I apologize for my mistakes made in the past

[robotmonkey]

It's absolutely on-topic for it to be discussed.

Furthermore, if nobody is condoning piracy or advising that it be a legitimate alternative route (as has happened on various occasions), to obtaining products from developers who are perhaps being accused of acting shady, then why are we not allowed to discuss it? Are we supposed to deny the existence of piracy, when it is such an important, albeit unfortunate, part of this industry?

Again, to clarify: Nobody is suggesting that pro-piracy talk should be tolerated. I just don't think that this blanket ban on even acknowledging it's existence is helping anyone

THIS ^

I'm always been dumbfounded by this forum's childish low-iq head-in-the-sand stance about discussing the issue of piracy. This is perfectly legitimate discussion as it's part of the economy. Moreover, this topic is also seriously discussed on the level of academic research, and there's been ample of evidence emerging that piracy might not be as bad issue as some parts of the industry make it out to be.

I'm ok with not tolerating posting warez links and such but the piracy question should be perfectly legitimate discussion topic in proper context.

[ATS]

It's absolutely on-topic for it to be discussed.

Furthermore, if nobody is condoning piracy or advising that it be a legitimate alternative route (as has happened on various occasions), to obtaining products from developers who are perhaps being accused of acting shady, then why are we not allowed to discuss it? Are we supposed to deny the existence of piracy, when it is such an important, albeit unfortunate, part of this industry?

Again, to clarify: Nobody is suggesting that pro-piracy talk should be tolerated. I just don't think that this blanket ban on even acknowledging it's existence is helping anyone

THIS ^

I'm always been dumbfounded by this forum's childish low-iq head-in-the-sand stance about discussing the issue of piracy. This is perfectly legitimate discussion as it's part of the economy. Moreover, this topic is also seriously discussed on the level of academic research, and there's been ample of evidence emerging that piracy might not be as bad issue as some parts of the industry make it out to be.

I'm ok with not tolerating posting warez links and such but the piracy question should be perfectly legitimate discussion topic in proper context.

I totally agree but it seems whenever it is discussed it's not in the proper context.

[excuse me please]

The context is quite clear IMHO. Because originally the crackers used the term "try before you buy.'
Because these dumb developers were too stupid to have demos, remember?
Now they all do have demos.. I wonder why

[williedscarface]

Let he who has not fornicated with a porn actress just after the birth of his 5th child by his 3rd wife, cast the first stone.

[ztrauq]

I have to admit, some days I miss Vanguard a bit.

Mike from refx today sent me an email about it. We will discuss about it

As Vanguard was my absolute favorite synth at one point, this intrigues me...

[Markus Krause]

yellowmix,

Per another conversation I've recently had with an expert whitehat:

Tone2 is software completely safe.

It is painfully easy to validate that Tone2 software is safe without any disassembly. Many tools are able to hook all api calls and monitor all activity of such software. This is easiest to do with a fresh virtual machine as you can also log all changes made to the system via snapshot comparison. This method is also useful in spotting shellcode and hidden data. There are many many tools to do this, but if you are a newbie like I am, I might suggest ProcessMonitor, as it is free and easy to use.

Anyways, my whitehat has already given the 100% safe to Tone2. It is not invasive at all. You are always free to check yourself, it seems pretty basic to me. There are plenty of other things in the world to be paranoid about, it seems you are making undue concern about Tone2 without any analysis beforehand.

Vertion

Is this a sock-puppet account for Tone2 PR?

Definitely not. If you read Veriton's posts from the past you will notice that Veriton has been very critical. You can validate this for yourself.
Veriton is a honest and paying customer.

[Markus Krause]

Q: Why is there so much controversy about your protection?
A: Our keyfiles are uncracked since 13 years now. As a result a massive number of pirates had trouble to make the stolen software work.
In 2008 also had set-up some honey-pots for the crackers and was stupid engough to offer a reward for their identities. This was a very stupid idea that i regret.
As a vendetta they ranted in forums and distributed smear-campaigns.
But I also admit that there were technical problems with the protection. I want to point out that the problems have been solved quickly already years ago and affected only a hand full of users. I apologize for this inconvenience.
All this led to a strange situation. There were the legit customer who never had a problem and who loved the products. But there were also the thieves as well as the teams behind competing-deveopers that hated us. Sometimes sou still can see both parties argue today...

Q: I am skeptical. Why does the installer go through several directories during the installation process?
A: The installer is very smart. I can detect the correct location of the vst-plugins directory automatically. It searches for dll files in several common locations. It also reads two registry entries some host-developers post a reference to it. If several possible locations are detected it decides for the one that contains the most dll files and suggests this location as the installation path.

