Is it legal to trash someone's Palm?

[jack123d]

I found the following posted on a discussion forum on Palm:

"..Dmitry (owner of palmpowerups and maker of warpSpeed) has mentioned before that he utilizes some script which 'kills' the device once a trial for cracking his software (getting it to work illegally) is executed. He has done that with warpSpeed, where he explicitly mentioned on his forums that it would crash the device and never pass by the Palm-Powered screen if MultiUserHack - where username was changed for warpSpeed - was detected.

In such case, the device would become useless, a 'brick' as some people would call it, and it would need to be sent in.

I don't how this is possible, but Dmitry is known to be very aggressive when it comes to protecting his software from cracking...."

The link for this post is (http://forum.brighthand.com/showthread.php?t=243324).

Is this really true? If it is true, all of a sudden I lost my appetite for palmpowerups!
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[dragonsgames]

I do agree, I think that is illegal.

[_Em]

This also is untrue. MultiUserHack is incompatible with WarpSpeed (and a number of Dmitry's other apps) for the sole reason that these apps are always memory resident and disable themselves if the reg key doesn't work (If the sync name is different, the reg key will no longer be the correct one). This same thing happens if you install E2InternalDrive after registering WarpSpeed -- the device characteristics change, and so his apps fail. There are, however, certain circumstances where if his software fails to load correctly, your device can crash. In these circumstances, installing MultiUserHack (or HSNSwitch, or any of the other Username switchers) would definitely not be a good idea.

I'd leave it to Dmitry to explain, but I have a feeling that the people with a grudge against him who are posting this stuff would just tell you you can't believe him as he's the one doing this in the first place.

As an experiment, I can tell you I tried using MUH and WarpSpeed and UDMH all at the same time -- only thing that happened was that Dmitry's apps ceased to function when the username was changed.

[dmitrygr]

it is illegal in most countries, and i have spoken out against this practice in many places (tams blog for one (http://tamsppc.tamoggemon.com/2007/06/28/an-open-letter-to-warez-sites-and-what-i-think-about-it/))

At some point in time i did consider this idea, but rejected it

[jack123d]

it is illegal in most countries, and i have spoken out against this practice in many places (tams blog for one (http://tamsppc.tamoggemon.com/2007/06/28/an-open-letter-to-warez-sites-and-what-i-think-about-it/))

At some point in time i did consider this idea, but rejected it

I read Dmitry's comment at (http://tamsppc.tamoggemon.com/2007/06/28/an-open-letter-to-warez-sites-and-what-i-think-about-it/). I reproduce it here

">My logic bomb would be different. It would be leaked out onto Warez sites only, and would eventually activate and brick the device or sth like that.

Then i sure as hell hope you never figure out how to kill a device with code. So far I am only aware of one developer besides me having such ability [mostly because i told him]. And neither me nor him plan to release it in an app. You would be liable for all damages since you are NOT a judge and cannot decide to penalize the user for the value of their device.

And as soon as devices start dropping connection will be made. maybe not immediately but it will be. After there is some connection made, people like me will ger curious and start looking at your apps’ disassembly. Soon enough it will be out and you’ll be facing a few lawsuits from the users who lost their devices, as well as a few from the opportunistic asses who will claim they did as well. Pretty picture, huh?
"

If he he really sticks to what he says, then may be I am getting my appetite back for palmpowerups!!!!! :)

[philpalm]

However there are inventive ways to snitch on a bad user by wifi. The only trouble is that a small packet will be detected since it is hard to self destroy it if uncoded.

On a Tom Tom when you copy stuff from one SD card (like a map) the original copy becomes deactivated. I guess copy protection is one way to stop piracy. One of the simpliest way for companies to prevent deleting a trial and re-uploading a trial is leaving one file behind that doesn't get deleted when the original prc file is deleted. Hence orphan files are often left for a purpose. So far there are people trying to figure out how to stop a hard reset from letting a trial be reused again....

[dmitrygr]

I promise you any security (let's call it X) can be broken by method (called Y), which is bound to be eventually found by person (who we'll call Z) and published on the internet W days after its release.

Now, the more time a programmer spends implementing Y, the greater a number W can be, but there is a guarantee that eventually some person will reveal himself as Z by creating Y. For my security, for example, W was 3 years. In retrospect the time spent creating the security was a pointless waste.

Security should only be there to keep honest people honest. If someone wants Y, they will find it. Some will argue that if Z's time needed to create Y is too great, he will give in, and buy the software. False. It will just be considered a challenge to Y, and will just drive Y to try harder.

[ProfJonathan]

I read Dmitry's comment at (http://tamsppc.tamoggemon.com/2007/06/28/an-open-letter-to-warez-sites-and-what-i-think-about-it/). I reproduce it here

">My logic bomb would be different. It would be leaked out onto Warez sites only, and would eventually activate and brick the device or sth like that.

Then i sure as hell hope you never figure out how to kill a device with code. So far I am only aware of one developer besides me having such ability [mostly because i told him]. And neither me nor him plan to release it in an app. You would be liable for all damages since you are NOT a judge and cannot decide to penalize the user for the value of their device.

And as soon as devices start dropping connection will be made. maybe not immediately but it will be. After there is some connection made, people like me will ger curious and start looking at your apps’ disassembly. Soon enough it will be out and you’ll be facing a few lawsuits from the users who lost their devices, as well as a few from the opportunistic asses who will claim they did as well. Pretty picture, huh?
"

If he he really sticks to what he says, then may be I am getting my appetite back for palmpowerups!!!!! :)

This is not a new idea even for the Palm platform, and the person who did it was of course not Dmitry, but Aaron Ardiri, in connection with the PalmOS Gameboy emulator Liberty. You can read an article about this from 2000 here (http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/1158/liberty-trojan-horse-controversy-continues/).

I don't doubt that there would be significant legal consequences for doing this, regardless of the developer's motives. {ProfJonathan}

[dmitrygr]

he didn't kill devices, just deleted some files....

[alt236]

If I remember correctly Ardiri just caused a hard reset.

[ProfJonathan]

he didn't kill devices, just deleted some files....

True, but it's a similar concept. That was my only point. {J}