RANT: SOFTWARE SECURITY
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--- rant editing began at 10:55pm on 2007.11.22
Let me tell you a little story about a man named Erik. He blew a lot of money for a long time in his teenage years on things he wanted. Then he moved out completely on his own and ended up without much money coming in and more bills than he himself could cover. He was greatly helped by someone he will always have love for in his heart and soul. During this long period of having virtually no money, he worked on various projects. These projects were ranging from audio to visual and textual.
Erik used borrowed or otherwise acquired software from 2000 to 2005. This isn't counting the MP3s he downloaded to either replace scratched CDs or just because he was sick of looking at his literally hundreds upon hundreds of CD cases which would make him very angry because most of them had a few good songs, including those on the radio, and were filled the rest of the way with worthless shit. But overall piracy is not the point of this rant. Rob Sheridan clearly has written something that entirely covers it, and I would merely point to it rather than try a feeble attempt at something as eloquent and well thought out as that.
This is my venting about mother fucking software "security." I put "security" in quotes because it's never going to be secure. Anyone can learn all the code in the world, and with that knowledge deconstruct pretty much anything and everything in the world of software. Thus, no matter what type of "security" that is active on a piece of software, someone out there is inevitably going to crack it. It is what helped me create so much of what I created in the first half of this decade.
The problem for me began with the first piece of legal software I purchased in quite a long time. A video game. That video game was some world war two real time strategy game. The install was terrible. It was only two CDs. Two. It would barely read the second one. It was brand new. Once I installed it, the requirement for activation was to talk to it's home and verify a CD key. CD Key? Where. I couldn't find any CD key anywhere on any of the pieces of papers or boxes.
Remember, I purchased this one.
How did I fix the situation? I emailed the software company. They told me where the sticker “was” on the case. It wasn't. It wasn't anywhere. I told them this, and they told me to buy the game. I told them, very politely, that I do own the game. I even scanned and sent them a copy of the receipt with the booklet, CD itself and their response was “Nice scan. Was that where you got what the CD and the cover looked like?”
I didn't respond. I went to a website and downloaded a crack for it. Turned to the illegal side of things to fix a fucking completely legal purchase. To make it work.
Next, Native Instruments. Normally I don't have any problems with their software at all. Pirated or Legal. (Legal guitar rig 2 is fucking so much better. Why? HARDWARE! So hot. I slept with the pedal one night. Shh.) For two days their validation servers weren't working. Fine. I called to have it verified over the phone. First two people couldn't speak english worth a fuck and I ended up cutting the calls short. Third person was great. Why all the fucking steps when, predictably, everyone pirates it anyway and probably will for a great many more years?
Finally, and the trigger for this spilling of my thoughts on this subject. Photoshop. I had been using fucking Photoshop for quite a few years. My first version of Photoshop was 6. I downloaded it from a friend's FTP server. It was on Dial Up. It took two days. I didn't understand that to really learn photoshop was NOT to learn what all the filters did. But I had fun anyway.
I pirated 7, 8, CS2(9) and when CS3 came out I had the opportunity to buy it for $200. Which, if you know anything about Adobeware, is CHEAP. C H E A P. So naturally I jumped at it. And I'm really let down that I did. I've had to reinstall it FOUR times. FOUR. Why? Because it has continually become invalid. I contact Adobe Customer Support, and they pretty much type one handed because the other hand's thumb is wedged anally. It fucking boggles me that I had virtually no problems what so ever when pirating software. But now, seeing an extra step here and there and dealing with seriously faulty security on the software that has actually been paid for... Give me a fucking break. I ended up putting the CS3 box in the closet and downloading a pirated version. Why? Because I don't have to fuck with it again after I installed it. Got it?
--- rant editing ended at 11:24pm on 2007.11.22