Can software be protected from piracy?
Stack Exchange
maq asks:
Why does it seem so easy to pirate today?
It just seems a little hard to believe that with all of our technological advances and the billions of dollars spent on engineering the most unbelievable and mind-blowing software, we still have no other means of protecting against piracy than a "serial number/activation key." I'm sure a ton of money, maybe even billions, went into creating Windows 7 or Office and even Snow Leopard, yet I can get it for free in less than 20 minutes. Same for all of Adobe's products, which are probably the easiest.
Can there exist a fool-proof and hack-proof method of protecting your software against piracy? If not realistically, could it be theoretically possible? Or no matter what mechanisms these companies deploy, can hackers always find a way around it?
See the full, original question here.
Tim Williscroft answers (45 votes):
Code is data. When the code is runnable, a copy of that data is un-protected code. Unprotected code can be copied.
Peppering the code with anti-piracy checks makes it slightly harder, but hackers will just use a debugger and remove them. Inserting no-ops instead of calls to "check_license" is pretty easy.
Programs I sell at my current employer (aerospace tools) don't phone home ever. The customers wouldn't tolerate phoning home for "activation" every time the program starts.
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Can software be protected from piracy?