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samtheozzy
September 22nd, 2003, 04:02
Hi all, sorry if this is a bit off-topic.

My name is Sam Davids and i'm an honours student at the Australian National University. I am writing a research paper into the motivations of people who crack and release commercial software. When i was an active member of the scene i always wondered what drove these people to spend hours of their own time removing copy protections and then releasing the software for ostensibly no reward.

With that in mind I would like to invite the crackers on this board to participate in a brief, anonymous survey. The survey consists of 24 multiple choice questions followed by 18 long answer questions. After this there are 5 optional demographic questions. The survey will only take 15-20 minutes to complete and should prove to be quite fun.

I stress that no personal or group information will be collected and no information that could be damaging to the scene will be published. I am only interested in information regarding motivations and a quick read of the example questions below should assure you of that fact.

If you are interested there is the opportunity to sign-up for an online followup interview at the end of the survey.

If you know of any other crackers could you please inform them that they can participate by emailing me at sam.davids@anu.edu.au .

If you would like to participate or if you have any questions please contact me at the details below and i will mail you a survey.

If you so desire i can give you my public key to encrypt your response.

Sincerely,

Sam Davids
email: sam.davids@anu.edu.au
ICQ: 3859373

ps Here are two sample questions so you know the kind of questions that will be asked:

Short example: I would crack software even if I had to do it anonymously
1[ ] 2[ ] 3[ ] 4[ ] 5[ ] 6[ ] 7[ ]

Long example: Do you find the difficulty of cracking software a compelling reason to continue the activity due to the challenge involved? Please explain your answer.

evlncrn8
September 22nd, 2003, 09:05
most of us do it for the fun / challenge

squidge
September 22nd, 2003, 10:04
I also do it for the challenge, and often learn something new whilst doing it. Hacked versions of the programs that I remove the protection on are almost never distributed (I've only uploaded one app to an ftp site in the last 2 years). Normally, once I've cracked a program and it's working fully, the fun has gone, and the program gets deleted.

dELTA
September 22nd, 2003, 12:06
Sam, you should note that there are different kinds of crackers though. The majority of (active) members of this board are more of the kind that e.g. squidge describes, technically interested for the knowledge and challenge. But there are also indeed lots of crackers out there of the "other kind", who are members of leeto cracker groups, pumping out cracks to the masses, and doing it in large part for recognition, respect, sense of belonging and so on. You should probably mention these differences in your paper, and not only categorize "crackers" as one single kind.


dELTA

samtheozzy
September 23rd, 2003, 03:02
Thanks for the info delta. I have noticed evidence of these two distinct groups in the responses that i have looked at so far and i shall definately make mention of their existence in my paper.

BTW I'm still in need of more participants so if you are interested pls email me on here (sam.davids@anu.edu.au)

FoolFox
September 23rd, 2003, 08:04
why all thoses research papers (yeah, you are not the
first one to ask about the subject) have to be dealt by
e-mail ??

Why don't you post your questions on the board and see
who response to which question ?

Regards
FoolFox

evlncrn8
September 23rd, 2003, 09:04
Quote:
Originally posted by FoolFox
why all thoses research papers (yeah, you are not the
first one to ask about the subject) have to be dealt by
e-mail ??

Why don't you post your questions on the board and see
who response to which question ?

Regards
FoolFox



yup, that'd keep in line with the 'anonymous survey' considering the vast majority of us dont use our real names as our nicks

samtheozzy
September 25th, 2003, 03:18
K all...this is my final call for participants. A big thanks to those who have already taken the time to fill in the survey. There has been a good deal of interest in the results of this survey but I would like to remind you that the more participants I can get the more representative the results will be. Remember i am singularly uninterested in any specific instances of cracking, I am just curious as to why people do it. So if you are interested please email me here (sam.davids@anu.edu.au) and I will get a survey out to you ASAP.

FoolFox
September 25th, 2003, 03:35
Quote:

I would like to remind you that the more participants I can get the more representative the results will be


and what about YOU posting an answer to MY question ?

dELTA
September 25th, 2003, 06:17
Sam, as mentioned above you would probably get much more replies to your survey if it was more easily anonymously accessible. Having to send you an email will make many people reluctant, since they will often have to go through some trouble to email you from an untraceable email address (for all people know, you could be Mr DMCA trying to track down crackers by their emails).

If you would instead post the survey on a website (or even better, on a third party website/messageboard) all that would be needed to visit it anonymously is at most a public webproxy, which would indeed be much more easy and quick to arrange.

Just a thought anyway.

nofurs
September 25th, 2003, 13:14
If you would instead post the survey on a website (or even better, on a third party website/messageboard) all that would be needed to visit it anonymously is at most a public webproxy, which would indeed be much more easy and quick to arrange.

you can run but you can't hide

evaluator
September 25th, 2003, 13:21
Sorry, guys,
my inglish works not good, so I have problem for understand this:

in HIS first post:
>>I am writing a research paper into the motivations of people who crack

in HIS second post:
>>I am just curious as to why people do it..


