Author Topic: crack tracker (Read 33,537 times)

umeca74 · « **on:** April 12, 2010, 08:18 AM »

Many people here are selling their software for a living. For all you authors suffering from cracks and keygens, this tool I made will make things a bit easier. It searches for illegal downloads of your software and presents them in a list, so you can file a DMCA complaint with rapidshare and similar hosting companies, so that your illegal downloads are removed (and then more will be listed

)

For more information and to download the crack tracker, see here:
www.zabkat.com/blog/14Mar09-crack-tracker.htm

as this is work in progress I would appreciate your feedback

thanks
nikos

JavaJones · « **Reply #1 on:** April 12, 2010, 05:38 PM »

Intriguing tool! I work for a company (Planetside Software) whose products (Terragen) are routinely posted to Rapidshare, etc. so this could be very useful.

I haven't tried it yet, but if it doesn't yet have a built-in DMCA complaint filing function, that would be a great feature. Perhaps a pluggable system that allows you to add new sites with their corresponding emails or complaint URLs (many require you to submit through an online form). Ideally it could create a form letter for each one that lists the infringing URL and all the usual info they ask for in DMCA requests (name, address, position in company, confirmation that you are authorized to act on behalf of the company, etc.). That would save tremendous amounts of time.

Quite honestly we don't file a lot of requests right now because of how time consuming it is. Searching for the infringing downloads is a great start, but automating the complaint process would be a much bigger help IMO.

his could be a great tool for small software devs. Thank you!

- Oshyan

f0dder · « **Reply #2 on:** April 12, 2010, 07:53 PM »

Cute idea, Nikos!

Definitely useful if you have a large collection of the public trackers and other download sites. There's a whole lot of private trackers as well, though - going to be hard to do anything about those. But I guess the biggest damage is from the public sites anway

JavaJones · « **Reply #3 on:** April 12, 2010, 08:09 PM »

Yes, I think there is a core of more dedicated/savvy users who have more advanced methods of obtaining pirated software. These you will never be able to stop. But keeping your app off a simple Google search, I think *that* is going to make an impact in piracy numbers. Searching for "Terragen 2", our flagship product, brings up warez results at the top of the 2nd page, and that's *without* putting in "crack" or "download" or anything else specific:
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=terragen+2&start=10&sa=N&fp=a2bb30ecf4f91972

- Oshyan

tanis424 · « **Reply #4 on:** April 13, 2010, 02:43 AM »

Sounds to me like this tool would be of more use to pirates for finding cracks...

f0dder · « **Reply #5 on:** April 13, 2010, 06:32 AM »

Quote from: tanis424 on April 13, 2010, 02:43 AM

Sounds to me like this tool would be of more use to pirates for finding cracks...

Hardly. The pirates already know where to look, and even regular users know how to use rapidshare, usenet and public torrent trackers (at least here in .dk, YRMV). Content is widely duplicated across these services, so it's not like this tool will help people who only know one resource, either.

umeca74 · « **Reply #6 on:** April 13, 2010, 03:37 PM »

I will be adding many things in the future, including the option to automatically file the DMCA complaint email. In the meantime, as this tool is based on a quirky 'technology' I would appreciate your feedback, whether it works for you or not.

anyone can find cracks to any software, just google <your_program_name> + rapidshare. The hard bit is finding all these illegal downloads, and this tool of mine helps find many of them. Not all but every little helps!

herneith · « **Reply #7 on:** April 13, 2010, 10:03 PM »

Don't a lot of these illegal methods of 'stealing' software contain malware or viruses of some sort? I personally would be afraid to download any of these pirated software. I prefer to pay for it so the creator can keep updating and improving his product. Besides which, there is enough free and open source software available if you cannot afford to purchase a particular item.

wraith808 · « **Reply #8 on:** April 13, 2010, 11:40 PM »

^ Well, yes. I'd hope that most supporters of this site would fall into the same category as you. But in the world wide interwebs, there are more that don't share this point of view than do, unfortunately.

umeca74 · « **Reply #9 on:** April 14, 2010, 05:49 AM »

I personally have a big problem with piracy. Although I give away a free version, most people use a keygen to pirate xplorer2

When I got tired of hunting keygens, instead of blocking them I went for a different approach: if xplorer2 detects a keygenned key it 'allows' it but every now and then sends such people to this page: www.zabkat.com/warez.htm

from the statistics of this page I know that 90%+ of my users use such fake keys!

f0dder · « **Reply #10 on:** April 14, 2010, 06:08 AM »

Quote from: umeca74 on April 14, 2010, 05:49 AM

from the statistics of this page I know that 90%+ of my users use such fake keys!

