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re: Why are cracks illegal?
Friday, December 21, 2001 at 8:31 am
Windows Me Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by khawk
(12 messages posted)
On Sunday, November 25, 2001 at 11:06 am, UnDEAD wrote:
>I think they are illegal because they're made by reverse engineering the product
>(... but how do they prove this?), and because you're not allowed to modify the
program
>in it's binary form...
>
>*what the hell... you can't even debug an operating system you bought?* Well, you
>can... But you're not allowed to spread information, tools, utilities, papers on
>what you've learned...
>
>
>
>On Monday, November 12, 2001 at 12:00 pm, mmp wrote:
>You mention that cracks are unethical and illegal. Why exactly? Unethical - i
>guess
>that is up to individuals to decide. I don't agree that it is illegal. The DMCA
>
>protects circumvension of encryption techniques to gain access to copyright materials.
>
> Is WPA really an encryption technique? I don't think so. What other laws could
>
>be used to consider WPA cracks illegal?
>
Reverse Engineering and Cracks weren't illegal for the longest time. Especially reverse
engineering for the purpose of Compatibility. (Now don't get too fancy and think
that this ment making an unactivated WinXP compatible with your new computer, not
the same thing.) The intent was for making technologies such as DVD movies play in
foriegn and unsupported enviroments like Linux. However, a few years ago, Congress
passed the DMCA Act which made it illegal to reverse engineer technologies that were
intended to protect copywritten material. This definition is extremely vague, but
does indeed cover cracks that disable the product activation. Many of the things
you may have done in the past are now illegal today such as copying your Favorite
VHS tape to Beta. (remember those?) Or copying your game CD's to keep in the event
that you lost the original. Bottom line, you no longer own what you buy, you merely
rent the right to use it in their terms.
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 |  |  | re: Why are cracks illegal? (khawk: Fri, Dec 21, 2001, 8:31 am) |
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