Q: Is it possible that the installer damages something on my system?
A: No. The installation process is completely safe and there is not a single case known where something wrong has happenend. We do not make changes to the Windows-directory. We do not install drivers and we do not install license-managers that run in the background.
It is even possible to install our products on an USB stick.

Q: You wrote that the installer only writes and changes files that are property of Tone2. What files exactly are property of Tone2?
A: All files that are part of our software. This includes also keys for our products.

Q: I have 'a friend' that had installed a pirated copy of your software. At some point it has reset to the unregistered state and asks for a keyfile. What should my friend do?
A: He can legally buy the software or uninstall it

Q: Do you sue people who use pirated copies?
A: We do not monitor the file-sharing in the torrent networks. We never sent out written-warnings by lawyers. We never sued anyone.

Q: What did the recent protection do exactly?
A: Before 2020 the PC-versions of a couple of products did perfom an online-check. If the software noticed that it was purchased with a stolen credit-card it reset to 'unregistered' and did not longer output sound. Sadly this step was necessary as stolen versions of our software were sold on ebay.
The PC-versions were protected against reverse-engineering with a virtual-machine. This makes it more difficult to crack the software. I want to point out that this is not an uncommon practise. Also many other developers do this.
The Mac-verions never came with an online-check or any kind of protection against reverse-engineering.

Q: What does the current protection do exactly?
A: The username is displayed in the GUI. We also still blacklist keys that have been purchased with stolen credit-cards.
The online-check has been removed. We do not longer use a virtual-machine protection, since it always has a negative effect on the performace and can create instabilities.
For some older products we removed the protection completely.

Q: Does the copy-protection hurt my privacy?
A: No. And it also never did this. We do not use cloud-services. We do not use tracking-cookies. We do not transmit or log any data. In Europe we got very strict laws for data-protection.

Q: As a legit user do I have to care about all this at all?
A: No.

[AnX]

Q: Do you sue people who use pirated copies?
A: Some other well-known audio-companies monitor the file-sharing in the torrent networks. They send out written-warnings by lawyers and request fines. We never did this and never sued anyone.

a simple yes or no will do, no need to mention what "other companies" do, its not relevant

[chk071]

The context is quite clear IMHO. Because originally the crackers used the term "try before you buy.'
Because these dumb developers were too stupid to have demos, remember?
Now they all do have demos.. I wonder why

Eh, no... that was never what it was about. For some, even a demo with crackling noises every 60 seconds is too much, so they have to "try before buy" by downloading warez.

Product demos exist as long as I live.

Let's be honest, there never was any reasons or justifications for downloading quality tools. There only always was "I don't want to pay for it".

[mladi]

Q: Why is there so much controversy about your protection?
A: Our keyfiles are uncracked since 13 years now. As a result a massive number of pirates had trouble to make the stolen software work.
In 2008 also had set-up some honey-pots for the crackers and was stupid engough to offer a reward for their identities. This was a very stupid idea that i regret.
As a vendetta they ranted in forums and distributed smear-campaigns.
But I also admit that there were technical problems with the protection. I want to point out that the problems have been solved quickly already years ago and affected only a hand full of users. I apologize for this inconvenience.
All this led to a strange situation. There were the legit customer who never had a problem and who loved the products. But there were also the thieves as well as the teams behind competing-deveopers that hated us. Sometimes sou still can see both parties argue today...

Q: I am skeptical. Why does the installer go through several directories during the installation process?
A: The installer is very smart. I can detect the correct location of the vst-plugins directory automatically. It searches for dll files in several common locations. It also reads two registry entries some host-developers post a reference to it. If several possible locations are detected it decides for the one that contains the most dll files and suggests this location as the installation path.

Q: Is it possible that the installer damages something on my system?
A: No. The installation process is completely safe and there is not a single case known where something wrong has happenend. Unlike the products of other companies we do not make changes to the Windows-directory. We do not install drivers and we do not install license-managers that run in the background.
It is even possible to install our products on an USB stick.

Q: You wrote that the installer only writes and changes files that are property of Tone2. What files exactly are property of Tone2?
A: All files that are part of our software. This includes also keys for our products.

Q: I have 'a friend' that had installed a pirated copy of your software. At some point it has reset to the unregistered state and asks for a keyfile. What should my friend do?
A: He can legally buy the software or uninstall it

Q: Do you sue people who use pirated copies?
A: Some other well-known audio-companies monitor the file-sharing in the torrent networks. They send out written-warnings by lawyers and request fines. We never did this and never sued anyone.

