Should this forum accept cracks/warez?

[encode]

Just can't figure out. What whould you say?

[m^2]

Availability of cracks won't prevent me from visiting this site, but I'd rather have it clean.

[encode]

I'm for LIVE FREE OR DIE! I'm always working for FREEDOM! All my programs are FREE, I even accept no donations! The most compressors by myself are open source!

[Black_Fox]

No. Download cracks from elsewhere with obvious inherited risk of having backdoor opened in your computer...

[m^2]

I'm for LIVE FREE OR DIE! I'm always working for FREEDOM! All my programs are FREE, I even accept no donations! The most compressors by myself are open source!

So do I. All programs that I released since I learned to code well enough to show them were open source.
"Freedom of one man ends where the freedom of another begins."
And people are free in how to manage their work. Some make their living from it and I don't like to stand on a way.

[Skymmer]

I wonder what kind of cracks do you mean. If cracks for everything - then I say NO. If you mean crax 4 arc related stuff. Well... I say NO too. Realy, how much shareware archivers do you know ? WinZIP, WinRAR, StuffIt, Power Archiver, Squeez, WinRK. These tools are well known enough so if you need some dirty stuff - you'll find it anyway. I prefer to see this forum as source for knowledge and pleasure, not for the free candies. Furthermore, you can use some registry\file system monitoring tool (like Ashampoo Uninstaller for example) to track the changes made by the installation (and first start) process and reset the trial counter by yourself.
I voting NO

[Simon Berger]

I am against it. It's nothing personal but it's a very good and clean discussion here. Most programs are open source or free. But most important: Everything done/written here is legal.
I don't understand why you even consider to change this. That's no underground forum here. There are enough sources everyone can get there stuff from.

[Intrinsic]

Keep this place clean please, the last thing we want is loads of "warez" idiots comming here and ruining this nice clean and very pleasant atmosphere we have, let alone all the great discussions we have on topic.
There are a bazillion other places where they can get what they want.
Like Simon i can't even understand why this is up for discussion.

[LovePimple]

I agree with Simon and Intrinsic.

[Shelwien]

Still.
I'd like to be able to post decompiled sources,
or unpacked/cracked compressors (Sami's stuff surely deserves it),
or hidden options found by reverse-engineering (like durilca -l).
I already did all these anyway, though.
And also even my ppmd rewrite might be problematic, I didn't bother
to look at its license.
But making proper releases which people can use, like warez groups do,
is quite troublesome, so I think that these won't appear here, and so won't
bring any unwanted attention.

[Simon Berger]

Yeah. Reverse engineering is something else (in my eyes) and fits to this sort of forum. I would welcome discussions about asm code of non open source code snippets.
But transforming these 1:1 or something like this into an own project is something I don't like. Same for cracking WinRk, Nanozip and others. Especially because Malcom, Sami and others (could) read this forum and why cause someone difficulties who creates algorithms that we all like?

[Shelwien]

When a person adds a software protection to a program's "alpha version",
it certainly calls for some cracking, especially when that program expires
after a month - not because its a trial version, but because author supposed
that there'd be a new one at that time.
Anyway, software protection is evil stuff, on the same level with viruses.
It slows down the programs by checking the serial with "smart" cryptostuff,
causes various troubles because of non-standard interaction with the OS
(packers and protections), tries to connect and send some info somewhere,
and stops working at unpredictable times (like after OS update).
So I think that software authors certainly have the right to do all that,
its an interesting technical problem too, and nearly uncrackable protections
do exist, and even better are possible. But then I also have a right to
rip that all off and use it to my own convenience.

Also, all the people can't be happy at once.
S..Somebody might want to conquer the world, but I don't see why we can't
analyse his methods and use the results for our own goals, thus making him unhappy.

[Shelwien]

Btw, there's a perfect technique which doesn't require any protections -
frequent relevant updates and personalized unique distributions
(aka watermarking).

[Simon Berger]

What a strange argument is this?
It's the same like if you would drive 100 km/h in a car where you are only allowed to drive 30 km/h with the argument they could create a freeway instead/beside it.

[Shelwien]

Now, that's completely different.
There're actually features similar to software protections in material products
though - including cars - like precautions against easy disassembling.
One difference is that software protections are based on presumption of guilt.
And if somebody uses technical measures to prevent me from doing something,
for me, it replaces the ethical problem with technical.
So - if you want that example - protected software actually would be
similar to a car with speed always limited at 30km/h - just to prevent you
from overspeeding on a few roads with such restriction.

