I just found my best-selling plugin listed on "mod edit" which appears to be a cracked software sharing website disguised as a "forum".
OK, now what? Any way to fight this bane of the software world?
Just found my cracked plugin listed on the web
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- KVRAF
- 15277 posts since 8 Mar, 2005 from Utrecht, Holland
Read carefully what Urs wrote in this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=472847
Even freebees end up in the warez scene. It's pathetic...
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=472847
Even freebees end up in the warez scene. It's pathetic...
We are the KVR collective. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. 
My MusicCalc is served over https!!
My MusicCalc is served over https!!
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- Banned
- 334 posts since 11 Jan, 2015
download it to see how excatly it has been cracked.
then make other plugins that don't get cracked that easy or think about strategies to convert illegal users to legal ones.
if you want to fight against it, good luck. it's not like others have been trying to do so for ages...
then make other plugins that don't get cracked that easy or think about strategies to convert illegal users to legal ones.
if you want to fight against it, good luck. it's not like others have been trying to do so for ages...
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- Banned
- 697 posts since 29 Oct, 2016
From my experience, anything can be cracked.
The plus is, it means you have a valuable product. Only valuable products tend to be.
Between developer and cracker is a race. Your weapons are obfuscation and multiple logic lines. Most crackers tend to stop cracking once the product appears to work. Keep releasing new versions, updates, features, even if it's just code updates to keep the crackers guessing.
Between developer and freeloader, you have the ability to frustrate and temporarily feign defeat.
One way is to make an obvious conditional jump near a string containing some string about being a demo version, and then allow it to work for a week or month, then stop again.
This concept can also be recursive, so even if they flip or cancel a conditional jump, there will be yet another jump up or down the logic line a week later.
Another way to do this to select different lines depending on the second, minute, day, week, etc. So even if they bypass one logic line, they will likely miss the others.
You best weapon against crackers is slow them to a crawl in the race.
Your weapons against freeloaders is to let them think they own it for a while, then frustrate them by returning to demo mode a week or month later. Many will buy once they feel defeated.
The plus is, it means you have a valuable product. Only valuable products tend to be.
Between developer and cracker is a race. Your weapons are obfuscation and multiple logic lines. Most crackers tend to stop cracking once the product appears to work. Keep releasing new versions, updates, features, even if it's just code updates to keep the crackers guessing.
Between developer and freeloader, you have the ability to frustrate and temporarily feign defeat.
One way is to make an obvious conditional jump near a string containing some string about being a demo version, and then allow it to work for a week or month, then stop again.
This concept can also be recursive, so even if they flip or cancel a conditional jump, there will be yet another jump up or down the logic line a week later.
Another way to do this to select different lines depending on the second, minute, day, week, etc. So even if they bypass one logic line, they will likely miss the others.
You best weapon against crackers is slow them to a crawl in the race.
Your weapons against freeloaders is to let them think they own it for a while, then frustrate them by returning to demo mode a week or month later. Many will buy once they feel defeated.
SLH - Yes, I am a woman, deal with it.
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- KVRian
- Topic Starter
- 626 posts since 30 Aug, 2012
Great advice. Thank you.Vertion wrote: ↑Fri Apr 05, 2019 12:42 am From my experience, anything can be cracked.
The plus is, it means you have a valuable product. Only valuable products tend to be.
Between developer and cracker is a race. Your weapons are obfuscation and multiple logic lines. Most crackers tend to stop cracking once the product appears to work. Keep releasing new versions, updates, features, even if it's just code updates to keep the crackers guessing.
Between developer and freeloader, you have the ability to frustrate and temporarily feign defeat.
One way is to make an obvious conditional jump near a string containing some string about being a demo version, and then allow it to work for a week or month, then stop again.
This concept can also be recursive, so even if they flip or cancel a conditional jump, there will be yet another jump up or down the logic line a week later.
Another way to do this to select different lines depending on the second, minute, day, week, etc. So even if they bypass one logic line, they will likely miss the others.
You best weapon against crackers is slow them to a crawl in the race.
Your weapons against freeloaders is to let them think they own it for a while, then frustrate them by returning to demo mode a week or month later. Many will buy once they feel defeated.
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- KVRAF
- 3191 posts since 31 Dec, 2004 from People's Republic of Minnesota
Thoughts and prayers.
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- KVRAF
- 3983 posts since 20 Feb, 2004
to the Dark Lord Ushanhh, that he may rain down death and pestilence on the crackers and their kith and kin, to the tenth generation
A well-behaved signature.
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- KVRAF
- 3471 posts since 24 Oct, 2000 from A Swede Living in Budapest
Indeed they do. Even some of the soundsets I've made as freebies come up in torrents. I have given up on fighting the pirates. But when I see someone re-selling my stuff on eBay I go totally nuclear. eBay is absolutely worthless protecting the creators - reporting via VERO / NOCI is totally worthless.
/C
ANALOG DEEP HOUSE 2 for U-HE DIVA
HARDWARE SAMPLER FANATIC - Akai S1100/S950/Z8 - Casio FZ20m - Emu Emax I - Ensoniq ASR10/EPS
HARDWARE SAMPLER FANATIC - Akai S1100/S950/Z8 - Casio FZ20m - Emu Emax I - Ensoniq ASR10/EPS
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- Banned
- 10732 posts since 17 Nov, 2015
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- Banned
- 697 posts since 29 Oct, 2016
As a said, in my experience, and I've been on the net since the lynx browser appeared. Valuable products tend to be.