I hope you do something to distinguish being sent there by x^2 and by clicking that link from a normal browser :]

Tuxman · « **Reply #11 on:** April 14, 2010, 05:44 PM »

Hehe, yep. I was on the page multiple times when I already had a license, just to check something there.

Concerning the crack tracker:
For pirates this software is not of any interest. I tried to find some software with it, and I noticed that, while it kept reloading, I would already have had the software for a while if I had used eMule instead.

umeca74 · « **Reply #12 on:** June 05, 2010, 03:11 PM »

latest build 1005, faster and with more download sites:
www.zabkat.com/craktrak.zip

JavaJones · « **Reply #13 on:** June 06, 2010, 02:34 AM »

Glad to see you're still developing this. Looking forward to support for filing complaints right from the app (if possible).

- Oshyan

umeca74 · « **Reply #14 on:** June 06, 2010, 06:55 AM »

I made up my mind to go pro with it (sell it eventually)
but if you contribute in testing then you won't be unrewarded

there is already a way to send crash logs and such from HELP menu

JavaJones · « **Reply #15 on:** June 07, 2010, 04:44 AM »

Thanks, good to know. I'll give it a workout as soon as I get a chance.

- Oshyan

umeca74 · « **Reply #16 on:** September 23, 2010, 01:05 PM »

crack tracker has gone beta and almost a full product.

if you fancy giving me a hand with beta testing and locating your dodgy
downloads at the same time, here's the BETA download link:
www.cracktracker.net
(the website is beta version too

if you encounter any ASSERTion errors, just click on IGNORE button to
continue

if you have any other problems or you have any feedback or suggestions, use
Help > Send feedback menu command

thanks!
nikos

mrainey · « **Reply #17 on:** September 23, 2010, 01:19 PM »

If I google ThreadPal crack I get dozens of hits.

If I use ThreadPal as the search term for Crack Tracker, I get nothing.

umeca74 · « **Reply #18 on:** September 23, 2010, 05:26 PM »

perhaps you misunderstood, crack tracker is not a search engine, it looks for cracks to your software. By default not all internal search engines are enabled too, so use View > Engines menu to tick them all active

superboyac · « **Reply #19 on:** September 23, 2010, 05:40 PM »

umeca74,
I think this is a fantastic idea. I love it. I'm very interested in this and will be following very closely. I'll send you suggestions as i come up with them. Thank you for this very great effort.

I hope this can be extended from software to ebooks, videos, audio, etc.

umeca74 · « **Reply #20 on:** September 25, 2010, 12:21 PM »

I believe you can already track other things like music and video, choosing a relevant keyword. Most of the search engines CT uses are generic and should find non-software downloads, probably illegal!

umeca74 · « **Reply #21 on:** October 12, 2010, 07:12 AM »

crack tracker is finally on sale
www.cracktracker.net

if you have helped with testing send me an email for your discount coupon!

hth
nikos

steeladept · « **Reply #22 on:** October 17, 2010, 07:46 AM »

Since I am not a code author, I really have no use for this sort of thing, but I am interested in it from a curiosity point of view. Have you noticed a significant increase in purchases and/or a significant decrease in cracked versions being published? I would expect, human nature being what it is, that you see no significant increase in purchases, but perhaps a significant decrease in publishing IF the software is used regularly. However that is just speculation. Can you tell us your experience?

umeca74 · « **Reply #23 on:** October 17, 2010, 08:34 AM »

crack tracker cannot stop cracks, even if you eliminate all the existing ones, new ones will come to replace them, it is a constant battle

as to how sales will be affected once you make it harder for people to find warez, it is debatable. Obviously I believe that legitimate sales will increase, as people really wanting the software will have no other option. But if you are on a really crowded market they may just go to your easy to crack competitor...

steeladept · « **Reply #24 on:** October 17, 2010, 08:56 AM »

True. I just was curious with what you have seen in the last 6 months or so since you implemented the first betas, etc.