Comment by TacticalCoder
11 hours ago
I remember old games shipping with huge lists of codes on paper. Paper made, on purpose, too big for an US legal/A4 photocopier. And moreover the codes would be using "light blue characters on slightly less light blue paper". Very annoying for casual piracy (as in: copying your neighbor's version of the game).
> Later, the apps that would clone a USB dongle came along, and one software company that used USB dongles actually advised using this tool when we started running their software on Blade servers that did not support adding 24 USB devices.
That's a good one!
I have a whole collection of boxes featuring anti-piracy stuff: https://fabiensanglard.net/happy/index.html
The sentence "This created an only-too-familiar situation where illegitimate users enjoyed a better experience than paying customers." is a direct reference to these system which annoyed people who actually paid for their game!
Only to be repeated with the experience of streaming vs torrents
Siemens for some software uses a license system that uses "secret" files stored on "dongle" that is just USB stick, and software that manages copying to hard drive etc.
I have heard of several cases where Siemens technicians and support staff would use a well-known "crack" (actually more of a keygen combined with license file manager) or guide customers how to obtain and use it...
Remember, legally (usually), the really important part is the proof of contract and payment, not exact way the software was activated