I’m just curious as to why you felt you had to drag an old thread back to life, which really has nothing to do with the current situation, instead of making a new one.
This is a thread where Psychonaut was accused in the OP of talking out of ass. It seems to be a repeating theme in his GQ postings and this thread is from a couple months ago.
He (Psychonaut) told you that you weren’t permitted to use WinRAR past the 40 day trial period. So far as I can tell, he’s correct.
What am I missing? Is it simply your pride in flouting the user agreement and using software without paying for it, merely because there’s no technical control to stop you?
Or did you have some other defense?
I heart gravediggers.
I’m guessing he just can’t believe that WinRAR’s free trial works on the honor system. I couldn’t either, for that matter.
Dunno why he’s arguing about it, though.
I think the best part is that in accusing Pyschonaut of “junior modding”, he is engaging in the exact same behavior himself. I would even say it is a more egregious violation, as he had clearly just read the rule saying not to do what he was in fact doing. The implication in bringing up the copyright violation is that any long-term solution of Granny using WinRAR would necessarily involve either spending money on WinRAR (the OP wanted a “free” solution) or violating the law, the latter of which is against GQ. stpauler’s junior mod was just plain threadshitting at that point.
Let’s also not forget that he suggested BitTorrent as a simple point-to-point file transfer solution that Granny would have no problem hacking together. Never mind the numerous steps involved, some of which are unaccounted for in stpauler’s posts, nor the fact that BitTorrent is a many-to-many file transfer solution and is overkill for transferring a file between two parties. WinRAR is just the icing on the cake. I doubt Granny even knows about ZIP, let alone the more exotic compression formats!
What law? Please you and Psychonaut, please elaborate what law is being violated.
Which means that, in order to object, psychonaut would have to admit that what he was doing was wrong. It’s a very useful defense technique.
Getting BitTorrent to work involves downloading a program, then clicking on a link. There are no other steps for the person who is receiving the files unless they have some odd network setup, which I doubt Grandmother is going to have. (Or, if she does, it was setup by someone else, meaning that Bittorrent can be setup by someone else, too.)
Oh, and BTW, WinRar is far from the only compression tool out there. And some of them even let you, get this, have self extracting archives, so Granny wouldn’t even have to download anything.
Oh, and stpauler, the broken law is, as stated, copyright infringement. You only have permission to use the software for 40 days, and, after that you are using it without permission. There’s no difference between that and listening to someone else’s music without their permission.
That said, if WinRAR cares so little that they didn’t even bother to try and stop you from going past the date, I wouldn’t worry too much about it either. The only reason I don’t use WinRAR are the free alternative compression formats, which are generally superior.
Well… how about the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”), 18 U.S.C. § 1030 ?
It prohibits access to computer system or data without authorization. The data in this case is the executable code; the authorization extended only 40 days from install and no farther.
Why wouldn’t that fit?
I don’t think complaining about something while engaging in the exact same behavior is a winning strategy. He could have reported the post or called psychonaut out in the Pit (which he has now done) instead of going tit-for-tat and somehow expecting to take the higher ground.
The OP mentions a requirement that Granny be able to send files herself with ease. You conveniently left out the parts where she needs to create the torrent file itself, where she needs to find a tracker server willing to host the torrent file, where she needs to upload the torrent file to the site and also that she needs to gather the resulting torrent link and send that to the recipient. I’m sure these finer details are quite intuitive and would be easily handled by a less-than-savvy person.
If the tracker is public then anyone can access the file if they stumble across it. Setting up a passworded RAR is a stopgap solution and not sufficient security, IMO. The end result of these technical gymnastics is a direct transfer from one computer to another. Why do you need to involve BitTorrent at all when there are many other, simpler options around? Free file transfer and hosting sites are abundant, not to mention direct transfer through AIM, among others.
You have a point that something other than WinRar could be used. Why not the built-in zip archiver that is in Windows these days? The self extracting archive may be useful for sending files to Granny, but we need a bi-directional solution here.
Here are the instructions from http://www.ivankristianto.com/internet/tools/howto-send-large-files-with-bittorrent/1436/
- First you need BitTorrent client. You can use uTorrent.
- Open uTorrent, and File > Create New Torrent
- Choose a file or a directory
- You need Trackers, so your friend’s computer know where the files is. Fill Trackers as below:
http://open.tracker.thepiratebay.org/announce
http://www.torrent-downloads.to:2710/announce
http://denis.stalker.h3q.com:6969/announce
udp://denis.stalker.h3q.com:6969/announce
http://www.sumotracker.com/announce
http://tracker.publicbt.com:80/announce
udp://tracker.publicbt.com:80/announce
http://tracker.openbittorrent.com:80/announce
udp://tracker.openbittorrent.com:80/announce
- Check start seeding.
- Create and Save as. Now you have a torrent file.
- Send the torrent file to your friend.
So simple grandma could do it!
Getting back to the original intention of this thread, do people think that GQ posts should only have one response that is the cast in stone factual answer?
No, I think that is setting the bar too high for accuracy at the expense of those threads where no authoritative answer can be found–these often contain enlightening supposition and educated guesses that direct the discussion to a reasoned set of possible answers. There is also a give-and-take between the OP and first responders that can clarify ambiguity in the question as presented, and also some wiggle room for clever jokes or retorts and asides, within reason. I don’t think anyone is advocating that GQ become a stuffy museum of dry, matter-of-fact encyclopedic responses.
I think the main argument is that people who do not know the answer should not march into a thread and state things categorically and with authority when the truth is that they are either making assumptions based on personal experience / misremembering something they learned long ago, or just plain making stuff up off the top of their head. When posting a guess, make clear that it is indeed a guess instead of trying to puff up ones online cred. Some people have trouble admitting weakness, that they are unsure of something and must maintain a veneer of certitude no matter the content. This is common of the types of know-it-alls this site attracts, for better or worse.
As a test, I provided the instructions above to my mother, who is a Grandma.
She said, “What is uTorrent? Is that a button on my e-mail?”
Some grandmas are 30 years old. I assume this requires a grandma below a certain age.
Although, I suspect a 30 year old grandma isn’t really likely to be competent at computer use. 
I didn’t look far into this, but it seems that this act wouldn’t cover using a program past its expiration date and I didn’t find any cites that say “or data.”
http://ilt.eff.org/index.php/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act_(CFAA)
The actual language of the text would seem to include data:
18 USC § 1030 (2) says that whoever:
Is guilty of a crime.
A “protected computer” includes any computer which is “used in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce or communication…”
Maybe I’m misreading the text of the law, but it seems that this would not apply to accessing one’s own computer. Let’s see:
whoever intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access
I have authorization to access my own computer. The text of the law does not include the use of said software on the computer and the spirit of the law (assumably) would not have included it either.
That is saying that you can’t access a computer without authorization and if you have partial access to a computer, you can’t exceed that access (obtain information from the computer that you’re not privy to). As stpauler said in the post above, this law doesn’t affect one using his own computer.
If one were to crack software so that it could be used beyond its expiration date, I’m sure that would be breaking some law. If the makers of software did not include code in the software that would make it unusable past a certain date and merely stated that it shouldn’t be used past a certain date, I would be surprised if there were a law that would make it the owner’s responsibility to keep track of time.