[chornobyl]

I wote no. Its been noticed before, there are only fev compression apps that require this, and if you whant to, you can always find it somwhere else. But i nave nothing against discussion of [software] protection techniques and ways to pass it (for example in data encryption forum). Decompiling and stuff is something that moves progress forvards (look how its done now/try to reproduse/improve further). Patents are slowing down development, and like any synthetic limitation tends to disbalance.
About legallity: in my country most of home users, and a lot of organisations use software illegally(cracked windows, photoshop, nero... ), which isnt good, but i think it would be even worce if they paid for it like (300, 200, 60euros) to make following companies slightly more prosperous. And it is really sad to see when school buy new pcs, and pay nearly half of the prise for all those crap. Just install the damn free os, and buy twenty pcs instead of ten.

[Mihai Cartoaje]

>I'm for LIVE FREE OR DIE!

Then in image compression it would have to be die because no one wants to program practical image compression for free.

[Mihai Cartoaje]

This is why Microsoft is so evil. They abuse their monopoly to eliminate competition in markets that they have a monopoly in. And they dump their products below cost to eliminate competition in markets they don't have a monopoly in. For example, by giving away C#, Microsoft makes it harder for Sun to derive a profit from Java, and this in turn makes it harder for Sun to compete in markets Microsoft has a monopoly in such as with Solaris. So programmers can only choose between working for Microsoft or not getting paid for their programming.

To recap: consider the market of image compression. If it was a market Microsft had a monopoly in, Microsoft would abuse their monopoly to eliminate competition. If it is a market Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly in, they dump their product below cost to eliminate competition. So programmers can't get paid for working in image compression (unless they work for Microsoft), so no programmer (other than me) wants to work in image compression.

[Black_Fox]

Yeah, so if Microsoft doesn't add applications into Windows, it's just plain over-priced operating system. BUT, if they dare to add them, they are just creating monopoly. If Microsoft wasn't major OS producer, everyone would love them for providing everything basic. So why the hate? Are you jealous of their success? Intel does the same in CPU world and nobody judges them, why?

[Arkanosis]

Hello,

I voted "no", since I think it might cause the forum to become (very quickly) another warez board and to die (very quickly too) because of its popularity among people not interested at all in data compression.
Moreover, I'm generally against giving free (in the sense of free beer) illegal access to proprietary software when they use proprietary formats (the best examples are Photoshop, 3D Studio MAX, and WinRAR) : it causes people to illegally use these products while not trying good free (in the sense of freedom) products (let's say The Gimp, Blender and 7-Zip), which is a real problem because they only distribute .psd, .3ds or .rar files, thus making other people do the same.

On the other hand, I strongly encourage reverse-engineering when it's done to remove software "protection" (I agree with Shelwien : it's evil), to ensure format interoperability or just to learn from it.
I believe the two last motivations are legal in most countries, the first is still legal in France (although there are endless discussions about it).
I always crack the games I buy legally, just to get rid of these costly and buggy processes and rootkits.
By the way, there is no software patent in most European countries.

[Mihai Cartoaje]

You mean you didn't know how Microsoft abuses its monopoly to eliminate competition... Here are samples:

OS/2: Microsoft made PC makers pay them for a copy of MS-Windows for every PC sold. This means that if someone wanted to purchase OS/2, the consumer would have to pay for MS-Windows even if they didn't want it.

Wordperfect: Microsoft shipped MS-Window 95 and MS-Word 95 at the same time. Wordperfect only got MS-Windows 95 when it was released, so only then could they start the porting. So consumers had a choice between purchasing MS-Windows 95 and MS-Word 95 together, or purchase one and wait months for Wordperfect. When Microsoft purchased 25% of the shares of Corel, one of their conditions was that they stop their version of Wordperfect for Linux.

BeOS: Be ported its OS to x86 and got a deal with Sharp to inlude BeOS as dual boot on Sharp's laptops. Microsoft used its contract with Sharp to force Sharp not to offer BeOS.