They contradict or only it seems to me!?


*******
"The Art of Mentality-Unpacking"

r4g3
September 25th, 2003, 14:33
wouldnt be the first 'research paper' written by a clueless student ;p

squidge
September 25th, 2003, 15:07
r4g3: That's not nice. True, but not nice.

samtheozzy: Throw one of your papers in my PM box and I'll have a look at it.

naides
September 25th, 2003, 23:20
I doubt TheOzzy is a clueless student.
He is listed as 'faculty and staff' at the ANU web site, which puts him at least at the level of graduate student.
If he is a DMCA agent, he got a University to be part of his cover

samtheozzy
September 26th, 2003, 01:41
Quote:
[Originally Posted by FoolFox]and what about YOU posting an answer to MY question ?


Apologies FF...I haven't posted the survey in its entirety for a couple of reasons. Firstly Doing so just encourages people to discuss it on the messageboard rather than actually replying to the questions. Secondly people could be influenced by the responses of other people if the questions are available in an open forum which, as any academic will tell you, is a big methodology error. Finally the survey takes up a couple of pages and i think i've spammed enough .

samtheozzy
September 26th, 2003, 01:55
Hi ppl. I apologise for not answering these queries sooner.

Quote:
[Originally Posted by dELTA]Sam, as mentioned above you would probably get much more replies to your survey if it was more easily anonymously accessible. Having to send you an email will make many people reluctant, since they will often have to go through some trouble to email you from an untraceable email address (for all people know, you could be Mr DMCA trying to track down crackers by their emails).

If you would instead post the survey on a website (or even better, on a third party website/messageboard) all that would be needed to visit it anonymously is at most a public webproxy, which would indeed be much more easy and quick to arrange.

Just a thought anyway


Hey i agree but for the reasons above i absolutely cannot just post it publicly. Initially i had an online, PHP version of the survey but, because it was based on one of our servers here at the ANU, people were even more reluctant to use it then reply via email. At some stage i have to transmit the survey and you (by which i mean the respondant) has to send it back to me. Now i am happy to do this via the personal messaging feature of this web board which you all seem quite willing to use anyway. Or if you are worried about anyone else gaining access to the data i am happy to provide my public key. Other than that i am short of ideas (and time, submission date is not far away :/)


Quote:
[Originally Posted by evaluator]
my inglish works not good, so I have problem for understand this:

in HIS first post:
>>I am writing a research paper into the motivations of people who crack

in HIS second post:
>>I am just curious as to why people do it..


They contradict or only it seems to me!?


Sorry i guess i didn't make this clear. My choice of topic for this paper was driven by my curiosity which developed when i was an active member of the scene. At the start of this year i was struggling to come up with a topic that would keep me interested for the whole year and i suggested the motivation for cracking to my supervisor who loved it. So you can see it's not really contradictory.

samtheozzy
September 26th, 2003, 02:13
Apologies for posting in 3 different messages. Just kind of scattered at the moment.

There is not ONE question in the survey that would require you to mention a specific instance of pirating/cracking software. There is no way for you to possibly incriminate yourselves unless you go out of your way to mention it in the survey (which incidentally not one respondant has done so far). This is all about motivation and that will become obvious once you have seen the survey. I am happy to PM the survey to people if they are interested (although the board's character length means the survey will come in three parts) in responding or if only to put their minds at ease.

evaluator
September 26th, 2003, 08:07
okey,

for_just_curiuos you decide to write a research paper.[;]

Bigger Curious in research is: cracking is mostly for fun & hobbie.
Less-accidentally for $$.

Easy idea:
while sending in PM, can you make just one Web-Page of your survey?

samtheozzy
September 30th, 2003, 01:28
Thanks everyone for your help. I have just about finished collecting data for my paper so if there are any oustanding surveys could people pls turn them in. I'd like to thank everyone who participated or offered advice. Rest assured i will be posting the results online and i will post a notification here when they are available. Thanks again.

squidge
September 30th, 2003, 03:29
I'll be interested to see the results of your survey.

qweasdzxc
September 30th, 2003, 19:34
Quote:
[Originally Posted by samtheozzy]Sorry i guess i didn't make this clear. My choice of topic for this paper was driven by my curiosity which developed when i was an active member of the scene. At the start of this year i was struggling to come up with a topic that would keep me interested for the whole year and i suggested the motivation for cracking to my supervisor who loved it. So you can see it's not really contradictory.



For a project that is supposed to keep you busy for a year; wasn't this a very short interview period?

This in itself is enough to make people suspicious....