cracks question

I see a lot of posts advertising cracks for sale for Pro/E. How does this work since ProE is tied to the cpu id?

Reply to
Rod Roddy
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You have to understand the different license options that are available with FlexLM.

By default what the sys admins see is a license tied to one of three things:

1) MAC address of network card, 2) IP address assigned to a machine, or 3) a hardware dongle address. I have 4 FlexLM licensed products at work and we have all three license types. The IP address and Dongle are easiest if you lease your license servers because you just assign the new server the same IP as the old or physically move the dongle.

Other FlexLM license options give any machine access to the programs. These are used for AE people. Usually they are for specific time periods so if they get left behind, they will expire after so many weeks/days. My guess is that a cracked license is using this type of license, but with no expiration date. The trick is knowing what codes the software is looking for that makes it work.

Reply to
Ben Loosli

David Janes

Reply to
David Janes

The cracks do work. I experimented with a few CAD softwares in college (I wasn't paying Journey $300 just to install it for 2 days before deleting it), and with some persistence you can find ones that work. But it's not easy - some crack the license daemon and then you need to have a local FlexLM server running 24/7, the easier cracks give you a node-locked license. The instructions are usually spotty at best, and require you to understand the FlexLM fundamentals. The bottom line is that probably 90% of users never know enough about MACs and FlexLM to make the crack work.

Dave

Reply to
David Geesaman

If someone wanted to try to make money off of black market ProE, I would think they could just buy a loaded seat and then generate codes for people that sent them their cpu id. This would be foolproof but traceable I suppose.

Reply to
Rod Roddy

Nobody is given the code generator from when they buy a loaded seat of Pro/E. The only way to generate a code is to get one from PTC or use a crack.

Dave

Reply to
David Geesaman

I have seen working Pro/E cracks done two ways: a) a node-locked license file generator, and b) a license file generator for FlexLM. In places like China and Russia you can buy a complete cracked Pro/E set of CDs at computer software/hardware swapmeets for about $30 (as well as all the rest of the stuff they periodically 'advertise' on this NG). The same people who do this stuff will for a moderate (by US standards) fee crack any software you need cracked if you provide the actual software. Knowing all this, I feel mildly annoyed by the inconvniences PTC's so-called 'security features' impose on Pro/E users. I certainly bought my license not because I couldn't get a working copy of software without it but because buying it was the right thing to do. On the other hand, while PTC's policy in this area is simply stupid, the makers of the FlexLM (GlobeTrotter Software, if I am not mistaken) are, IMO, simply crooks. They peddle the DRM product that gets cracked every time within a few days of its release (if not before the release). Not that it is different in this regard from every other DRM scheme known today.

Reply to
Alex Sh.

I once saw a Solidworks code generator. Nice little GUI, I can't remember what you had to enter - I think you just checked off the options you wanted, what release you were after, and out came the product ID and 5 digit alphanumeric. But who would want SW anyhow?

Reply to
Pete

Some are nice like that. The serial number protection schemes are supposedly very easy to crack, which is why I think the cracker will take the time to put a nice GUI to it.

Dave

Reply to
David Geesaman

That's what I mean..keep making new codes with the automated tool on the PTC website. At my last job I had a seat and was constantly changing the computer it was loaded on and was never questioned. It seems like there is no limit to how many times you can change one seat to different computers.

Reply to
Rod Roddy

Yeah, there's no built-in limit, but they do notice. I know of someone who did that to extend the number of their node-locked seats, and PTC knew about it. PTC didn't come out and accuse this person, but they refused to sell anything new or updated to them. So it wouldn't work for long.

Actually, there is a much simpler way to cheat with MAC addresses that can't be detected, but for obvious reasons I won't state it on this forum.

Dave

Reply to
David Geesaman

lets be honest everyone has at some time had that little piece of software they wanted to try but never had the money or could be arsed with the demo which entitled you to be plagued by sales 20 times the minute the demo period expired

however the industry on a whole needs to tighten up on security as a whole instead of letting folks get away with it, also anyone that can create a crack should surely be employed by the firms who do provide security services but most of the people who can and do crack software do it for personal reasons or for fun not financial they thrive on the challenge not make $30 on a seat of software which they dont know how to use.

i personally dont mind cracked software if students are using it to learn on or just to try so be it, what i do mind is people who provide design services similar to myself and using bent software now i would like to kick the living daylights out of em i paid for my legitimate license as it is the tool of my trade i make money from it and this is the trade off of cost per seat if i catch someone doing that i report em if its harmless fun then just dont cross the legal line

Reply to
mikemcdermid

Absolutely. Also, I see lots and lots of people use illegal licenses of office software. The excuse is usually something like 'screw Gates!', or 'I've paid for one license and feel that it should be nobody's business how many times I install it', or combination of the above, or some other similar nonsense. I personally will never pay what MS is asking for their office suite, or what Adobe is asking for Acrobat. I have the open-source replacements (OpenOffice and Ghostscript) that do everything I need and give me perfect compatibility with other people's files created in MS Office, all completely free. I think a lot of illegal software in this country exists not because people who use it are malicious, or because they can't pay for it, but because lots and lots of people are way too lazy to look for proper, legal ways to do what they want to do.

Sorry, I believe you are totally wrong here.

