Another thought about piracy
[Update 1: the author has responded with a public letter to this issue and is planning to open the source code of his application]
[Update 2: my friend over at Yet Another Mac Dev Blog had a look behind the curtain with display eater check it out, it’s a very interesting read.]
[Update 3: the developer of Display Eater replied to this open letter over at Yet Another Mac Dev Blog: […]Version 1.85 was released three times. Version 1 had no deletion, version 2 had home folder deletion, and version 3 had display eater preferences deletion.[…]]
Today I wanted to make a screen-cast about the inspector I was talking about in the previous post. I tried out Display Eater and while I read about the features on the version-tracker site, I stepped over the comments for this application. These comments really scared the hell out of me and I was truly in doubt of the developers sanity. To make it short: this application will remove your home folder if you try to register it with a pirated serial number.
I mean it’s not right to pirate software, it’s illegal. But there are people out there who do that. But these people are users, they’re using the software and if they like it they might purchase a license some day. Well I guess they wouldn’t anyway. But if they like the product they probably talk about it. And by talking about the app they will bring other users to the app. These others may pirate it as well, or if they’re more honest they may purchase it or continue the advertisement.
Removing the home folder of some users will probably do way more advertisement. But that kind of advertisement is not good. This blog post is such a kind of negative advertisement. I definitely do not support such software and I suggest you should not use Display Eater. If you need a tool to create screen-casts go for iShowU. It’s just 3$ more expensive than Display Eater but seems to have a much better user experience.
Yesterday I saw a post from Wil Shipley about pirating software and I fully agree with him! Pirates can’t be stopped. You can try to improve the copy protection of your application to the max, but this will only reduce the user experience of paying customers. You’re better off spending your precious time implementing new features than improving the copy protection. This will help both the developer and the users.
Karsten
February 22nd, 2007 at 5:13
Wow he charges money for malware — that’s a novel concept! Balls man, he’s got balls. The courts don’t make exceptions for willfully damaging someone’s computer so long as they’re a bad guy — legally he can’t prove piracy all he can attest to is that the victim used the same serial number that he flagged to do bad things to the system — You don’t need to be a lawyer to figure this out. And then you top this off with no disclaimer (sorry versiontracker comments don’t count) AND you charge money for it — lol. Safe to say this developer will always be on the blacklist, reformed or not. Additionally, (like this even needs to be said…) It’s quite clear this is a model example of what not to do — but I don’t know *anyone* that has or would ever expect to use such bad judgment.
February 22nd, 2007 at 5:32
Purposefully inflicting damage on a user should be a crime if it’s not already. Assuming it’s not, purposefully inflicting damage based on pure mathematics should be. How can the developer prove that the original licensed user actually gave away his SN to anyone? Assuming for a second that this app *does not* display the SN to anyone who opens the about box, how does the developer know that the licensed user didn’t just write the number somewhere and someone else grabbed it? And now, after months of paid-for usage, and no illegal action, the customer finds his home directory nuked.
What a jackass. I’m waiting for Gruber or drunkenbatman to rip this guy a new one.
In the meantime, I’ll have a look at the app. Jackass says he likes x86 assembly, and so do I…
February 22nd, 2007 at 6:01
[…] Well, this is interesting. It turns out that Display Eater, a screen-capture application for Mac OS X will delete your home folder if it thinks you’re running it with a pirated serial number. How’s that for a draconian anti-piracy policy? [Karsten Kusche over at briksoftware] also thinks it’ll generate some of the worst PR possible: […]
February 22nd, 2007 at 15:34
The site says:
“The capture engine code as well as the rendering code is multi-threaded to exploit systems”
Who knew you had to multi-thread to exploit systems.. and by exploit I of course mean destroy? 🙂
February 22nd, 2007 at 16:49
Another solution is to use free open-source softwares. Then you have the source code.
February 22nd, 2007 at 16:59
But if there’s no good free open-source software available to do the job, what should one do? I could of course write my own screen capturing application, but this would probably not be free and by no means open source.
February 22nd, 2007 at 19:40
There actually are free open-source software to do that job.
February 22nd, 2007 at 22:32
How do you come to conclusion over which particular license is “pirated”? And how will paying customers be compensated for when you fuck up?
February 23rd, 2007 at 7:07
[…] Brik Software blog entry […]
February 23rd, 2007 at 9:20
Does it nuke your home folder if you make a typo while entering your valid serial number? People make typos all the time, especially when entering numeric sequences like serials.
