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Old 11-09-2012, 03:02 PM   #253
BoldlyDubious
what if...?
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Posts: 209
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Join Date: Feb 2011
Device: paper & electrophoretic
Quote:
Originally Posted by avantman42 View Post
People with little or no technical knowledge are more likely to get viruses, or get their machines hacked. Consequently, their ebooks could appear on pirate sites without their knowledge.
It seems to me that your proposals, while well-meaning, would mean that non-technical people go from running the risk of losing access to their books, to running the risk of being prosecuted for piracy.
Interesting, and correct, objection. Actually, this kind of problem (security of home PCs for "everyday" users) has a much broader scope and impact than the limited one we are considering here; so I hope that technical solutions for the broader problem will also help avoid the "pirates stole my library!" scenario.

And there's another reason why I consider the "pirates stole my library!" scenario as unlikely. I suppose (but did not do any research about it, so feel free to prove me wrong) that most of the illegal uploaders of files are people who do that for "fun", not professional criminals. Moreover, the level of technical ability needed to strip DRM from an MP3 file or ebook and upload it on a torrent site is pretty low.
For both reasons, I see as pretty unlikely that this kind of people will turn into expert hackers and will turn to doing something clearly criminal such as breaking into other people's PCs and stealing files.
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