CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Software piracy has harmed the software industry’s growth and profitability. When software publishers’ goods are cloned without their permission and distributed to individuals who are not licensed users, or when their programs are installed on many devices beyond the licensed number, it causes a great deal of damage. We are now surrounded by software applications that provide services such as online payments, social networking, games, data management, and so on. Threats like as piracy, reverse engineering, and tampering have a severe impact on the profitability of the creators and vendors of these software applications.
These dangers are amplified, though, when the program isn’t well-protected. As a result, a thorough threat analysis as well as software security systems are essential in order to secure software businesses’ massive earnings, which rise in tandem with the widespread usage of software. This safeguard not only applies to operating systems, but also to professional applications (for example, graphics software), which can be rather costly. Illegal software use is on the rise, and users may obtain software products, install them, and use them with just a few mouse clicks.
a fix to it that you downloaded, and you can use it for free. Vendors recognized that safeguarding software from unauthorized users is a difficult task. The user has physical control over his machine and is in command of it. According to the BSA (2013), software piracy unfairly competes with legal businesses, hurts brands by distributing subpar products, and exposes users to a variety of IT dangers such as malware, security breaches, and data loss. End-users are also denied access to critical customer support, upgrades, technical documentation, training, and bug patches. End-users of pirated software, on the other hand, have no warranty and are vulnerable to hefty fines for copyright violation. In their efforts to entirely eliminate software piracy, software makers and producers, as well as the BSA with local legislation in various countries, have not given up. Today, many websites are utilized to combat piracy by offering links to information such as “report software piracy,” “report software piracy,” and “report software piracy.” As a result, genuine software users will be involved in the conflict. When digital files are turned into one or more copies, software piracy is more common, hence programmers have usually banded together to develop a means to make digital files uncopyable. According to Schneier (2011), attempting to make digital files uncopyable is akin to attempting to make water not wet. According to Job (2011), there is no good technology solution to a behavioral problem. While many people are still fighting to prevent software piracy, others argue that there is no perfect way to combat software piracy. According to Wheeler (2011), no flawed copy-protection system can possibly be safe due to a combination of four fundamental problems. In light of his “four pillars,”
STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
The negative consequences of software piracy in the following categories are the issues with software piracy:
• Support for ongoing research and development projects
through software sales
Through the construction of numerous software products, software developers and vendors have envisioned a future with a plethora of possibilities. Mathworks’ objective, according to their website, is to use software to accelerate the pace of discovery, innovation, development, and learning in engineering and science. To this purpose, they invest heavily in and continue to invest in research and development, which is ‘financed’ by the sales of their software products.
• Loss of employment
4
Unfortunately, today, we not only have an issue with software piracy limiting financing for ongoing development efforts around the world, but we also have a problem with software suppliers not truly achieving the goals they set out to achieve.
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The following outcomes are expected as a result of this research:
• Collecting software-user identity and counting software usage using the migration behavior of mobile agent codes. In addition, a scenario demonstrating such mobile agent code operations should be implemented.
• Integrating an online activation code system with a mobile agent system to form a unified unit aimed at preventing software piracy through technological means.
• Creating a web interface that will serve as the integrated system’s data processing element.
• Ensuring that an unforeseen condition that may emerge after a user’s first program installation is taken into account.
• Additionally, employing data gathering processes to ensure that the study makes a significant contribution to the fight against software.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The proposed research is important in terms of education, technology, and economics. It has educational value for students, IT instructors, and lecturers in the IT field, who can use the study as a self-study and tutorial reference when it comes to software, piracy, coding, and ICT-driven services. As a review study, it is also of instructional value to scholars in the field of software piracy. It is technologically significant to software developers who are looking for new ways to combat software piracy via technical means, particularly methods involving mobile agents or a mix of mobile agents. The study will also be technologically and commercially beneficial to software vendors that need to identify and control program usage and installation limits.
SCOP OF THE STUDY
One flaw in this study is that the software installer will wrap both the mobile agent and the real software, resulting in a single unit that can be copied on a CD or published to the vendor’s website, possibly as a single.php file. Only a few expert programmers can de-encapsulate this unit in order to separate the component and run the actual software separately, albeit he will be able to do so faster if he understands the encapsulation algorithm. As a result, the seller should never disclose this information as a means of addressing this weakness. The length of time required for this de-encapsulation may also be a deterrent to the pirate.
LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
This research focuses on using technology to prevent software piracy. The usage of a mobile agent is this technology. The study will look at how mobile agent codes are used to encapsulate actual software. The coding and development of the remote server/web interface will also be covered. During the authentication step of the program installation, the interaction between the mobile agent codes and a remote server hosted on the vendor’s site will also be covered. The TUSRUC algorithm function will also be examined, as it demonstrates how the system manages unanticipated events during the “first time” phase of utilizing the software product. The de-encapsulation process, however, is not included in this paper.
DEFINITION OF TERMS
-Activation Code: To use some software, you’ll need to enter an activation code. Such program cannot work without an activation code (Bahar Reuben, 2011).
-Algorithm: A method for solving a problem or achieving a goal that involves a series of steps.
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