Posts Tagged ‘Intention’

Software Downloads For Free – Any Kind At Any Time

There are many places on the Internet where you can download software for free. Although most of the software is a trial version of the real software, there are some free programs that are excellent to use. The terrifying part about downloading free software is that you do not know the intention of the person that created it that allows it to be distributed for free. There are a few methods that a person can use to determine if the free software that they are downloading it is legitimate and legal, and at the same time is useful and not just a spyware or adware program. Here are a few tips on getting software downloads for free.

With thousands of web sites proclaiming that you can download their software for free, it is a little hard to believe everyone, especially with all of the problems that are usually associated with free software. The other problems that you can run into are legal problems by people that have pirated software and not paid for it. An example of this would be downloading a “free” affiliate management software, yet you are provided with the terms and conditions for downloading it.

More reputable companies that have literally millions of users, such as WordPress blogging software, are legitimate products that can be downloaded for free. It is worth a few minutes of your time to research products that you would want to download for free just to make sure that other people have done the same and have had positive results.

Once you have located a place to get software downloads for free, check to see if there is a form where you can ask questions about the various software products that are offered. If there is a blog or perhaps a newsletter, subscribe to it and see what the latest news is and the latest programs that have been uploaded to their database. If everything is current, then more than likely this company is legitimate as they are actually attempting to add value to their own site.

Finding software downloads for free is actually very fun and rewarding if you can locate software products that make your life easier and simpler. Although most of the web sites that you will encounter may be questionable in regard to why they are offering free downloads, by doing you are due diligence, you will find sources for free software that you can download without worrying about the consequences.

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Author: Michael Kohler
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Watermarking in Software Protection Techniques – An Overview

Software piracy substantially reduces the achievable revenue for software creators. Software pirates prefer to act from countries where legal support in prosecuting malign subjects is very poor to not existent at all, so that the software provider remains often unable to enforce his license terms. Today, the best approach solving this problem is the integration of protection mechanisms in the software, with the intention to make the software as difficult to crack as possible.

Recently, more methods have been researched to protect software from piracy by inserting a secret message, the so called watermarking. This mark is hidden within the data of the software. The technique furnishes a relatively strong software protection because such watermark can only be abstracted easily by someone who possesses the secret key used for the building of the watermark. Still, a malevolent user could attack the license mechanism by manipulating it into unconditionally affirming the presence of a valid license, even if there is none effectively available. In this context, the recent developed methods seem to be relatively secure though.

Developers watermark a software by implanting unique identifiers to assert ownership to the rightful owner but also to track down the pirate after the illicit act. So, software watermarking itself does also prevent piracy by scaring the user from copyright infringement by increasing the possibility of getting caught. It must be mentioned that watermarking is not a simple technique. Most other existing anti piracy techniques are easy to implement, though their effectiveness in preventing piracy is often questionable. In addition, nowadays, many applications are distributed in formats easy to reverse engineer – see Java bytecode and Microsoft Intermediate Language – so that also in the case of watermarking, the cracker could decompile or study the source code under disassembler and/or debugger to locate and remove all remains of the technique.

The general idea of software watermarking is very similar to digital media watermarking in which a unique identifier is embedded in images, audio, or videos. The method is applied through the introduction of minor errors which are not remarked by users. On the other hand, the watermark can’t be applied in software through error causing techniques since software depends completely on an error free functionality.

So, software watermarking implants a unique identifier – called the watermark – into a program. If the identifier uniquely establishes the author of the program, then the identifier is a copyright notice. However, if the identifier uniquely identifies the legal purchaser of the program, then the watermark is a fingerprint. An important aspect of watermarking is the use of a secret key. Through the use of the key, the watermark is merged into the program, producing a – though slightly – different program. Still, the identity problem remains the same: a watermark can prove ownership but it can not point to the actual culprit of the illicit action. To add such characteristics to the watermark, it becomes a fingerprint: in fact, the fingerprint data is a watermark containing data from the individual customer.

Static watermarks are stored in the program binary itself but dynamic watermarks are created at runtime and stored in program memory. Static software watermarking is practiced for a longer time, the dynamic version was introduced more recently. The dynamic watermark is built – while it is executed – within the dynamically allocated data structures of a program. Still, an aggressor could apply reverse engineering to locate the watermark generating code. He might then get rid of the generating code, thus removing the watermark from the product as well. For such cases, the suggested use is the fingerprint, a special variant of watermark. Fingerprinting means each individual copy of the software is uniquely watermarked, thus allowing an identification of each particular copy of a software product. In other words, by the method of fingerprinting, each copy of the software is individually watermarked, each one containing data pointing to its customer instead of its developer.

Overall, watermarking and fingerprinting are very effective in fighting back software piracy. But the result is not perfect which makes additional protection techniques are most advisable. Combined with other known techniques, cracking such schemes becomes so time consuming that even the experienced cracker may choose for easier material.

Author Sogiros is a veteran programmer in software security. He is also a programmer producing smart, renovating and user-friendly developer tools to assist produce stronger protection software. Have you liked this article, then you can find more info on this theme: software protection or for more information about 64 bit software anti plagiarism in general.

Author: Jose Sogiros
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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How Software Sellers and Users Both Benefit From the Use of a Software License Agreement

A software license agreement is either a manual or electronic memorandum of a contractual agreement between the producer of software and the end user, granting to the end user a software license to use the software legally. The user can be either a legal entity or an end user and sometimes the agreement is called the end user license agreement. This contract will clearly state all the parameters of the various permissions given to the end user. In case the software license agreement is between the software producer and a business or government undertaking some special clauses are included relevant to the agreement which are unique for the licensed software.

Very often, the agreement comes shrink wrapped with the product prior to installation of the software. If the user agrees to the terms and conditions, as stated in the agreement, he or she may continue with the installation and use of the software product or else he or she may refuse the product and thus not use the software. Mostly, users do not take the trouble of reading all the clauses of the software license agreement and just click on “Accept” and begin using the software anyway. This is because of the great depth of detail held within the license agreement. The enforceability of such agreements is open to debate, especially in the United States.

The copyright laws governing making backup copies of the purchased software allows the owner of the software to make copies for the intention of backup purposes only. However, there are various interpretations to this and a certain amount of ambiguity in this regard allows end users to make copies for purposes other than merely backing up their software.

The majority of the purchased software is liable to perform as per specifications but mostly the agreement disclaims any warranty and limits any damages to just the cost of the software. In addition, some agreements prohibit the use of any reverse engineering in order to protect their trade secrets.

In the world of computers, copyrighted software sold is of two types, namely open source/free software and closed source/proprietary software. It may be added that not all software is copyrighted. There is also one other type of software that is called “abandonware” software. This is a type of software that is not being sold or supported by its copyright holder. This means that though this software is still available in the market its support and development has ceased and that it is not actively being protected, represented or supported.

Using box wrapped software implies that once the wrapper has been opened the user is giving their assent to the software terms contained within. This type of agreement is termed as “click-wrap agreements”. The popularity of click-wrap agreements is increasing since it allows the user to read the terms and conditions prior to accepting them. It has also been found to be legally enforceable in the United States with courts generally upholding such contracts. A prime example of click-wrap agreements is Hotmail, the email program sold by MSN.

There is also a distinction between personal and commercial use of the software. Personal use implies that the software is being used in one’s personal capacity while commercial use implies that the software is being used to obtain commercial or monetary gain from use of the software.

Wade Anderson is a CPA and operates DigitalWorkTools.com

Click to view a Software License Agreement.

Author: Wade Anderson
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Digital Camera News