upon entering a fake key got a popup similar to yours. Basically, it said "I'm not able to stop you from pirating this software, I'm not even going to disable activation for your clearly invalid key. Just remember that…

While sounding fine, its a form of error in reasoning - A fallacy of a kind. The logic does not scale. If I go to the supermarket and buy cheap imported goods, I deprive the local market of the possible purchase of their goods. It is very easy, almost impossible, not to deprive someone of payment if payment is based on who has worked hard and what could have happened. The logic also demand that there is a zero sum ga…

In my completely uneducated view of the world, this situation is different because, whichever supermarket you pay at, you're cashing in on the skill and time which you previously contributed to society. You're also "voting with your dollar" and giving society some feedback about what it needs less and more of.

When you take something without paying for it, and that thing has a price, then you're saying that society owes you more than what it has judged your own value to be. That price of that object has been set relative to the price of your wages, in a long process of trial and error. Others need to work in order to pay for this thing, but you don't think that you do. That's how I see it from a moral standpoint.

I'm not following your train of thought in the second paragraph, but the statement "copying is needing" needs more qualification. And on the topic of needing: if you truly don't need something, then you should in fact let society "cut the fat". But if there was no one to make the software that you pirated, and if you actually never got to use the thing which you claim (I think) not to need, then would you have been just as happy? I think, if you use something that you "don't need", then you're just lying.

My own restaurant analogy for this is that piracy would be like a very stupidly run restaurant opening a free all-you-can-eat buffet out back, in addition to a full price menu. In the absence of a disincentive, no self-serving person would pay full price.

The supply of copyable software is infinite, but not the supply of time needed to make it. In order to make sure that B isn't undervalued, we can do any of the following:

- Artificially limit supply of A (drm).

- Find someone who values A more than you do (advertisers).

- Make people pay for B rather than for A (kickstarter).

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#40

Post by DanBC » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 12:28 AM UTC

bri3d wrote: post #29

I've seen quite a few instances of string resources like "I need this money to feed my family," or more humorous "so you think you're leet, do you?"-type phrases placed near easily-defeated serial validation code in binaries. A lot of the funnier strings convinced me to give money to the authors of software I'd never have purchased or used to start with (I used to download a lot of shareware just to explore its copy…

It's not as much fun if they do something that can trash data of innocent users. "The tree of evil bears bitter fruit" -

(http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=eo4Otm_TcW8C&pg=PT509...)

If the software thought you were running it under a debugger it would try to trash the disk. Unfortunately several errors made the software think it was running under a debugger even if it wasn't, and a few people lost data.