Q: What did the recent protection do exactly?
A: Before 2020 the PC-versions of a couple of products did perfom an online-check. If the software noticed that it was purchased with a stolen credit-card it reset to 'unregistered' and did not longer output sound. Sadly this step was necessary as stolen versions of our software were sold on ebay.
The PC-versions were protected against reverse-engineering with a virtual-machine. This makes it more difficult to crack the software. I want to point out that this is not an uncommon practise. U-he pointed on kvr that he also uses a virtual-machine protection.
The Mac-verions never came with an online-check or any kind of protection against reverse-engineering.

Q: What does the current protection do exactly?
A: The username is displayed in the GUI. We also still blacklist keys that have been purchased with stolen credit-cards.
The online-check has been removed. We do not longer use a virtual-machine protection, since it always has a negative effect on the performace and can create instabilities.
For some older products we removed the protection completely.

Q: Does the copy-protection hurt my privacy?
A: No. And it also never did this. Unlike other well-known companies that use cloud-services or tracking-cookies we do not transmit or log any data. In Europe we got very strict laws for data-protection.

Q: As a legit user do I have to care about all this at all?
A: No.

Thank you for the detailed Q&A Markus!

I'm afraid that some people here are never satisfied as it seems that you can't do anything right for them (wagtunes effect).

Don't feed the trolls. Enough is enough. I would lock the thread if i would be you.

Your real customers are already aware that tone2 doesn't harm their system. The poor rest here which obviously like to derail your thread and attack you constantly only try to talk to death any good purpose you had.

[revvy]

Q: Do you sue people who use pirated copies?
A: Some other well-known audio-companies monitor the file-sharing in the torrent networks. They send out written-warnings by lawyers and request fines. We never did this and never sued anyone.

a simple yes or no will do, no need to mention what "other companies" do, its not relevant

This.

Great thread in general, no need to keep retuning to other companies which taints it.

[Forgotten]

Yes, that seems to be a recurring pattern...

[Hink]

"Did you also know that their installers come with hunter-killer side program that searches all through your Program Files, System32, WOW64 and so on, looking for ripped off copies of their products, and when it finds one it dials home and meanwhile kills the synth, etc., it deems unlicensed?"
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=443447

Well, if you'd like to be ruthless then I've plenty of ruthlessness in reserve. Just give me a call if you do want some more

imagine pirating a dev's products and then complaining to the dev about your cracks no longer working. this post is amazing on so many levels

imagine if we listened to the mod and stopped talking about piracy...get on topic or dont post...please note a suspension was already handed out, because my request keeps getting ignored...ftr I will permaban before I lock Markus' thread, his apology thread is not the place for all the piracy crap.

_______________________________________________________________________________

With respect, the whole issue at hand, and the basis of this thread and apology, stem from a foundation of issues of piracy and the means developers use to protect themselves against it.

It's absolutely on-topic for it to be discussed.

Furthermore, if nobody is condoning piracy or advising that it be a legitimate alternative route (as has happened on various occasions), to obtaining products from developers who are perhaps being accused of acting shady, then why are we not allowed to discuss it? Are we supposed to deny the existence of piracy, when it is such an important, albeit unfortunate, part of this industry? How are we to find solutions? And how are we all supposed to help encourage members, who will inevitably end up finding 'us' through various nefarious sites, to understand that this is, in most cases, an industry full of small developers who need people to become legitimate customers, to continue to survive.

Again, to clarify: Nobody is suggesting that pro-piracy talk should be tolerated. I just don't think that this blanket ban on even acknowledging it's existence is helping anyone

well what I deleted was about justifications and that's why I asked fore talk to stop and for damn good reason...you see I have conducted a number of experiments in the past when I got shit for this. What I did was googled for the product name and whatever keyword was in the thread, came back every time, the top results came back to KvR.

You are 100% right that this should not be used as a blanket and you're even more wrong on the fact I do. This thread was going into dangerous territory with certain people absolutely getting into the pros and cons of piracy and that cannot happen. If we get that and I am here being the asshole I am, new people see right away this is not a crack site.

We have a lot of topics about copy protection, that's fine and we will continue to have such threads. In those threads if people come in looking for cracks the quickly see the conversation is not about that and is just about copy protection and hopefully move on.

This thread isnt coming up in search engines yet, I damn well intend on keeping it that way and protecting the integrity of KvR for all. I do see your point, but when anyone in any thread I see starts debating pros and cons I step in. BTW I was first drawn to this by a report that this thread was suggesting piracy.

[TheMaestro]

Q: Do you sue people who use pirated copies?
A: Some other well-known audio-companies monitor the file-sharing in the torrent networks. They send out written-warnings by lawyers and request fines. We never did this and never sued anyone.

a simple yes or no will do, no need to mention what "other companies" do, its not relevant

It sure is more relevant than your reply.

[revvy]

^ You think Markus gains harmony, friends or customers always alluding to other companies...?

AnX's reply is more useful to Markus than yours is.