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Reader Voices: Activation Reaction

By Ed Foster, Section The Gripelog
Posted on Wed Sep 10, 2003 at 10:12:42 AM PDT

Many readers responded passionately to my recent piece concerning an aggressive product activation scheme adopted by online storefront software developer Miva Corp. Companies need to understand that customers are becoming increasingly unwilling to tolerate copy protection of any sort.

Some readers said that even Microsoft had better tread softly on product activation. "I will never knowingly buy software ever again that needs to phone home even once to use -- this even includes XP," wrote one reader. " I won't take the chance of a company vanishing when I might need to reinstall the software, or my customers or I unexpectedly being locked out. Microsoft might be able to get away with it for a while longer, but smaller companies won't. A few more stories like this, and the software industry will be re-learning the lessons of the 80s."

A number of readers related stories of other companies that have been forced to drop aggressive product activation schemes. "Avaya, the PBX company, over a year ago added a 'drop dead' feature to their PBX software," a reader related. "If your license file didn't match your hardware, after six days, your PBX went into a no-license mode, which essentially shut down all your telephones. After a few months, Avaya relented, and issued a patch to remove this 'feature,' as well as abandoning plans to incorporate it in all future releases."

Several readers pointed out the security danger to customers if the next version of a Blaster-type virus were to succeed in crippling a software company's product activation capability. "What if the next version makes the XP and Windows 2003 registration site inaccessible?" wrote one reader. "Can you afford to have some of your servers stop functioning? I think these registration schemes can multiply a virus attack's disruption to the economy and the Department of Homeland Security should take a look."

< Symantec Software Proves a Trial | The Sneakwrapping of American Law >

Reader Voices: Activation Reaction | 10 comments (10 topical) | Post A Comment

We control the cash flow ...[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#1)
by RocDoc on Wed Sep 10, 2003 at 07:54:18 PM PDT

Product activation. Copyright protection. The desire of the legitimate owners of their work to make a profit on the fruits of their labor in our capitalist society.

Outrageous pricing. Perceived poor value. The consensus of many potential end users of a vendor's product.

Reactive response - We choose to "pirate" the product. We justify it by saying "They'll never miss it, I'm just one small fish in a big pond" or "They're such a big company, they make so much from everyone else at the prices they charge" or "They deserve this treatment because they rip me off with their crappy product".

Proactive response - We choose to find alternatives to the "offending" product. Freeware instead of retail pricing. Open source instead of licenses. "Grassroots" musicians instead of record label execs. Linux instead of Windows. (No flames need reply).

We can choose to speak our minds in our society simply by letting remembering the adage "Money talks and B.S. walks!" If you don't like it, don't buy it. If you pirate it, then you sanction the response of the vendor, including product activation and copyright protection (not to mention possible legal action).

I dislike product activation. It hinders my use of the product. It induces consequences as outlined in Ed's story. I can choose to vote with my wallet and not buy any future product from the offending vendor. However, I hold the reactionaries just as responsible as the vendors for this situation. Their actions helped to create the issue, with a few exceptions (Computer Associates and Intuit quickly come to mind).

I have a choice. If I don't like a vendor's protection mechanism, then I don't use the vendor's product. If I can't find a suitable replacement, then again I have a choice. I balance the loss of productivity that comes from not using the offending vendor's product versus the acquisition of inconveniences by using the offending vendor's product.

In the end ... It's your choice .

[ Reply to This ]

Product Activation = No Sale[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#2)
by Mason on Thu Sep 11, 2003 at 02:11:18 AM PDT

My first run-in with a product activation type of scheme happened several years ago with GlobalSCAPE's CuteFTP. My wife purchased a copy which was installed a handful of times: On Her workstation, after the semi-annual to annual reinstall of the OS for motherboard upgrades or general Windows stability issues, and once or twice on two laptops (install on laptop #1, wipe and reinstall, wipe with restore-disk and donate laptop, wash-rinse-repeat with new laptop #2).

