Software Hackers      by Dan Mitzimberg |||| RETURN |||| Wonder why the cost of your software has become so expensive? Some people do – some don't care. Others just go on like nothing happened. Back in the beginning of the personal computers, Commodore, Atari and some other companies were making great personal game machines that could do other functions, like word processing and data base services. At this time companies like Apple and IBM were working on introducing the personal computer business to your schools and homes, mostly by offering basic computers that could do accounting and processing large amounts of data quick and easy. The personal computer was born and it never looked back. Now it seems that everyone is on the Internet. In the beginning I was fascinated by this new toy I was given. I became a computer manager for Radio Shack when the TRS-80 (nicknamed the Trash-80) just came out. However, I purchased a Commodore 64 and all of the fixings. The Commodore had the great game capabilities – the Trash-80 did not have that kind of support. At that time support was offered by thousands of programmers making games – re-writing old games – making data base and word processing software – all was very affordable. During this time we were introduced to software hackers, back then - they were heroes. They would make the software once written for a Clone (now we call it a PC) work better for our other machines. They also created software that allowed us to make backups of our programs. At that time we were using 5.25 discs that were not very well protected, so we needed backups. Like all great ideas, someone had to abuse it. People were taking this copy software and copying games for others than for themselves. It got to be so wide spread, software companies were forced to place protections on discs to keep from illegal copying. Then those hacker companies began to write software that would read past the protection or would duplicate the protection onto a new disc. I have to admit I received many copies of software that I did not purchase. Software companies had to start spending more than half of their development money in producing better protection for their software. The great games of the past were now becoming average games as the money to create them was being taken away by the demand for better security. Then to create better games the software companies had to more than double the price of new software to the public. Those who thought they were saving so much money by hacking the software soon found they were spending so much more. As new software protections came out, the software required to hack it was being developed – at a much larger price to the personal hacker. The only folks who made money were the software companies who were making the hack software. In 1984 several friends and myself went to a computer seminar in Portland, Oregon. There we saw some great new games and some very cool new computers that could do so much more than we had imagined. Over all we were all quite impressed. During one of the seminars a keynote speaker at the podium was talking about his software company which had closed its doors about a year earlier. He talked about the past and the future of creating and publishing good software. He talked about his company and all of the great things it was planning to do in the computing world. They produced a four in one word processor, database, file system and menu control program for PC's and made it available for other computer formats. They had sunk their entire business into this software. At the same time they produced a copy program to make backups of your data and software. They hoped their database would make it into the business world as an inexpensive version of Lotus1-2-3, a similar software package with tons more features, that was already working in the business world. Small businesses were jumping at the affordable data based software. At that point he asked the audience of about 300 people, 'How many here had a copy of Copy It?' It seemed like everyone raised their hands. He then told us that more than 20,000 programs were produced, boxed up and sent to software distributors. Out of that less than 2% of the software was sold to the public, the rest was returned. He then told us that the software (Four in One) he had risked his entire business on sold at about the same percentages. The copy software was so good; no one needed to purchase other software. Hacked copies were spreading like a virus and sent his company into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. By this time Microsoft has established itself by licensing the software, instead of selling the product outright. They taught the computer world a valuable lesson in software sales and distribution. Microsoft's vision of the future of computers was far greater than anyone else had imagined. Unfortunately, hacking and now phreaking (hackers that steal software by passing on software keys, product ID's, and serial numbers to everyone) has caused the software market to explode again. Prices are going to continue to raise as more and more people steal software from those who work so hard to create it and bring it to us. Hacking is a multi-million dollar business that has cost us billions in hiked prices and caused many software companies to fold. The next time you complain about the prices of software, you will have some insight as to the cause. The next time someone offers to give you free unsupported software, turn it down. Of course there is the cost of developing new and better ideas – including new and better protection. The latest is key locks are stored on a server that has to be accessed each time you start the software. If your machine serial number and the one stored online do not match – you will be requested to register the software. This is very time consuming but becoming very necessary. The same problem is occurring in the music industry. Don't get me started there. Dan