February 23rd, 2007 at 15:25
[…] warning for OSX users, avoid Display Eater software http://geekpatrol.ca/2007/02/display…just-displays/ Well, this is interesting. It turns out that Display Eater, a screen-capture application for Mac OS X will delete your home folder if it thinks you’re running it with a pirated serial number. How’s that for a draconian anti-piracy policy? [Karsten Kusche over at briksoftware] also thinks it’ll generate some of the worst PR possible: Removing the home folder of some users will probably do way more advertisement. But that kind of advertisement is not good. This blog post is such a kind of negative advertisement. I definitely do not support such software and I suggest you should not use Display Eater. If you need a tool to create screen-casts go for iShowU. It’s just 3$ more expensive than Display Eater but seems to have a much better user experience. Of course, Display Eater’s developer thinks his approach is perfectly reasonable, and has threatened to take his toys and go home if people don’t stop pirating his application: I don’t know if this is going to become Display Eater policy. If this level of piracy continues, development will stop. I can only hope he follows through on his threat. Piracy is a problem, especially for small software developers. However, there are far better ways of dealing with it than destroying someone’s data (and your reputation along with it). __________________ Quote: […]
February 23rd, 2007 at 17:34
It’s just a matter of time before someone hacks into their systems and flag all the serials as pirated…
Sure hope they’ve really secured their registration systems. best way to motivate a hacker… nuke their home directory. ha!
February 23rd, 2007 at 21:55
Actually they’re not the first; Golden Hawk (maker of CDRWin for M$ Windows) *USED* to do this (deletes the system or driver directory of M$ Windows, I don’t remember which) then back peddled when alerted that it is a criminal offense to do this in the United States.
February 23rd, 2007 at 21:57
um, I tested this with 1.85. It detects a pirate number, but the home folder stayed intact on my test account. So, where does this ‘delete the home directory’ come from? fact check much?
February 24th, 2007 at 7:33
woz- I mentioned earlier that I would have a look, and I meant it in the spirit of fact checking, as well as for disabling said behavior. Sadly, other activities have prevented me from doing so thus far. While it’s late and I must go, I’ve started taking notes. Hopefully I or someone else can post some asm code soon. Feel free to grab otx from macupdate.com and join in the fun 🙂
February 24th, 2007 at 18:29
“But these people are users, they’re using the software and if they like it they might purchase a license some day. Well I guess they wouldn’t anyway.”
I did. I used Transmit with a pirated serial number for almost two years. During that time I was sporadically employed and broke. Now I’ve got a good-paying job. So a couple months ago I took out a license. I did the same thing with LaunchBar I’ll be gradually taking out licenses for all my frequently-used pirated shareware over the next few months.
If these guys had deleted my home folder, I would not be sending them my money. And I might have punched Cabel in the nose, when I saw him.
February 24th, 2007 at 18:53
And what happens if someone typoes their genuine serial number and happens to hit on a pirate serial?
Personally, I would never even download a trial version of such software — there are too many ways it could go wrong.
February 24th, 2007 at 19:41
I did a little research on this when I first read about it on Slashdot. It seems to have first been discovered when Koingo Software was investigating Display Eater to know their competition better. Though the piracy protection method that Reversecode (that publishes the soft/malware) employs ate their home folder, the developer confirmed that the program will simply “erase something”. Chances are “woz” has lost something…he just hasn’t found out what yet.
There is no way to contact the developer from the dev’s home site, and he doesn’t seem to be responding to the outrage at this point on VersionTracker, so I’m going to predict that his sales will be near zero very shortly. An unfortunate, but probably necessary, lesson.
February 24th, 2007 at 20:32
Heres a novel idea. Why not make your website look PROFESSIONAL then maybe everyone would stop treating your software like freeware.
Your website that display eater is hosted on looks like a 10 year old put it together… No offense… Just trying to offer some advice.
February 24th, 2007 at 21:51
Like other people here, I have pirated in the past, primarily when I was too young (or broke) to spend money on software or when shareware trial versions were too crippled to make a reasonable evaluation (boot twice before a lockout? convert up to 20 seconds of video? give me a break).
In every case, I have purchased software licenses if I have made consistent, long-term use of the software.
Piracy cannot be stopped. It’s a fact. Look at the windows DRM for HD content – cracked 24 hours after Vista was released.
Programmers need to stop thinking about copy protection and focus completely on the software. Copy protection is a pointless exercise that most often ends up hurting paying customers while never, ever stopping determined pirates.
Case in point? The last office I worked at bought a copy of Roxio Toast for their editing station. A great little piece of software, well worth the purchase. They keep all their CDs in one of those CD binder folder things, threw out the case for toast (with the CD key on it). When we had to rebuild the machine after a drive failure, I had to install the software – but had no CD key.
Ironically, the legitimately purchased software is registered with a pirated CD key. And we had to go to the trouble of knocking on the pirates’ door because our store-bought software had, in the interest of anti-piracy measures, locked paying customers out.
February 24th, 2007 at 23:43
I write software for a living. I maintain several open source pieces on my own time, and write closed applications for a small company where I live. When I first started programming I tried to sell some closed source portfolio tracking applications. There were times I worried about individuals using it for free. I had no money at the time, and thought that my market would be as inclined to avoid licensing as I was. This was a major mistake of mine for several reasons.
