http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=2LHXLW4A01CKCQSNDBGCKH0CJUMEKJVN?articleID=10818046

Cuss and discuss.



--

"Whoever is advising them [Democrats] on gun control
should be shot."

Blaine Rummel, spokesman for the Coalition to
Stop Gun Violence.

In article <r4qhgvsbrb24uhfg0imlnpt4flcauqgjbr[at]4ax.com>,
Mayor of R'lyeh <ev515o[at]hotmail.com> wrote:

> Cuss and discuss.

That Fat Johnny is obsessed with anything Australian or Norwegian and
constantly trawls their web sites; What else is new?

To comp.sys.mac.advocacy subscribers,

> From: Mayor of R'lyeh <ev515o[at]hotmail.com>,

> http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=2LH
> XLW4A01CKCQSNDBGCKH0CJUMEKJVN?articleID=10818046
>
> Cuss and discuss.

I don't see the point. Is this going to stop the pirates? Not a chance.
Is this going to end up locking up on the innocent? Certainly. So, the
system actually achieves the -opposite- of what it wants to achieve.

Sigh.

digitaleon.

(P.S. This had better not be one more in the long line of "copy
protection" schemes on Mac OS X applications that get upset where you
have multiple connections to a network, where the designers say 'oh
well, too bad, don't use multiple connections' instead of fucking
fixing their software to work _properly_!)

digitaleon wrote in <XrmcnWyRruyQs5SiRTvUqg[at]giganews.com>:

>To comp.sys.mac.advocacy subscribers,
>
>> From: Mayor of R'lyeh <ev515o[at]hotmail.com>,
>
>> http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=2LH
>> XLW4A01CKCQSNDBGCKH0CJUMEKJVN?articleID=10818046
>>
>> Cuss and discuss.
>
>I don't see the point. Is this going to stop the pirates? Not a chance.
>Is this going to end up locking up on the innocent? Certainly. So, the
>system actually achieves the -opposite- of what it wants to achieve.

Yeah it will lock up on the innocent. Idiot. Product activation is
becoming increasingly common because Microsoft has proved that it can
be successfullly done on a very large scale. It can be done
painlessly for the casual consumer and that's all that matters. You
can whine but you won't win.

Steve Hanson wrote:
> digitaleon wrote in <XrmcnWyRruyQs5SiRTvUqg[at]giganews.com>:
>
>
>>To comp.sys.mac.advocacy subscribers,
>>
>>
>>>From: Mayor of R'lyeh <ev515o[at]hotmail.com>,
>>
>>>http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=2LH
>>>XLW4A01CKCQSNDBGCKH0CJUMEKJVN?articleID=10818046
>>>
>>>Cuss and discuss.
>>
>>I don't see the point. Is this going to stop the pirates? Not a chance.
>>Is this going to end up locking up on the innocent? Certainly. So, the
>>system actually achieves the -opposite- of what it wants to achieve.
>
>
> Yeah it will lock up on the innocent. Idiot. Product activation is
> becoming increasingly common because Microsoft has proved that it can
> be successfullly done on a very large scale. It can be done
> painlessly for the casual consumer and that's all that matters. You
> can whine but you won't win.


I agree, legitimate users have nothing to worry about. It's not like
Windows XP activation, which limits the amount of hardware modifications
you can make to your PC before asking you to reactivate.

Of course, someone will eventually hack the protection scheme, but
the activation procedure should eliminate a lot of casual piracy. And
of course, some people will continue to believe that all software should
be free, and continue to steal software. I don't see product activation
being a problem for legitimate users.

-zolo

Mayor of R'lyeh wrote:

>
>
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=2LHXLW4A01CKCQSNDBGCKH0CJUMEKJVN?articleID=10818046
>
> Cuss and discuss.

I thought Photoshop 7 phoned home already.

--

Peter

Remove NOSPAM. to e-mail

To comp.sys.mac.advocacy subscribers,

>>>> From: Mayor of R'lyeh <ev515o[at]hotmail.com>,
>>> From: digitaleon <this.is[at]fake.address>,
>> From: Steve Hanson <icustomercare[at]usps.com>,
> From: zolo <zolotroph[at]nospam.net>,

>>>> http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=
>>>> 2LHXLW4A01CKCQSNDBGCKH0CJUMEKJVN?articleID=10818046
>>>>
>>>> Cuss and discuss.
>>>
>>> I don't see the point. Is this going to stop the pirates? Not a
>>> chance. Is this going to end up locking up on the innocent?
>>> Certainly. So, the system actually achieves the -opposite- of what
>>> it wants to achieve.
>>
>> Product activation is becoming increasingly common because Microsoft
>> has proved that it can be successfully done on a very large scale.
>> It can be done painlessly for the casual consumer and that's all
>> that matters.
>
> I agree, legitimate users have nothing to worry about. It's not like
> Windows XP activation, which limits the amount of hardware
> modifications you can make to your PC before asking you to reactivate.
>
> Of course, someone will eventually hack the protection scheme, but the
> activation procedure should eliminate a lot of casual piracy. And of
> course, some people will continue to believe that all software should
> be free, and continue to steal software. I don't see product
> activation being a problem for legitimate users.

Please do not misinterpret my postings. I did not suggest that
activation is the spawn of the devil or that Adobe customers are going
for a ride to hell. What I wrote was that I don't see the point in it.