Unknown to either of us (probably buried in the middle of the novella-length EULA, which I now always take the time to decipher), CuteFTP would phone home each time it was installed and tick a counter. After reaching some predetermined limit, it refused to install, with the error "registration limit exceeded". I was furious! I had to call their tech support, explain the problem, and justify my need to have the limit increased.

GlobalSCAPE will never see another penny from us, and I will do my best to convince others to pursue alternatives -- such as the excellent freeware/donateware SmartFTP.

After several years of purchasing the Small Business editions of TurboTax, I went with TaxCut for 2003, and will never go back to Intuit. The constant upsells were bad enough -- the Product Activation scheme was outrageous.

The virus definition "subscription" for NAV (Symantec) expired on my wife's machine about a week ago. Now that they're adding product activation to new releases, preposterously to protect ME from piracy, I'll be buying from another company. I just sent off a sales inquiry to Trend Micro earlier this evening.

Macromedia is also losing another formerly loyal, paying customer of Dreamweaver Ultravdev 4 & Dreamweaver MX, thanks to the product activation in MX2004. (Truthfully, it wouldn't have taken much to push me in that direction after their asinine site redesign anyhow. Macromedia Exchange is now unequivocally useless).

I have an old NT4 server still kicking along, performing quite well for what it does. I won't complain about Microsoft EOL-ing it -- it's understandable and I can't expect a company to support software forever -- but when it does finally come time to upgrade, it won't be with Windows Server 2003. Any idea why? Which raises another point: I'm far from the only person still using NT4. If I need to reinstall, no problem. (Over three years on one install, incidentally. Color me amazed). What happens when XP or WS2003 is End-of-Lifed? Will Microsoft allow you to reactivate if necessary?

My business is computers. I recommend and advise against software to hundreds of people a year. Publishers, are you listening? When hacked versions of your software are available five minutes after release (if not sooner), product activation be damned, do you really think it will put a dent in piracy? Is it worth turning people like me away in the hopes of recouping a few dollars?

[ Reply to This ]

Macromedia[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#4)
by Fushigi on Thu Sep 11, 2003 at 11:00:36 AM PDT

Thanks for the heads up on MX2004. I have been contemplating upgrading but was shying away due to cost. Now I know I won't be upgrading regardless of price.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Macromedia's activation -- akin to Intuit's[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#5)
by Reziac on Thu Sep 11, 2003 at 12:16:47 PM PDT

From the FAQ you linked to:

"The activation technology uses a robust and proven algorithm to safely write its license data to an unused sector of the hard drive located in track zero."

Yeah, right. So any multiboot manager is instantly at risk to be corrupted. And at a guess, nothing short of writing zeros to the HD will get rid of it.

Furthermore:

"In addition, a Hardware ID and Activation ID are created. The Hardware ID is a mathematically computed one-way hash based on your computer's hard drive geometry and CPU family..."

Everyone remember the fun with XP's activation, where you got 10 changed-hardware points before you had to reactivate, but a reformat was three, a new NIC was three, and sometimes it just plain lost count?

Thanks for the heads-up -- there are other tools that do the same job and are less invasive. I have Dreamweaver 3 and 4, plus a couple other Macromedia products, but now I know for sure that I will NOT be upgrading them.
~REZ~
[ Parent | Reply to This ]

activation..[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#10)
by Anonymous User on Sat Jul 09, 2005 at 03:18:33 AM PDT

the 1st thing i do befor i install software is tell the windows host file "%windir%\ system32\ drivers\ etc\ hosts" to point all websites involved with the product to 127.0.0.1 localhost
that solves most probs. then when i run it for the first time i spy on the registry (regmonitor)for any attempts to communicate with the outside world. some even invoke terminal services to blab about me!!! i then add those sites urls, ipaddresses etc to the hosts file as well. problem solved.
some times i block in the router as well.
tuh dah!

yay!