1) I purchase all the software I use now that I am financially capable of doing so. What software do I buy? The same software I had to pirate earlier in life.
2) My software received less exposure. Making things more difficult for legitimate users will be the end for your company. Watch Microsoft for the next five years.
3) I could have spent the time I spent worrying about those pirating m software, and channeled the anger I felt toward those who considered it into making my product more user-friendly and feature-rich.
My advice for a guy in your situation? Yield to the lessons and feedback written here today. Welcome those without the money to use your product by offering a free version to those who e-mail you and ask for one. Make this known. If someone can pay for your product, they generally will. One or two people may cheat the system, but you’ll end up with five who buy your product after seeing what you’ve done.
That being said, you’ve proved that there is such a thing as bad publicity. Maintain a level of ethics and morals above those around you. Frankly, respect the intellectual property of the pirate, and he’ll respect you. If you don’t, he’ll hate you. Those who have been in the position where they pirated software for any reason will hate you. You should change your name, your business name, and the look of your website and software to sell it elsewhere if you want to be successful with it now.
Best of luck. Someone was going to do this soon… Unfortunately it was you.
February 24th, 2007 at 23:54
This is why Vista has User Account Control. It might be annoying when that box pops up asking you to authorize nearly every file action, but it keeps programs from doing antics like this.
February 25th, 2007 at 1:20
Omaha- I found this in ‘support.txt’ from the Display Eater 1.8.5 distribution:
1. I like email
reverse@reversecode.com
And according to Display Eater.app/Contents/Resources/display_eaterAppDelegate.h, the author’s name is Reza Hussain.
February 25th, 2007 at 4:05
woz- It looks like Display Eater outputs the full paths of the files it deletes to the console, followed by “DELETABLE”. Check your log.
February 25th, 2007 at 8:01
Here’s my take on it, with decompiled code.
http://yamacdev.blogspot.com/2007/02/behind-curtain-with-display-eater.html
February 25th, 2007 at 15:57
I hope anyone who has suffered the unauthorised deletion of their ~home directory, goes straight to their local law enforcement office. In the UK, this type of activity would be covered by Section 3 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990. The authors of this program are committing a crime in the eyes of most Western Governments’ laws.
February 25th, 2007 at 23:04
Software pirates are _thieves_ who steal because they can and because they lack the moral responsibility to not steal.
In the Land of the Free and home of the brave, being able to use software free of charge is _not_ a Constitutional right.
Would you take an expensive item from a shop without paying for it because you’re poor? Those who do are thieves, and sometimes when they are caught, they are arrested and go to jail.
Why should software be treated differently?
If you want to use something that has a price, you should pay for it; if you don’t have the funds, don’t use it. Make do with what you have, or use only open source software.
By the way, there is no guarantee that open source software, doesn’t have any rogue code hidden within it.
Does anybody remember Ken Thompson’s speech when he accepted the Turing Award? It had something to do with subverting the C compiler: http://www.acm.org/classics/sep95/ .
February 25th, 2007 at 23:52
V.V.- Would you shop at a store where a security guard shoots you on sight if the magnetic reader at the door beeps when you walk past? The issue here is not pirates, it’s the method Reza chose to punish them.
February 27th, 2007 at 21:26
Behind The Curtain With Display Eater:
You may have seen the discussion recently about an app called Display Eater by Reza Hussain. While the author has not responded to the latest discussion, he allegedly admitted that the whole thing was a hoax to deter potential pirates. Reza has just replied with a public letter. While the discussion has been lively, the investigation has been nonexistant. So here it is.
[…]
you can read the whole post over at Yet Another Mac Dev Blog.
(edited by Karsten..there’s no need to post the whole article here, it’s enough to link it, which was already done in the 2nd update 😉 )
February 28th, 2007 at 2:57
Thank you Marc- I also didn’t notice the second update until Karsten mentioned it to me. It’s good to have this wrapped up. Thanks all around- to Karsten for bringing it our attention, to woz for suggesting further investigation, and to Reza for stepping up with the facts.
March 1st, 2007 at 18:13
[…] criador e outros desenvolvedores. Ao preparar um screencast usando o Display Eater como exemplo, Karsten Kurche, que trabalha para a Brinksoftware, se deparou com comentários no código do programa e se […]
March 7th, 2007 at 8:55
That’s great ! he charges a money for such programs…
March 17th, 2007 at 5:07
just so you all know:
using VLC, you can just type ‘ screen:// ‘ in the “Media Resource Locator” textfield, and specify to either dump VLC’s output to a file (re-encoded or raw) or stream it over the network…
appearantly not officially supported (yet), but works great on PPC (on intel there’s a huge hue shift)
no need to pirate shareware (or whatever name it uses)..
February 18th, 2008 at 11:37
[…] find up-to-date information regarding the functionality of this bizarre app. It seems, from various sources that I’ve come across, that the developer responded to the numerous complaints and open […]