You're the Worst Pirate in the World

[Dips]

Actually this about the two worst pirates in the world...

Yesterday I heard from a "customer" who needed more activations and was "desperate." Could I help?

The email address did not match that of the registered user, so I looked at the clues a bit more carefully to be sure I was helping the actual user and not someone pretending to be her.

The name in the original registration and the computer name of the original user were spelled one way. Yesterday's email spelled the user's name differently, three times and exactly the same.

So it's a pirate or someone who forgot how to spell her own first name.

Today's specimen sent me a remove code so I could release an activation to use on another computer.

Only the remove code was one they sent me last December and that activation had already been released. They didn't even bother changing the time stamp to make it look "fresh."

Honestly, folks. You're going to have to try harder than that to put one over on us.

[bainsidhe]

See, now I'm just curious. From your posts, it sounds like scamming attempts go on all the time. Perhaps that's just the nature of your business. So....do scamming attempts really go on constantly at your place of employ?

[Dips]

Scammers are very much in the minority. I don't really post about the folks who don't scam because, well, I guess you can figure that out.

Getting two such incredibly *weak* attempts in two days is unusual. Usually they they at least try.

[edible_hat]

And of course you never hear from the good (as in skilled) pirates because they just reverse-engineer the program and remove the need for activation codes. Mind you these days anyone skilled enough to do that is probably doing much more interesting things for lots of money.

[Broomjockey]

they just reverse-engineer the program and remove the need for activation codes.

Considering Dips says the market for her software's small and fairly specialized, I doubt anyone who could do that would want to. Plus if they needed any support for it, they'd get nailed on calling in

[crashhelmet]

We have a particular piece of software that comes with 4 licenses. We have people all the time that call us complaining that they can't install it on a system, saying the licenses are used up. They'll claim they've only installed it once or twice when we know for a fact that they're lieing.

What we do is reset all 4 licenses so that they have to re-register all of them again when they try to use them and they get put back into a vicious cycle. of not having it on more than 4 systems until they give up.

CH

[Dips]

And of course you never hear from the good (as in skilled) pirates because they just reverse-engineer the program and remove the need for activation codes. Mind you these days anyone skilled enough to do that is probably doing much more interesting things for lots of money.

That's right. Pirates are theives, just like shoplifters. The better ones stay under the radar. The dumb ones get caught and stopped.

Copy protection is like locking the door on the store. It doesn't stop all theft, but it sure cuts back on it a lot.

And Broomjockey is correct. Our software is hardly popular enough for it to be worth anyone's while to break the copy protection for profit.

[depechemodefan]

I was thinking of those Somlian pirates...

The name in the original registration and the computer name of the original user were spelled one way. Yesterday's email spelled the user's name differently, three times and exactly the same.

So it's a pirate or someone who forgot how to spell her own first name.

I have a first name I spell 2 ways. The legal way, which is mispelled (on my birth certificat) and the correct way (the way my parents intended to spell it). So sometimes I forget where my name is spelled correctly. But again, usually I have a clue to help me out. Like when I buy something with my credit card, there's my name on the card. I'll spell it like is shows on the card.

[Dips]

I have a first name I spell 2 ways.

That's exactly why I don't dismiss things out of hand just for a misspelled name. They'll just have to verify something else.

BTW, this one did not even reply when I ask for futher verification. The real user would have.

[One-Fang]

So sometimes I forget where my name is spelled correctly.

That sounds fairly annoying. Just out of curiosity, why not simply change your name by deed poll to the 'correct' spelling?