One method of generating the serial number is dependant upon the name or company your register your copy to. The program generates the serial based upon the string in the name field. Because of this, having a generic serial out there doesn’t always work, so some hackers have made key generators, which allow you to enter a company or personal name, and it will spit out the serial number that will work.
This solution is sometimes a bit too easy for some ambitious hackers (or just infeasible). In that case, many times they crack a program. Cracking a program involves running the program through a debugger, and removing the section of code where the program checks for the registration info, or checks on what day of the trial you are at. By removing this section, you get a free no-registration version or a demo with no expiration day, respectively.
With games, new difficulties are encountered. Games have the luxury of requiring the game CD, which makes using a mere serial number difficult. Not only must a good deal of data be transferred, but the software generally MUST be cracked, so as to remove the copy protection on the CD (see my other article).
Probably the most humorous thing to see pirated is the full length movie. No one would want it if they could rent it at the movie store, so it requires that someone go to the movies, videotape the movie, come home and upload the movie in a format others can view. Not only does this take a good deal of time, but the result often will look like someone shot a movie of a movie screen (because that is exactly what they did).
NOTE: This is, to the best of my knowledge, pushing one of the longest articles I have ever written. I could be completely wrong, but I’m too lazy to find all of my other articles and check.
Getting past the protection on programs is only the first step. The next problem is the distribution. As stated earlier, many demonstration versions of software are available on corporate websites. This alleviates some of the stress of pirating, I’m sure. But the trouble comes when you need to pirate something rather large, say for example an office suite. Some pirates have servers, some just use free internet hosting. In either case, they are limited by both bandwidth and space constraints. Generally there is an inverse relationship between the two factors. Homemade servers have lots of file space because the pirate put his own hard drive in, but bandwidth is low, because his connection is cable (or worse). Free internet hosting has a great deal of bandwidth at your disposal, but the pirate is generally limited by the amount of space in which he can put files. This causes him to make multiple accounts under pseudonyms to store all the files. IRC channels and Usenet are often posted with links to the locations of the files, as are the pirates websites. Distribution is sometimes active, sometimes passive, depending upon the pirate’s personality and motives.
On the note of motives, back to the idea that for some it is prestige. One of the goals with pirating, in the underground, is to get a pirated copy on the internet and widely available on the first day that the software is released. This is known as Day 0. Hence, 0-Day software is a pirated copy that was released the same day as the legal copy.
The internet is without question the largest mode for wide scale piracy. But one often overlooked area of piracy is that of person-to-person piracy. Most don’t consider this as piracy, because the person is generally a friend, and as such we see it as a favor, rather than as stealing. It skips our mind that it takes away revenue from the software producers. In such a form of piracy, we lend our Installation CD to a friend to either copy or install from, and then we get it back (or perhaps we get a copy from a friend). Person-to-person copying often goes on to result in commercial copying (copying for profit).
I must say that despite piracy being a bane to many software producers, there is honor among thieves. During the 12 or so minutes of research for this article, I noted that many sites actually encourage those who download to purchase the software if it is good. They say to support the companies, which indicates that they at least know the repercussions of their actions. Another one of the major repercussions of piracy is the spread of viruses. A little while back, CIH (Chernobyl virus) was spread rather widely by pirated software, as it infected a few of the major underground software centers.
Pirates now, just like the privateers of the high seas of old, often work in groups. They have distinct hierarchies. Everyone has a job, and a superior. Yes, there are risks, and yes, there are benefits. Many tools and many tactics are put to use, and evolve over time as software giants protect against older forms. I do not condone wanton piracy. However, I must take the stance that it must exist. Not only from the stance that order cannot exist without anarchy (sounds cheesy), but from another stance. One’s muscle does not develop without resistance. So also does the evolution of software protection not occur without resistance to it.
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