Software piracy is a criminal act which is severely punished in many countries. Software piracy is the act through which software is stolen and distributed by means unintended by the software author or company. Software piracy is taken very seriously is some parts of the world and lightly in others, but the main theory behind it is that a person is considered a thief when caught stealing but not portrayed as a thief if license agreements are violated, which are set by the software company, and regardless of these laws the software is used and spread illegally.
The definition of a free software does not mean its free of charge when purchased from a store. It means there are no license agreements imposed on the user to agree upon and the user may distribute it anywhere regardless of the place and the number of people. When the software is purchased from the store it will obviously have a price tag because the company making these software need to make some profits. Therefore the term free here means 'free as beer' or 'free as coffee' for countries like India and Bangladesh, where the user is not bound by the company to any licensed agreements.
When a software is not free for the user the company has several laws to protect their software to be distributed without their permission. When a user makes copies of the software and spreads it in the community a lot of unlicensed users are created and this is a typical story of software piracy. The person spreading the software 'illegally' may face strict charges which may include community service to being fined a massive amount of money or also may face prison.
Violation of Privacy
When a person uses a 'non-free' software, it requires serial numbers as a protections for the installation process and the user must agree to the license agreements before installing the software. If that person happens to use the pirated version a 'crack' file would be needed to break through the security and access the software.
There are several dangers in this process. The 'crack' file is made by a group of people called the Crackers and their job is to make cracks and help distribute pirate softwares. Along with making these crack files they also insert malicious software in the crack which run the background such as spyware and malware.
Malware is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner's informed consent. The expression is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code. Malware is not the same as defective software, that is, software which has a legitimate purpose but contains harmful bugs. A software is considered malware based on the perceived intent of the creator rather than any particular features. Malware includes computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, most rootkits, spyware, dishonest adware, crimeware and other malicious and unwanted software. According to the law, malware is sometimes known as a computer contaminant.
Spyware is computer software that is installed stealthily on a computer to intercept or take partial control over the user's interaction with the computer, without the user's informed consent. While the term spyware suggests software that secretly monitors the user's behavior, the functions of spyware extend well beyond simple monitoring. Spyware programs can collect various types of personal information, such as Internet surfing habit, sites that have been visited, but can also interfere with user control of the computer in other ways, such as installing additional software, redirecting web browser activity, accessing websites blindly that will cause more harmful viruses, or diverting advertising revenue to a third party. Spyware can even change computer settings, resulting in slow connection speeds, different home pages, and loss of Internet or other programs. In an attempt to increase the understanding of spyware, a more formal classification of its included software types is captured under the term privacy invasive software.
Having malwares and spywares are not only harmful for the operating system and the user's privacy, they can also cause financial losses for the user through internet money transactions. There may be hackers and cracking out there embedding malicious softwares in personal computers to get the credit card information of unsuspecting users making them bankrupt.
Spamming
Spamming is another issue that arise may due to spywares. Spammers collect email addresses and usually send a lot of junk-mails to those addresses which are usually attractive advertisement which may match the user's online shopping preferences. Its much more sinister than a simple mischievous ad-campaign. Some of the advertisements may be fake and just another crafty way to get the unsuspecting user's credit card information.
Spamming does not only stop there. There are some spammers who may use hundreds and maybe thousands of personal computers as 'Zombie PCs'. This means the spammer would make sure the user grants them access to the computer the moment they connect to the internet. Then without the user knowing that computer would be used by the spammer to send mails to thousands of email addresses. This way the mails are traced back to the unsuspecting user. This may not sound so threatening other than consuming a lot of system resources and bandwidth. But if for instance its more than just an mischievous advertisement and an offensive message sent to people. Maybe its not just any ordinary people and it happens to be law enforcement agencies. Then the user would be in deep trouble if the messages are traced back to the personal computer.
Effects on Software Development
Promoting software piracy has a massive impact on software developing companies since they lose a lot of money each year due to illegal distribution of their software. This is not just about the big companies such as Apple, Microsoft or EA who make a huge amount of profit and a huge amount loss as well in certain parts of the globe but relatively their loss is a very small percentage compared to their profits. This concerns the smaller and local companies more and has a huge impact on software development in that region.
Many local companies may shut down leaving jobless software developers. Then these programmers turn to online freelance outsourcing where they develop softwares on the Internet. This has both advantages and disadvantages, but shutting down local companies and forcing programmers to work online has more disadvantages since they focus on the demands made online and may not develop software for the local community at all since their softwares are being pirated as soon as they are developed.
Creating an unethical community
Software piracy is practiced on a large scale in South America, Northern Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia. A lot of countries have strict laws against software piracy as mentioned earlier, so the crackers and such people who violate these laws need protection from the government. They turn to criminal families and gangs who protect them from the law enforcers. Therefore using Pirated software not only is harmful for yourself, but also the community itself creating an unethical group of people who are affiliated with crime families, so the money that is saved by not purchasing the original software may be used against you by these criminals out there.
