Diverse Neuigkeiten

4. Falsche Keyfiles bedrohen Weiterentwicklung von MakeCD

Nachdem bereits im Mai jemand die Routine zur Erzeugung von Keyfiles für die kommerzielle Version 3.1b der CD-Brenner-Software MakeCD entschlüsselt und illegal Keys unter die Leute gebracht hat, wurde nun auch der veränderte Keyfile-Algorithmus von MakeCD 3.2 geknackt. Aus welchen Motiven die Person auch handelt - ihre Taten haben dazu geführt, dass die Weiterentwicklung des Programms offenbar ernsthaft gefährdet ist. Weitere Details sind dem folgenden "Hilferuf" von Angela Schmidt zu entnehmen:

»Hi,

I have some bad news for all legal MakeCD users:

Somebody has managed to crack the key generation routine of MakeCD. He already did this in May for MakeCD 3.1b and distributed lots of Keys for the commercial version of MakeCD. Then we completely exchanged the commercial key for MakeCD 3.2, which made invalid all commercial keys that we every created. Therefore, we sent out free new commercial keys to those users, who have registered for the commercial version. But soon after MakeCD 3.2 has been released, that guy sent out new registration numbers for the new commercial key.

So everybody with contacts to the scene is now able to use MakeCD without paying anything for it and we can't do anything against it. In former times, when people just published their registration numbers, we could lock these numbers and take legal steps against them. But now, this is no longer possible.

During the last two months, we noticed a dramatical (about 50 %) reduction of shareware registrations. The reason might be dropping interest in MakeCD, but our web server statistic shows, that the interest in the new version 3.2 a few days after releasing it is even higher than the interest was in MakeCD 3.1b soon after releasing it. So I don't believe that dropping interest is the main reason for the reduction of our shareware registrations. I fear that many people now don't consider to register anymore because they know that somebody has build a generator for the registration numbers. So they have no more reason to register. In former times, it was difficult to get a key that works with recent versions of MakeCD.

But fact is that Patrick and I have some costs that we have to cover. For example I am still studying and _nobody_ pays me for the expenses (my home, medical insurance, food, computer equipement, books, ...) that I have. I have to pay this from the MakeCD income, and if that is not enough, I'll have to accept a "normal job" and invest my time into that job. => No more spare time for the MakeCD development.

Beside these expenses, we have to pay for CD writers, CD-Rs and things like that, which is also quite expensive.

We now have only a few choices:

1) Don't change anything and accept that we have lost against the crackers. But sooner or later this would probably lead into dropping the MakeCD development.

2) Change the commercial key once again. This won't help because the cracker immediately would spread new numbers as happened after the release of V3.2 and lead into 1). Somebody tried to make me calm down, telling me that crackers just want to proove that they are _able_ to crack a program and that the other intention is to allow the user to try a software before buying it. This statement is WRONG because

He already _prooved_ that he is able to crack MakeCD by spreading numbers for MakeCD 3.1b. If his intention was just to proove that he is a poor genial cracker, there would not be a need to publish 3.2 codes.
Everybody can try MakeCD before buying it by just using the demo version. That cracker asked the software pirates to buy the software if they like it but that's just ridiculous - how many software pirates would buy the software after he got it for free...? :-(

3) Completely change the registration process. This would require completely new registration numbers for all persons. We could send out the commercial numbers for free in the past, but such a big change is very cost intensive and takes much time (which my sister Katrin is not willing to spend for free, of course). So we would have to request a update free from everybody who want to use new versions. => The legal users would have to pay for what the crackers did. :-( Also, programming new registration routines is very time intensive and so we would have less time for new features.

Don't get me wrong, we did not yet decide what we will do in future, so please don't spread any rumours. However all of you should know that the crackers might about to stop the development of another good piece of Amiga software. Hurrah... :-( They are doing _large_ damage to the Amiga market and sooner or later they'll get what they earn: A dead computer with no more new software. :-(

BTW, especially the market for CD writer software is very difficult: only a small number of Amiga users own a CD writer and there are three main software packages on the market: BurnIt, MasterISO and MakeCD. Each of these programs owns only a small part of the market. And thanx to the crackers the market shrinks even more... :-(

Angela Schmidt // Angela.Schmidt@hadiko.de voice: +49 721 695307
IRC: Nessy X/ http://home.pages.de/~Angela/ (6:30-7:30 p.m.)«