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by aiham 5078 days ago
It asks the user for a registration code. It obviously needs to communicate with a server to verify the code. When someone enters an invalid code, it will clearly be logged and the OP notified. It is not doing anything like "phone home" in secret (From what I can tell after reading the article).
1 comments
gradstudent 5078 days ago
I have two issues with this argument:

1. The user is not ever made aware that their registration attempt will involve sending out information over the Internet. The application is therefore surreptitiously phoning home.

2. There is no reason to keep logs such as the OP currently has -- the kind that enables him to segregate people into buckets like "honest", "pirate", "converted" and then crow about it online.

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eropple 5078 days ago
1. The user is not ever made aware that their registration attempt will involve sending out information over the Internet. The application is therefore surreptitiously phoning home.

It's 2012. This should be assumed. Mentioning it explicitly is nice to do, but at this point it feels like it should be taken for granted that a registration key will be checked against an auth server. There's not really anything that you can categorize in good faith as "surreptitious" about it. It reads more like you just want to harsh on the guy.

2. There is no reason to keep logs such as the OP currently has -- the kind that enables him to segregate people into buckets like "honest", "pirate", "converted" and then crow about it online.

Why not? Should a developer not keep track of the number of times a key (valid or not) is active? Why? It's his software. It's his business. I can't think of an argument why it wouldn't be his job to keep that data.

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gte910h 5078 days ago
I don't know what you're talking about: Registration is telling a company you have their product.

Registration of a toaster is sending in a card. Registration of a phone is sometimes done by clicking the eula, sometimes by sending a post card.

Registration of software downloaded over the internet is almost always done by...telling the company you have their product over the internet. Windows still lets you print out something I believe.

I think you missed the definition of registration if you're surprised by the fact information is sent when you register.

That's like being surprised information is sent when you email something.

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