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

And the tools used to enact PA are REALLY Nasty[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#3)
by Anonymous User on Thu Sep 11, 2003 at 10:44:22 AM PDT

The real problem though, isn't just the activation process and all it's obvious drawbacks - it's the enforcement code used to make this process work - or not work - remotely.
This code is like game software copy protection. It tampers with your hard drive headers or worse - and is DESIGNED to make your system crash if it detects abherent behaviour. Interlok from PACE is but one example. This abherent behaviour can be yours - e.g modifying some Windows Registry settings dealing with Swap can be interpreted as attempted reverse engineering, so your system will be rebooted. Ditto if the "protected" application has a bug which crashes it, Interlok will institute a system level reboot because it suspects you're trying to RE again. The poster with the Symantec trial software repeated reboots is no doubt a sufferer of the latter.
And BTW, PACE offers full call-home features to it's client vendors too - at Product Activation time and/or any time later. Plus you can never really remove them, short of a reformat... only disable them at best, even after you remove the offendng product.
One way to fight back a little - assuming non-purchase is not an option - is to NOT use the on-line PA, but do it over the phone. More effort on your part, but also a huge burden on vendor if everyone does it this way. Plus you then do know what information is being relayed to the vendor.

[ Reply to This ]

The real problem[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#6)
by Mason on Thu Sep 11, 2003 at 04:07:37 PM PDT

The real problem though, isn't just the activation process and all it's obvious drawbacks - it's the enforcement code used to make this process work - or not work - remotely.

I'd disagree with this -- it's just one of the many problems, and maybe even just a symptom. Product Activation, if it isn't stopped, will finally accomplish what even the RIAA couldn't manage to do. The RIAA tried to criminalize used music shops. They failed.

Right now, you can walk into half-price books in any major city in the country and either buy or sell books, tapes, cds, dvds, and even software.

If a book publisher goes out of business, do you suddenly lose the ability to re-read a book?

When you buy a CD, do you want to be able to play it in any CD player, or have it locked to the first one you use? Do you want to be limited to the first ten seconds of each song when you use a different CD player?

If you want to sell a DVD, do you need to fill out a form and ask the publisher permission?

Product Activation is an end-run around the rights of first sale. It punishes people who follow the rules and shell out the money. It may lock you out from using your legal software, and more importantly, your data. It puts you in the position of having to trust that the companies will allow you to reinstall your software at a later date if necessary, if they are even still around to give permission.

The used software section of half price books is usually pretty slim to begin with. In a few years, it might just be gone.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Open source[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#7)
by Anonymous User on Fri Sep 12, 2003 at 09:35:34 AM PDT

Try OPEN SOURCE products first.

No activation.
No install restrictions.
Help from many online sources (including authors).

Oh, and it's normally free of charge.

B

[ Reply to This ]

Macromedia has lost a sale[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#8)
by botanydan on Mon Sep 15, 2003 at 08:56:55 AM PDT

I was just about to order Dreamweaver MX2004 today until I read this article. We already have Dreamweaver 3 which we used less than 2 years ago to set up our first internet site. Another individual has joined the company who will be redesigning it. He is familiar with Adobe GoLive and likes it, but said he would be glad to learn Dreamweaver. When I learned about this activation scheme, I retreated and looked closer at GoLive and that's what we will be ordering today instead.

[ Reply to This ]

Activation[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#9)
by Anonymous User on Tue Oct 14, 2003 at 11:29:22 AM PDT

I have an ~$300 XM Radio. I have been trying to activate it for 2 weeks now. They already have my activation $ and first month via the credit card I gave them.

They have had me sit out in my car for ~14 hours now waiting for their product activation to occur.
This is after spending half a day installing the unit.

They now realize it is a bad unit, and are shipping out a replacement.

I am still out my XM radio service this entire time, which I am paying for, all due to product activation.

If you are going to enforce product activation, at least have tech support to help when it goes bad. XM tech support was terrible.

[ Reply to This ]

Reader Voices: Activation Reaction | 10 comments (10 topical) | Post A Comment

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