Amateur radio fans drop the ham-mer on HRD's license key 'blacklist'

Way, way back in the early days of computing there was a precedent setting case where a software company remotely disabled software because the customer didn't pay the bill. The software house lost. Anyone remember or have a link?

"the blocking mechanism is sometimes used to disable copies of the software once the buyer has asked for a refund. Thus, we're told, it is difficult for HRD Software to know exactly how many keys have been cancelled for legit reasons or out of retaliation"

They can't match up refunds with keys blocked because of them? Really?

i don't have any software i think is cr4p. just uninstall it, if you think it is so sh1t3. job done.

"Carper also rejected the suggestion that HRD is blocking customers based on the individual's callsign, maintaining that blocks are only based on registration keys"

Except they did. Their licensing server literally took input as your callsign and spit back a response of "Valid", "Unknown", or "Blacklisted" as an additional check beyond a license key.

D'uh!

Bloody naughty to disable active, paid for, deployments in retaliation for open criticism. That crap about it being impossible to say how many were "wrongful" deactivations, as some or many may have been genuine cancellations and refunds. Surely you have records of those cancellations and refunds? Your accountant would insist on that, surely? Then you take the number of cancellations and refunds from the total number of deactivations over the same period and you have your wrongful number of deactivations. Your accountant could probably explain that to you, too.

The company support agents need to actively engage with the customer, and hopefully resolve the problem, logging what they do. If a company is logging things properly, then a quick review of the logs should show if there is a problem with a particular package, and if necessary, the logs can be bought to the attention of the developer. I've had this happen to me. When I logged a problem with Apple Remote Desktop on Apple's support forums, the bot noticed a pattern and notified the development team, who actually got in touch to discuss the problem. Result: One fixed problem and one very happy customer.

A lot of companies don't do this. A lot of companies, at best, fob you off by directing you to a support person reading off a script.

That said, I think some consumers need to do more to help themselves. I've done support for years (not usually phone based, but I do sometimes). Some consumers don't describe the problem beyond saying "it doesn't work", then moaning they just want it fixed when the poor support person actually tries to take them through a diagnostic process. Some consumers don't even get that far. They just download an app, find it doesn't work, then post a review on line saying "it doesn't work. It's shit".

If you build it, they will come

But if you sell it to greedy idiots, they may well leave in a hurry. Thinking about Mindspring, after it was sold to Earthlink. ISP with best service reputation sold to ISP with worst service reputation. Guess how that turned out.

HRD told us some

HRD told us some of those users could have written their assessments after requesting a refund and deactivating their software, thus their licenses will appear revoked.

Appear revoked?

Ha!

And how would anyone other than the purchaser or HRD know if a licence is revoked?

I'll believe the purchasers as to when the key was revoked.

Sounds like time for a total boycott on them

It's probably about time this got enough publicity to start a total boycott of the company.

Hopefully we can get it to where nobody will buy from HRD and anything else associated with the current owner of the company going forward.

I wonder how many people understood BEFORE they purchased the software that it would require an internet connection and a check back with the company and seeing if you were on their good list before it would run? Seems pretty stupid for radio communication software which at some point you may be using specifically because you don't have internet connectivity.

It would be great if HRD could crash and burn bad enough that investors in other companies put a little note on their flow chart of extracting maximum cash that reads... Upset your customers too much = Bankrupt = no vacation house payments.

One can only hope.

Also

Rig / logging software of ANY kind that requires an internet connection is a failure. Not fit for purpose.

Most of the time Amateur Radio is just a bit of fun. But when there is a major disaster, traditionally it works maybe within hours or minutes, even if Government takes a week (see USA Katrina disaster and consider how much more important it is in less developed world).

The ONLY software I want connecting to the Internet is stuff that actually USES the internet, such as VOIP, IRC, IM, eMail, file transfer, web browsing etc.

Microsoft, Adobe etc are now evil with their so called Cloud Subscriptions for things that ought to work without Internet. It's (a) a rip-off, (b) an extra failure mode.

Internet based licence dongles should be illegal. Supply a USB dongle if you are not content to use normal licence key software, but licence validation via internet is evil.

Second line support?

If the issue is with second line support as noted, my bet is second line are actually the dev[s].

I'm not a developer, but have worked with and for small and large dev teams/co.s and sorry, but some of them really can't take any criticism of their baby.

Which is a shame, because the rest of us have to suffer. Personally I blame lack of testers.

And the worst culprits for not taking critique of their product are those that think they've "tested" it and therefore it must be OK.

Finally, that "we may revoke your licence whenever we see fit" clause is simply void in german law. I hop it's the same in the US and UK.

If I recall correctly, in the UK there is such a thing as unfair contract terms which renders them invalid. It makes me wonder what your remedy would be if they cut you off regardless, though.

That said, the extortion aspect is a find because the email correspondence makes that actually provable. It could prove quite entertaining to punt that one into law enforcement - as it's criminal law it'll be your tax dollars at work..

Missing clause

I have no problem (well, yes, I do, quite a big one) with their clause that states they have the option of disabling the software at any time and for any reason, PROVIDED that a full refund is issued when that action is taken.

Otherwise, it's quite a large gamble, isn't it? Why would you pay for something that could stop working at the whim of the (apparently overly sensitive to criticism) provider?

// Trump Software?