QuickTime: Apple distributed a free version of Quicktime for MS-Windows with full-screen playback. A Microsoft rep called Apple and asked them not to offer full screen playback anymore or Microsoft would compete fiercely. Micorosoft followed through on that threat by purchasing SoftImage, a company that used to make products for CGI movies on Macs and converted it to Microsoft only.

For more information, you can also visit http://boycottnovell.com

[Intrinsic]

M$ also threatened Gateway with denying them windows licences when they learned that Gateway were planning to build a new line of machines(not running windows) based on the Amiga IP they purchased. There are some leaked court documents detailing this hiding out there.

[nanoflooder]

Just a thought about the cause of this topic to be started...

You all know, WinRK is not free And you all know, it contains a hell of a lot of bugs, especially the ROLZ and all the SFX stubs And you might also know, that unfortunately Malcolm never really rushes to fix them... I absolutely understand this is a very difficult job to maintain such a complicated application all by himself, but for a commercial product, you know, ...

[encode]

Just 17 voters...

[Skymmer]

Still.
I'd like to be able to post decompiled sources,
or unpacked/cracked compressors (Sami's stuff surely deserves it),
or hidden options found by reverse-engineering (like durilca -l).

Shelwien, it sounds interesting.
1.) Could you describe the purpose of -l switch in Durilca.
2.) What's about Sami's stuff ? I suppose you mean NanoZip. If so then I'm little bit confused. Yeah, its packed with UPX v3.03 but its officialy unpackable with UPX -d. So what to crack in NanoZip ? I tested it quite thoroughly last week and didn't find any sign of some kind of limitation\shareware behaviour there.

[schnaader]

2.) What's about Sami's stuff ? I suppose you mean NanoZip. If so then I'm little bit confused. Yeah, its packed with UPX v3.03 but its officialy unpackable with UPX -d. So what to crack in NanoZip ? I tested it quite thoroughly last week and didn't find any sign of some kind of limitation\shareware behaviour there.

You might have a look at some NanoZip threads here in the forum, for example here: http://encode.ru/forum/showthread.php?t=250

I think older (?) NanoZip versions had some sort of date check that refused to work and said you should download a new version after some time. In the thread I posted above, there's also a comment that there is a -continue switch to override this.

[Shelwien]

1. About durilca -l:
http://encode.ru/forums/index.php?ac...page=0#msg8251

2. And considering Sami's stuff, what I actually did was:
- Checking in nanozip whether its audio model was based on preprocessing +
universal CM (it was not, and Sami later said that there's an optimfrog version actually)
- Checking bwmonstr for BWT differences (there're tricks beside common
filters, like alphabet reordering) (succeeded with dumping the BWT output,
and it mostly matches the standard; so current guess is that bwmonstr
uses m03-like tree traversal... which is not really BWT imho

[JangoFatXL]

well, I'm not a programmer, so I cannot talk about reverse engeneering, but I completely agree with

it causes people to illegally use these products while not trying good free (in the sense of freedom) products (let's say The Gimp, Blender and 7-Zip), which is a real problem because they only distribute .psd, .3ds or .rar files, thus making other people do the same

I know a lot of people who even doesn't know that there are tons of other OS, buro Software... which are better or at least equal to MS stuff and which you can get LEGAL for free
I think that everyone of us know a lot of sites where you can get access to such stuff - so please, no WAREZ


btw, I dont know how it is in Russia with that stuff, but here in Gemany you can get real trouble if you are an admin of a site which provides warez and I dont wont that forum to get problems with law as it provides my favourite archiver and personal contact to its creator

edit: but if you want to talk about theory of reverse engeneering (f.e. to get rid of bugs in proprietary software or something like that)
I think there should be no problem

[Black_Fox]

If format specification is free (or there is something like opensource UnRAR), there is not much of a problem. You may pack in whatever you want as well as the other side, as long as you may freely (as in speech) use each other's archives. The open-source vs. commercial software example can be seen here as 7-zip with better functioning (EDIT: algorithm itself is fine, only Igor likes to improve general behaviour and neglects GUI and filters) and WinRAR with better user-friendlyness.

BTW, I get to Photoshop CS3 (which is owned by my sister ) from time to time and in my opinion GIMP is a bit weak and chaotic compared to it.

[m^2]

The open-source vs. commercial software example can be seen here as 7-zip with better functioning and WinRAR with better user-friendlyness.

[OT]Arguably.[/OT]