  1. The industry does NOT need to 'tighten up on security'. What it needs is more realistic pricing and more respect for its customers. The vast majority of people will do the right thing without being prodded by the so-called 'security features', simply because it is the right thing to do. But when you make their life a pain by charging insane prices and further inconvenience them by the 'security features' that are only good as a nuisance to honest customers (and will always remain just that, no matter how hard you try), then you can just create enough resentment for people to start deliberately ripping your product off.
  2. Most of the cracking is done in the countries like China, Russia, and India, where there are lots of people with education and skills to do it, but nowhere near enough honest, well-paying work for them. Also, the cracked software has a large market there because at their level of prices, salaries, and living expenses the 'legal' price that is already exorbitant by the US standards becomes stark ravening insane. Yes, most people are still good people, but if you put enough negative incentive in front of them, the temptation will be too much. Try to imagine yourself in the following situation. You are an engineer, you need to feed your family, you have customers, but they don't want your designs done on paper anymore, they want them done on Pro/E. And a 'legal' license of Pro/E costs 3 years' worth of your gross income (no exaggeration here, that's what it often comes down to in these countries, especially since the US software companies often sell their software there for MORE money than here). Now add to that the fact that financing is often totally unavailable, or available at rates like
18-25%, and tell me: are you sure you want to blame these people? And are you sure that with that kind of cost incentive there is ANYTHING, anything at all, that can be done to stop them? I personally don't think so.

No argument here. I feel about the same. I probably would not be so fast to report the offender, but that's my personal upbringing speaking (when I was growing up one of the rules that were strongly emphasized to me was 'the snitch gets the first whip', if you know what I mean...)

Reply to
Alex Sh.

to qoute

You are an engineer, you need to feed your family, you have customers, but they don't want your designs done on paper anymore, they want them done on Pro/E. And a 'legal' license of Pro/E costs 3 years' worth of your gross income (no exaggeration here, that's what it often comes down to in these countries)

my apologies if i have put myself across in the wrong way i had only considered the western european point of view not some of the far eastern countries where admittedly the larger companies are the only ones who can afford the software apps and people like you and me who are small and skilled dont really have a chance to get something off the ground

my point which might be more relevant now i have seen your site is that you are in a similar industry to me i also work in pharmaceutical food and biotech related design industries providing barrier isolator and equipment for producing drugs so say for example i went head to head bidding on a contract for the same job as yourself,now you have pro e with a legit license and i have not i am using cracked software i have in effect robbed you of potential earnings and income if the contract comes my way that must p*** you off just slightly and this is the thing im talking about

that is what i dont agree with and this does happen maybe just to start a company you do a few jobs on the sly then buy the software but sometimes people dont they carry on

now im considering in the early days i had to do any job to get to a point where i have my chosen software it just annoys me the strugle that i had to go through to get there and im sure in most cases many people have to

i think upon reflection it boils down to being lucky we live on this side of the world and after your comments perhaps there is an argument that yes the software giants are only doing to less fortunate economies what the software crackers are doing to them maybe they should offer incentives and programs to get smaller less well funded countries,companies up and running for less money as im sure that in the far east there are very talented individuals who would love to get that break and bring their companies,motivations and ideas to a commercial audience.

so you changed my perspective if nothing else im not saying cracked software is good but just dont like people taking the p*** with it

Reply to
mikemcdermid

Mike,

I am happy you got my point. I am not, of course, trying to justify the pirated software, just to explain why, IMO, it will exist no matter what security features the software manufacturers try. If we narrow it to the Western world, than, just like you, I can see two temporary justifications:

1) a person trying to study the software, and 2) a person jump-starting their business. In both cases, by the way, a software manufacturer that does not have their head up their ass can come up with creative ways of letting people try their stuff without future obligations. And I mean the real, commercial stuff, not the 'student edition' that is incompatible with commercial files (including tutorial files made by tutorial providers). To me, the narrow-mindedness shown by most software manufacturers in this regard is stunning. Yes, a certain number of licenses will be put to the inappropriate use this way, but the broadening of the legitimate user base will more than offset these losses (provided, of course, that the software in question is worth using).

On the other hand, until the Third World is closer to the West in the standard of living as well as many other aspects, there is literally nothing that can be done about piracy (unless, of course, you consider sealing the Third World off completely a viable possibility rather than a paranoid delusion). It is very much like trying to fight terrorism: you can take a defensive position (which is what 'security features' really are) and hope for the best, but you have to fend off EVERY attack to be successful, and the opposing side just needs to get lucky ONCE. Or, you can try to deal with the problem at the source. Which then becomes the business of the USA and other Western countries, through massive properly targeted economic aid, political pressure, even military actions sometimes, to engage in currently much-despised 'nation-building', which is really the only true way out. That is the true measure of the problem a bunch of morons in the software industry are trying to solve with 'security features'.

That's it. I'm off the soap box.

Reply to
Alex Sh.

If you would, please send the MAC address method to my email address. I appreciate it.

Thanks Rod

Reply to
Rod Roddy

If you have a licensing issue for an out-of-maintenance product (the only legitimate reason for this topic), just post it here and someone will answer in that context.

Dave

Reply to
David Geesaman

My issue is that my maintenance ran out in October. There are many reasons why I choose not to renew at this time, but that is not the point. I just purchased a new computer and I need to move my locked seat to the new machine. I think it is complete BS that I can't move a seat of a license, that I paid for, to a different machine just b/c I choose not to be extorted yearly for something that I should have an intrinsic right to do when I purchase software.

Reply to
Rod Roddy

Just move the nic from the old machine to the new machine and proe will work on the new machine!

Reply to
Dave

Reply to
Chris Gosnell

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