Part 1. A War between Copy Protection and Piracy

Copy protection and piracy are conflicts that fighting forever. When a new technology is introduced into copy protection, and counterpart will research the corresponding sword to it. Without a very long time, this so called “new technology” can be cracked. It is a truth in the world. It is ridiculous that saying a product is “un-crack able”, because we know everything in the world can be reversed; the only problem is efficiency and time. If we had a powerful computer (it is only an assumption), and we were smart enough (if we were lucky), then we would crack any algorithm. Maybe you think our pre-condition is not realistic, but we should be serious for this topic.

Since this war is ever taking, no fighter will stop fighting, we should explain this topic for a scientific and realistic point of view.

First of all, we can say no software is completed “un-crack able”. We have explained this topic before.

Second, for software developers or vendors, the only task they can do is to improve the software copy protection, and make it more difficult. There is a balance between software protection and piracy. If the cost of cracking overrides (or too big) the cost of software, cracking such software becomes a meaningless job; no one would like to crack it any more.

Third, from software developers’ point of view, what they are really doing is not protecting the software; the real aim is to make maximum profit. To keep the maximum profit from the software is the only and most business reason that drive the developers to protection they software. If we looking at the topic from this side, we can say “copy protection” is only a side effect that brought by the commercial aim.  Read more...