I've been a grey hat for decades, and I had my eye on all the distro groups the duration. Those groups would focus on requested products, which means someone had interest in the product. Lesser known products would seldom have cracks and gens released for them. Thus, if someone wanted such lesser known products cracked for themselves, they'd have to do it themselves. *clears throat*. So yes, I have knowledge here.
Nowadays, it is common to find releases with malware embedded. It's just smarter and wiser to buy the product.
Being a software dev myself and believing in fairness and the golden rule, I've purchased all my audio plugins, and it's strictly been that way well over a decade.
I've been a grey hat for decades, and I had my eye on all the distro groups the duration. Those groups would focus on requested products, which means someone had interest in the product. Lesser known products would seldom have cracks and gens released for them. Thus, if someone wanted such lesser known products cracked for themselves, they'd have to do it themselves. *clears throat*. So yes, I have knowledge here.
Nowadays, it is common to find releases with malware embedded. It's just smarter and wiser to buy the product.
Being a software dev myself and believing in fairness and the golden rule, I've purchased all my audio plugins, and it's strictly been that way well over a decade.
SLH - Yes, I am a woman, deal with it.
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- KVRAF
- 4590 posts since 7 Jun, 2012 from Warsaw
I found a number of my signed tracks on torrents, but they're not selling as far as I knowI just found my best-selling plugin listed on "mod edit" which appears to be a cracked software sharing website
Blog ------------- YouTube channel
Tricky-Loops wrote: (...)someone like Armin van Buuren who claims to make a track in half an hour and all his songs sound somewhat boring(...)
Tricky-Loops wrote: (...)someone like Armin van Buuren who claims to make a track in half an hour and all his songs sound somewhat boring(...)
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- Banned
- 697 posts since 29 Oct, 2016
Another thing you can do is release your own 'fake" crack for your own software and release it into the scene (torrents, newsgroups, iirc, etc).
This is actually another form of marketing.
Best if you make the 'fake' crack for your own software look like one of the well known distro groups, perhaps mimic the very crack you found for your software. Or a more well known distro group.
The fake crack would act like any other and appear to crack the software into purchased/full mode, but would timeout after a week or two and permanently revert back to demo mode until it's actually purchased (with a real keyfile or challenge response).
I'd be happy to help any dev do this who is suffering from piracy. It's really easy actually.
This is actually another form of marketing.
Best if you make the 'fake' crack for your own software look like one of the well known distro groups, perhaps mimic the very crack you found for your software. Or a more well known distro group.
The fake crack would act like any other and appear to crack the software into purchased/full mode, but would timeout after a week or two and permanently revert back to demo mode until it's actually purchased (with a real keyfile or challenge response).
I'd be happy to help any dev do this who is suffering from piracy. It's really easy actually.
SLH - Yes, I am a woman, deal with it.
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- KVRist
- 262 posts since 12 Nov, 2017
I hate to be the one to say it, but there is a way I believe that is the most successful. There are a few plugins that require you to be online to use them. It seems like if you were to code some functionality of the program on a server?
I know a lot of people hate it, and I don't know which would be worst. I guess it depends of your program?
I know a lot of people hate it, and I don't know which would be worst. I guess it depends of your program?
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- KVRist
- 243 posts since 24 Aug, 2014
I wonder what functionality it is.
If it is something dsp-related then it is a horrible idea. This way you introduce network lags into processing, and you need to have really fast and powerful servers to be able to process all requests from users. Also, if your servers have problems all your users around the world have them too. Do the cost of infrastructure and user problems worth the trouble?
For non-dsp-related code the problem with servers and their availability still an issue.
If it is just some kind of key check through network, it is still crackable.
Overall this does not make much sense to me.
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- KVRist
- 262 posts since 12 Nov, 2017
Well off-hand I know entire industries built on Cloud Computing that does instant voice and face recognition. You can always allow the heavier assets to reside locally, and some other key part of the code on the server.Vokbuz wrote: ↑Sun Apr 07, 2019 10:27 amI wonder what functionality it is.
If it is something dsp-related then it is a horrible idea. This way you introduce network lags into processing, and you need to have really fast and powerful servers to be able to process all requests from users. Also, if your servers have problems all your users around the world have them too. Do the cost of infrastructure and user problems worth the trouble?
For non-dsp-related code the problem with servers and their availability still an issue.
If it is just some kind of key check through network, it is still crackable.
Overall this does not make much sense to me.
I know how Samsung use to try and run every thing in the cloud, today they all more of the processes to perform locally. That's probably a bad example, but it just came to mind. I was originally thinking along the lines of programs like the Captain Chord programs, and Cognitone programs. I'm not sure if they have any pirated software out there, but if they do I''m sure it's malware. They also have a few online DAW's like Odesi also by Mixed In Key.
DSP in real-time will come with Quantum Computing, otherwise that's heavy lifting you'll have to do on the client end. I'm not an expert, so you'll have to excuse my weak observation.
Edit: The Samsung reference is to their SmartThings platform.