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By Shahnawaz Noor Alam
American International University - Bangladesh
----
The Aftermath Publications, Issue 1
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The definition of a free software does not mean its free of charge when purchased from a store. It means there are no license agreements imposed on the user to agree upon and the user may distribute it anywhere regardless of the place and the number of people. When the software is purchased from the store it will obviously have a price tag because the company making these software need to make some profits. Therefore the term free here means 'free as beer' or 'free as coffee' for countries like India and Bangladesh, where the user is not bound by the company to any licensed agreements.
When a software is not free for the user the company has several laws to protect their software to be distributed without their permission. When a user makes copies of the software and spreads it in the community a lot of unlicensed users are created and this is a typical story of software piracy. The person spreading the software 'illegally' may face strict charges which may include community service to being fined a massive amount of money or also may face prison.
Violation of Privacy
When a person uses a 'non-free' software, it requires serial numbers as a protections for the installation process and the user must agree to the license agreements before installing the software. If that person happens to use the pirated version a 'crack' file would be needed to break through the security and access the software.
There are several dangers in this process. The 'crack' file is made by a group of people called the Crackers and their job is to make cracks and help distribute pirate softwares. Along with making these crack files they also insert malicious software in the crack which run the background such as spyware and malware.
Malware is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner's informed consent. The expression is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code. Malware is not the same as defective software, that is, software which has a legitimate purpose but contains harmful bugs. A software is considered malware based on the perceived intent of the creator rather than any particular features. Malware includes computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, most rootkits, spyware, dishonest adware, crimeware and other malicious and unwanted software. According to the law, malware is sometimes known as a computer contaminant.
Spyware is computer software that is installed stealthily on a computer to intercept or take partial control over the user's interaction with the computer, without the user's informed consent. While the term spyware suggests software that secretly monitors the user's behavior, the functions of spyware extend well beyond simple monitoring. Spyware programs can collect various types of personal information, such as Internet surfing habit, sites that have been visited, but can also interfere with user control of the computer in other ways, such as installing additional software, redirecting web browser activity, accessing websites blindly that will cause more harmful viruses, or diverting advertising revenue to a third party. Spyware can even change computer settings, resulting in slow connection speeds, different home pages, and loss of Internet or other programs. In an attempt to increase the understanding of spyware, a more formal classification of its included software types is captured under the term privacy invasive software.
Having malwares and spywares are not only harmful for the operating system and the user's privacy, they can also cause financial losses for the user through internet money transactions. There may be hackers and cracking out there embedding malicious softwares in personal computers to get the credit card information of unsuspecting users making them bankrupt.
Spamming
Spamming is another issue that arise may due to spywares. Spammers collect email addresses and usually send a lot of junk-mails to those addresses which are usually attractive advertisement which may match the user's online shopping preferences. Its much more sinister than a simple mischievous ad-campaign. Some of the advertisements may be fake and just another crafty way to get the unsuspecting user's credit card information.
Spamming does not only stop there. There are some spammers who may use hundreds and maybe thousands of personal computers as 'Zombie PCs'. This means the spammer would make sure the user grants them access to the computer the moment they connect to the internet. Then without the user knowing that computer would be used by the spammer to send mails to thousands of email addresses. This way the mails are traced back to the unsuspecting user. This may not sound so threatening other than consuming a lot of system resources and bandwidth. But if for instance its more than just an mischievous advertisement and an offensive message sent to people. Maybe its not just any ordinary people and it happens to be law enforcement agencies. Then the user would be in deep trouble if the messages are traced back to the personal computer.
Effects on Software Development
Promoting software piracy has a massive impact on software developing companies since they lose a lot of money each year due to illegal distribution of their software. This is not just about the big companies such as Apple, Microsoft or EA who make a huge amount of profit and a huge amount loss as well in certain parts of the globe but relatively their loss is a very small percentage compared to their profits. This concerns the smaller and local companies more and has a huge impact on software development in that region.
Many local companies may shut down leaving jobless software developers. Then these programmers turn to online freelance outsourcing where they develop softwares on the Internet. This has both advantages and disadvantages, but shutting down local companies and forcing programmers to work online has more disadvantages since they focus on the demands made online and may not develop software for the local community at all since their softwares are being pirated as soon as they are developed.
Creating an unethical community
Software piracy is practiced on a large scale in South America, Northern Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia. A lot of countries have strict laws against software piracy as mentioned earlier, so the crackers and such people who violate these laws need protection from the government. They turn to criminal families and gangs who protect them from the law enforcers. Therefore using Pirated software not only is harmful for yourself, but also the community itself creating an unethical group of people who are affiliated with crime families, so the money that is saved by not purchasing the original software may be used against you by these criminals out there.
----
By Shahnawaz Noor Alam
American International University - Bangladesh
----
The Aftermath Publications, Issue 1
----
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chking :P
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