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Ground control to Major Trial

virtualize.sh

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Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#71

Post by russfink »

plam503711 wrote: post #26
florbnit wrote: post #10

> We’re not going to waste days chasing them. But at some point, this goes beyond saving a few bucks: it becomes performance art. Oh for the love of tech, do chase them. This absolutely has to be in void of the terms of your trial take them to court. If not, then at the very least name and shame the company, so some dumb manager orchestrating this silly theft will get fired and someone more mature can be rotated in.

I’m actually considering reaching out directly to the CEO and telling the full story. But honestly? There’s a good chance he’s fully aware — and totally fine with it. That’s part of what makes it so disappointing. We’re not rushing into legal action — it’s not worth the energy for now — but publicly calling out the behavior felt necessary. It also sends a message to others in the ecosystem about the kind of nonsense…

First, congrats on having a successful company and doing what you love (and employing others - a great feeling to know you are helping technical folks live their dream).

Second, some thoughts.

A. State in your policy that multiple trials are possible but may incur a rest period between activations for a “given company.” Even 5 days should be reasonable for honest folks but cause a pain point for dishonest ones.

B. If you can add a license activation feature to your software, collect metrics when you present the license activation screen, and “bake in” the telemetry to your trial license key request. Things like CPU ID, hard drive serial numbers, TPM quotes, asset tag serial number. Use that telemetry to determine “given company.” The abusers are likely installing this on the same system over and over.

C. Independent of the activation idea, If the trial hard-stops after 30 days, maybe you could delay the approval process on all new trials by X days (X randomly chosen from range 0..5, and all trial requests independent of requestor) and then activate the product for 30-X days. Assuming the dishonests have integrated the VM into their production systems, this will cause an unpredictable unavailability and trigger a pain point somewhere. At worst, it will cause them to step up their request efforts.

As others probably are saying, this might be one for the lawyers.

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#72

Post by rideontime »

funki wrote: post #63
rideontime wrote: post #25

I got distracted a few paragraphs in by the realization that the text was AI-generated.

What tipped you off? (I'm not a native speaker either)

There's a certain sort of "snarkiness" that's very easy to spot. There's a convicted scammer named Craig Wright (long story) who uses ChatGPT to write long, smug essays on X which have the exact same sort of tone, complete with the weird florid analogies.

> Hard to say if it was a mistake, a flex, or just their way of making sure we didn’t miss who was milking the trials.

> It’s tested. It updates with a single click. It saves time and reduces risk. That’s what we sell. And that’s what they keep pirouetting around with their email dance.

> We’re not going to waste days chasing them. But at some point, this goes beyond saving a few bucks: it becomes performance art.

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#74

Post by mytailorisrich »

plam503711 wrote: post #61
mytailorisrich wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devil's advocate: If supplying an email address opens up a 30 day free trial, you can hardly complain when people do supply email addresses... especially when, to smooth the experience, there is absolutely nothing else but a email address field and a "start free trial" button. People will always find ways to use things to the limit or abuse them. You need to consider where to put the limit to balance user experience…

Well, now I’ve seen it — and yes, lesson learned. But here’s the good news about humanity: they’re the only ones abusing it at this scale. So far, it seems most people still choose sanity over spreadsheets of throwaway emails.

Whenever someone asks "but who's gonna do that??" the real world answer is always "Well..." for better or worse ;)

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#75

Post by chii »

robotwizard wrote: post #55

It's pretty straightforward to me at least what needs to be done. Add 2fa sms authentication and restrict trials to one per phone number. It's less easier to get new phone numbers.

and most 2fa security dont use sms any more. It's an insecure option - forcing it sucks for the legit customers. But if you don't force it, then one can bypass the sms and thus no longer need a phone number. Or you can try force sms on first login, _then_ allow the move to use a OTP app.

And even with this, what happens if the company simply shares the company phone, authenticate, then remove the phone and switch to OTP (for each time, or each user)? Unless if a phone number cannot be used twice...which means you have to keep storing it, and handle the support requests when a number is legitimately recycled (and how do you differentiate that?)

Offering something that is quite full featured for free (even as a trial) will get it exploited; it's only going to increasely be the case going forward. The internet is hostile, and getting more hostile.

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#76

Post by cogman10 »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #38
florbnit wrote: post #10

> We’re not going to waste days chasing them. But at some point, this goes beyond saving a few bucks: it becomes performance art. Oh for the love of tech, do chase them. This absolutely has to be in void of the terms of your trial take them to court. If not, then at the very least name and shame the company, so some dumb manager orchestrating this silly theft will get fired and someone more mature can be rotated in.

Devil's advocate: If supplying an email address opens up a 30 day free trial, you can hardly complain when people do supply email addresses... especially when, to smooth the experience, there is absolutely nothing else but a email address field and a "start free trial" button. People will always find ways to use things to the limit or abuse them. You need to consider where to put the limit to balance user experience…

We'd have to see the ToS, but I'd suspect the lawyer that wrote it didn't say email, they said individual. Further, I suspect there's a clause in there about commercial usage.

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#77

Post by niam »

There has to be something cosmically funny and tragic about the number of respondents here ascribing some sort of failure to the hosting company.

God bless those among us who steal the candy bowl at Halloween.

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#79

Post by TZubiri »

plam503711 wrote: post #52
TZubiri wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just straight to court " it’s not worth the energy for now" Not sure what the amount is, but Small Claims is pretty straightforward and energy efficient? You can get like 10K depending on jurisdiction. The whole trial is like 1 hour.

We operate globally, and this company isn’t even on our continent. On top of that, it’s a semi state-operated entity — so you can probably imagine where any legal effort would end up: somewhere between bureaucratic limbo and /dev/null.

Ah I didn't consider that. International case certainly is going to be more complex.

That said, I think that small cases are still worth pursuing on a matter of principle and strategy.

It's better to practice pursuing payment from international clients when it's small amounts you don't care about, so that you are prepared if you have an issue with a huge client and bankruptcy is on the line.

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#80

Post by stefanos82 »

> We’re not going to waste days chasing them. But at some point, this goes beyond saving a few bucks: it becomes performance art.

How about creating a "Wall of Shame" page and name shaming such companies, until the get the message that they have the financial resources to pay?

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