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Comment by LeoPanthera | Hacker News Reader

This doesn't mention the method I used back in the 90s when I was writing apps for Acorn's RISC OS. During purchase, you seed a random number generator with the user's name (which is required for purchase), and then generate a random number of whatever length you want. That's their license key.

The application does the same thing, asks for their name and license key, and then confirms that the generated key matches what they entered.

It's trivial to crack, but I just decided that you can never stop the really determined crackers, and a trivial scheme would be enough to incentivize honest users to pay up. Displaying the user's name prominently on the splash screen acts as a guilt-inducer for those sharing keys.

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> Displaying the user's name prominently on the splash screen acts as a guilt-inducer for those sharing keys.

This is imo an absolute genius insight, whoever came up with it first. It’s psychologically meaningful, not just for guilt, but the feeling of ownership.

In many ways, I miss these days of software being complete and local. Today, there are few interactions where I get that nice feeling, and for good reason – whenever the feudal lords decide my account is no bueno, the fun stops.

One issue with showing the name today, are customers who start their (legally licensed) software live on stream, (unintentionally) displaying their real (full) name, serial number, etc.

A similar trick is used by Sublime Text.

You can use the product without the key indefinitely. But every 10 times you save, it shows a prompt for buying the software.

Not even intrusive, you can discard it easily, and be productive for months.

But after months of reading that you don't pay, the guilt sets in. After all, you have been enjoying the product, since you have been using it for months.

It also helped exposing some famous musicians when doing an interview in their studio, where the pirated user name was prominently visible on some VST plugin GUIs that were seen in the background of the video.

Examples: https://www.youredm.com/2015/02/24/avicii-martin-garrix-othe...

There are better key-derivation functions than pseudo-random number generators.

I know that now. :)

Funny, that never worked on me... It always read the cracker name instead of mine :P

In my experience, most of the people happily using cracked software were either kids, or the hopelessly immoral, and it wasn't worth chasing after either of those categories.

"most people", I agree. Being a broke kid, I recall trying to figure out how to break different schemes. BBS Doors were my main target. I was horrible at it, but some things were learned.

I was hired as computer assembly tech at a local computer store when young. There was a customer that was frequently delinquent. The boss asked me to write a program to encrypt the hard drive if the customer hadn't paid. This customer had a business so I was very nervous about my lack of confidence in being certain their data was not lost. To compromise, only filenames and extensions were changed. IIRC, the bill was receive a payment weekly. Once the money was received, a code was given to the customer. This code would update a file on their system. If, after two weeks, no payment was received, the code would recurse through the directories and rename data files with a simple XOR. This would allow files to be recovered manually if needed. I'm not certain, but I think this was done in dbase 2000. It was the only compiler we had access to at the time.

Hopelessly immoral? I've used plenty of cracked software in my younger days and not once did I consider it immoral in the least. Some people just draw a line in the sand in a different place for software.

I just don't care at all about someone's "lost potential revenue". I consider it to be the same as skipping commercials with watching TV, or adblocking the web today.

> younger days

> I just don't care at all

I stand by what I said, I guess.

I think the point is that you don't get to just declare what defines "hopelessly immoral".

An argument could be made that inflicting drm on everyone who is not a theif, and all posterity long after any legal or moral copyright has expired yet the thing is still encrypted or broken, is hopelessly immoral.

That comment did not prove you right.

It even feels alien to me when someone claims to feel bad for pirating something. Most of the time it's just so much easier. And no please don't start on the usual "it's like stealing from a physical store". It's not. Stealing implies that the owner loses something.

> Displaying the user's name prominently on the splash screen acts as a guilt-inducer for those sharing keys.

This is currently working well for Netflix.

I love cracking these homegrown license schemes, people come up with really interesting stuff and as you say it usually only takes a few hours. Can't crack flex though :(

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