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30th September 2009: Software Theft For the past few weeks I have become more and more aware of a seemingly endless stream of key generators and cracked versions of my talking software products. These illegal files are, of course, being hosted in the usual places - Rapidshare and the other companies that make money from people who share files that they do not own. I am sure these sites also provide a useful service for people who legitimately want to share photos and personal files with their friends. Well, maybe one in every hundred files hosted by these crooked safe houses is legal. I can’t say for sure. Anyway, once I discover a keygen or cracked copy of Talking Dictionary on one of these sites it is quite easy to have it removed. All I have to do is fill out a form or send an E-mail making various legal statements about my ownership of the file and why I believe that the file should not be there. In total it takes about two minutes for me to draft such an E-mail. Add to that the multiple trips I have to make back and forward to the file sharing site to make sure they did not ignore the request and you’ve got maybe ten minutes of time per illegal file. Oh, and I forgot to mention that every Website that points to these illegal files protects its links from non members. So I have to become a member of some Website in the middle east before I can even see the link in the first place to know where it is. So that’s about thirty minutes of my time per file. The time adds up - particularly as I get more and more of these notifications. Usually I don’t check the file in detail before I request its deletion from the file sharing sites. I don’t really have the time to do this with every single one. But yesterday I am glad that I did.
The particular virus I am going to tell you about is called PopRock. It is an incredibly persistent bugger. My laptop (Super Trooper) became infected with it when I attempted to install a key generator for Talking Dictionary. The key generator behaved suspiciously as soon as I clicked on it. Microsoft Windows Vista’s security, my anti virus solution and my anti spyware solution all failed to alert me to its presence. But I knew it was there. I have been working with computers of one kind or another since 1979. Yes, long enough to know not to click on a suspicious file in the first place, you might say! But fortunately my many years of experience were behind me when I paid the price of my curiosity inspired momentary lack of reason. I knew that my laptop was infected with something and I immediately suspected spyware. My first course of action was to run Spybot Search and Destroy, but after a painstakingly long delay the program launched and then vanished from the screen without warning. Subsequent attempts to reload it failed as it had no doubt been compromised by the virus. I managed to fall back on my experience in I.T. to fight and eventually destroy the virus. I did not lose any files - just six hours of my time. Frustrating as the experience was, I have to say that there were times that I actually enjoyed the battle. It was a great feeling to see that it had finally been wiped off the laptop completely and that my skill had won over whatever malicious intent the designer had built into the viruses code. My joy continued today, over twelve hours after the battle was won. And the joy comes from feeling that I can stop hunting down these key generators and cracked versions of my pride and joy products. In my opinion the people who download these key generators and illegal copies will get what they deserve. For their sakes I hope that they have thirty years experience in information technology too - but somehow I doubt it. The morale of this story is that you should obtain RWF Talking Software’s products from RWF Talking Software (this website) and nowhere else. our products are guaranteed 100% spyware, adware and virus free. They always will be. I use the most advanced anti virus and anti spyware software available to ensure this is the case.
You can buy Talking Dictionary by following this link 24th September 2009: Special Promotional Offer Begins Four Products on CD for $29.95 24th August 2009: Demonstration Back Online Download Demonstration of Talking Dictionary 19th August 2009: Software Theft You can help us by reporting any file shared copies of our products that you find out there. Thanks. | ||||||||||||||||||
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