Kwakkelflap: tools for the IT pro

Monday, January 08, 2007

Pirates!

The nice thing about a new release is that you get back on top of the download sites and new people will notice your product. The bad thing is that it's also a note to crackers to let them know you have a new version.

Every program that's interesting will be cracked. You can find an Adobe Photoshop Serial or a Vista Keygen just by googling. Anyone with a blog can help out a little and create fake links for cracks like the one above. This will help pirates find a nice tune instead of the software they are looking for.

I've seen some keygens for my software previously, so I switched to a different full binary. I wasn't surprised to find a Sniff - O - Matic crack on the net today. This one is different than the others: they stripped the trial version and simply distribute the .exe file. They did a bad job however, and the interface is garbled up. Time to update my version I guess.

There is no recent Watchdog - O - Matic crack or Service - O - Matic crack, but I'll have to watch out.

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posted by Wouter Dhondt at 09:36

5 Comments:

  • Did you see any dip in your sales because of the crack?

    Can you not make your binary send an HTTP request to your server once every '10 days' OR '50 usages' and send its MD5 to the server?

    And if the MD5 does not match with the one you relased you can may be disable the software. Just an idea.

    More importantly : Did you see any noticable dip in your downloads or sales since the crack?

    Madanu,
    MakeLogic,
    http://www.makelogic.com

    By Blogger Madanu, at 6:58 PM  

  • I have not seen a dip in sales or downloads. The crack is not available through google right now. So it's not that popular at the moment.

    I'm not fond of "phoning home" to check the MD5. I feel you only punish your customers with systems like that. And what should you do if you can't connect to the server? Disable the software, and a paying user might not be able to use it if your site is down. Enable it anyway, and a user can simply block the call home with a firewall.

    If they don't want to pay, they won't pay no matter how much you protect your software. I'd rather spend my time creating new features for existing customers instead.

    By Blogger Wouter Dhondt, at 7:07 PM  

  • Do we have developer companies complaining dip in sales because of cracks? I am especially referring to micro to mini ISVs.

    I think large companies like Adobe do suffer because of this.

    So much of Microsoft software is pirated in China and other countries, but MS consciously does not stop it because they all could turn to Linux of other *nix systems.

    I use an open source system where my software tools 'call-back-home' and let me know the bug reports. I keep the users well informed that we are doing this using a privacy policy. And when I see my download count and the 'HTTP calls', they are almost the same. Meaning - most of them have so far have not blocked these HTTP calls using any Firewall. I am talking of about 3000 end users.

    I also see a point in what you are saying. May be we need to find a solution.

    Madanu,
    MakeLogic,
    http://www.makelogic.com

    By Blogger Madanu, at 7:26 PM  

  • Could it potentially increase interest in your product. If it's worth cracking it's worth having surely.
    Do people search for applications they have found a crack for?

    By Blogger conkerjoe, at 9:03 PM  

  • It's one thing to check for a certain crack you need. It's a totally different thing if you just browse these sites. I don't think that people browsing crack sites will ever buy anything. It might increase 'interest' but I don't think it will lead to sales.

    By Blogger Wouter Dhondt, at 8:20 AM  

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