The first key to the success of activation: it exists to make correct
licensing the path of least resistance, since the honor system doesn't
do the trick on its own. Unfortunately, there are well-packaged,
easy-to-use cracks available for Windows XP and Office XP activation
systems that balance out this premise.

The second key to the success of activation: it needs to be
conspicuously absent, even if it is easy. Pre-activation by vendors and
volume licensing arrangements for as few as five copies requiring no
activation have meant that the majority of Microsoft's customers have
likely never seen the activation agent. And if it's not the majority of
customers needing to activate, what does that tell us about the
unprecedented popularity of these cracks?

Further, activation is not itself foolproof. And that presents another
unstable element to the ecosystem of your computer. If you're relying
on a particular piece of software for your work, say a presentation to
a potential client, whether it worked fine all the days before now and
works fine all the days after now doesn't matter. The arguments "bugs
will happen" or "you're just one person, Adobe has a business to
protect" are all quite valid, but that won't stop the person that just
lost their chance at the pitch from wanting to throw you out their
3rd-story window.

On conclusion of this trial, if Adobe decides to proceed with
activation, we will see it in all their new-release products across all
platforms. Promises of lowered licensing costs and increased privacy
have yet to materialise from existing activation schemes, either,
although according to the FAQ on the activation trial Adobe will not
use activation as a trigger to get you onto an upgrade treadmill.

Windows XP and Office XP are well-known, widely-used products. Photoshop
is also a well-known, slightly-less-widely-used product. How long will
it be before cracks come along, and everything that is true about
activation for Microsoft's XP products, becomes true about Adobe's?
Activation is a sound idea and I wish Adobe well with it (I refuse to
pirate software, being a 'sort-of' developer myself), but for the
reasons above, I don't see the point.

digitaleon.

digitaleon wrote in <ktqcnUGOd_-xWpeiRTvUpQ[at]giganews.com>:

>The first key to the success of activation: it exists to make correct
>licensing the path of least resistance, since the honor system doesn't
>do the trick on its own. Unfortunately, there are well-packaged,
>easy-to-use cracks available for Windows XP and Office XP activation
>systems that balance out this premise.

They also aren't easy to find for most people and unless you like to
hang out on IRC all day downloading virus-ridden crap it's still a
whole lot easier to just fork over $150 for a copy of XP Pro.

The point is if you were used to passing around CD copies, that won't
work nearly as often. It doesn't have to be a perfect system, which
is why Microsoft loosed it's hardware change requirements to the point
where few people will ever need to reactivate for the life of their
system. Of course if you have inside contacts in some corporate IT
department you're okay, but that's not most people.

>The second key to the success of activation: it needs to be
>conspicuously absent, even if it is easy. Pre-activation by vendors and
>volume licensing arrangements for as few as five copies requiring no
>activation have meant that the majority of Microsoft's customers have
>likely never seen the activation agent. And if it's not the majority of
>customers needing to activate, what does that tell us about the
>unprecedented popularity of these cracks?

What *does* it tell you? Activation was foreseen by the terminally
paranoid as some time-consuming, privacy invading endeavor when the
truth is it's about as much of a hassle as putting a stamp on a
letter. You click some button and you're done. It really is
amazingly simple.

>Further, activation is not itself foolproof. And that presents another
>unstable element to the ecosystem of your computer. If you're relying
>on a particular piece of software for your work, say a presentation to
>a potential client, whether it worked fine all the days before now and
>works fine all the days after now doesn't matter. The arguments "bugs
>will happen" or "you're just one person, Adobe has a business to
>protect" are all quite valid, but that won't stop the person that just
>lost their chance at the pitch from wanting to throw you out their
>3rd-story window.

Funny then that I read of no reports of activation snafus. I mean
it's not like the Register or other places wouldn't fall all over
themselves reporting them.

You seem to think laboriously tracking long serial numbers is LESS
COMPLICATED and MORE FOOLPROOF than product activation. It's quite
obvious you have little to no experience with activation. I've worked
with both systems and believe me activation is the least cumbersome
copy protection ever devised. You seem to believe that we live in a
world that doesn't need copy protection. Since no one believes you,
it's a matter of which system will be used, and activation (assuming
Adobe doesn't fuck it up) is far and away the easiest to live with.

>On conclusion of this trial, if Adobe decides to proceed with
>activation, we will see it in all their new-release products across all
>platforms. Promises of lowered licensing costs and increased privacy
>have yet to materialise from existing activation schemes, either,
>although according to the FAQ on the activation trial Adobe will not
>use activation as a trigger to get you onto an upgrade treadmill.

Neither does anyone else that I'm aware of. I don't recall anyone,
for example Microsoft, promising to lower prices after implementing
activation (which does have some overhead of course). Maybe you could
reference someone saying that.

>Windows XP and Office XP are well-known, widely-used products. Photoshop
>is also a well-known, slightly-less-widely-used product. How long will

Slightly?!? Photoshop isn't in their league at all. You graphic
designers spend far too much time incestuously mating with your own.
Get out into the real world where people don't spend all day making
brochures or company logos.

>it be before cracks come along, and everything that is true about
>activation for Microsoft's XP products, becomes true about Adobe's?
>Activation is a sound idea and I wish Adobe well with it (I refuse to
>pirate software, being a 'sort-of' developer myself), but for the
>reasons above, I don't see the point.

It's on top of your head.