Software Piracy Protection System

 Introduction:

The goal of developing this project is to prevent software piracy and improve protection and security measures for software. Piracy is one of the biggest threats in the industry. Hackers use malware and malicious code to gain access to software products/systems, thus, putting at stake the entire security infrastructure of a company. As a result, it is pivotal to incorporate the necessary measures and protection systems to uphold the integrity of data as well as the copyright rights of software products.

The software piracy protection system helps keep piracy threats at bay. Users must first register for using a software product and then purchase the software via online payment. Once the payment is complete, users can download the software and the serial key for the same. The software reads the ID of your machine (PC/laptop) and generates a unique user ID by using an algorithm. The user can now log in via the user ID by providing the serial key.

The key is encrypted and is different for each machine, which makes it highly secure. After the serial key is entered, the software, too, will generate a key via encryption and match it with the serial key of the user for authentication. If the keys match, the user can access the software product, and if it doesn’t match, the software remains locked.

Summary of Progress:

a. Schedule analysis:

In project management, the project schedule is a document that, if properly prepared, is usable for planning, execution, monitoring/controlling, and communicating the delivery of the scope to the stakeholders. The main purpose of project scheduling is to represent the plan to deliver the project scope over time. A project schedule, in its simplest form, could be a chart of work elements with associated schedule dates of when work elements and milestones (usually the completion of a deliverable) are planned to occur. In addition to guiding the work, the project schedule is used to communicate to all stakeholders when certain work elements and project events are expected to be accomplished. The project schedule is also the tool that links the project elements of work to the resources needed to accomplish that work.

 

At a minimum, the project schedule should include the following components:

                                                       i.            All activities

                                                     ii.            A planned start date for the project

                                                  iii.            Planned start dates for each activity

                                                   iv.            Planned finish dates for each activity

                                                     v.            Planned finish date for the project

                                                   vi.            Resource assignments

                                                vii.            Calendar based

                                             viii.            Activity durations

                                                   ix.            The "flow" (sequence) of the various activities

                                                     x.            The relationships of activities

                                                   xi.            An identified critical path(s)

                                                xii.            Total and free float

b. Budget Analysis:

The project budget is a financial plan for all project expenditures (cost). Success in project budget management depends on, amongst other things, the creation of a comprehensive, consistent, and reliable project budget. Some people want to use the term "accurate" in the above definition. But, the word "accurate" has no place in the project management world. Reliable and consistent are the terms that should be used. By definition, the project budget cannot be accurate as it is an estimate. Normal ranges of project budget variability depend on the project, the organization, the type of business, and many other factors, but usually falls within +/- 10%.

Based on the work above, we now have a budget for:

                                           i.            Individual Activities

                                         ii.            Work Packages

                                      iii.            Deliverables

                                       iv.            The Total Project

This level of detail allows a project manager (PM) to evaluate the budget performance of the project from the top down or from the bottom up. If a work package is running over or is in danger of overrunning the budget, the project manager can drill down until he/she finds the problem or potential problem. The drill down can be by the PM or in conjunction with the assigned team member.

Earned Value Method 

One other very powerful tool that helps in the analysis of project budget performance is the Earned Value Method (EVM). EVM can assist you in evaluating project budget performance (what are you accomplishing for the funds you are expending) and in calculating a Cost Performance Index (CPI), which is a representation of the effectiveness of your spending. EVM can calculate a Cost Variance (CV), which is the difference between the value of the work completed and the amount of funds expended to accomplish that work. This will tell you the magnitude of the over- or under-run or if you are on budget. EVM can be applied down to the work element level if the appropriate level of detail exists.

Variance Analysis 

Variance analysis is another tool to help the PM understand why work elements are over- or under budget. The Cost Management Plan probably sets thresholds for overruns (say 10%), a different threshold for under runs (say 15%), to trigger your attention. Understanding why work elements are overrunning will assist the PM to develop solutions (action plans) to bring the project back within acceptable ranges. Understanding why work elements are significantly under budget assist the PM in feeding this information forward to new project budget development.

Regardless of experience, care, or execution effort, project budget variances will occur. This is just a fact of the project world. While they cannot all be eliminated, they can be reduced for future projects. Some (not many) projects will finish very close to the budget. More projects will finish within acceptable ranges (+/-10%). Others (we hope not many) will finish well outside the acceptable range (>10% over or under). Using the techniques outlined here will reduce the number of projects in this category and reduce the size of the overruns.

 

c. Scope Analysis:

Scope refers to the detailed set of deliverables or features of a project. These deliverables are derived from a project’s requirements Project Scope as the “The work that needs to be accomplished to deliver a product, service, or result with the specified features and functions.”

Following are the three processes of Project Scope Management:

Planning

The planning process is when an attempt is made to capture and define the work that needs to be done. 

Controlling

The controlling and monitoring processes focus on documenting tracking, scope creep, tracking, and disapproving/approving project changes.

Closing

In the final process, the closing includes an audit of the project deliverables and an assessment of the outcomes against the original plan.

 

d. Process Analysis:

Process analysis, in project management, is all about following the steps that are outlined in process improvement plan. It is used to identify the necessary improvements needed in the project plan. This type of analysis looks into the problems experienced and other non-value-added activities that are identified during the process operation.

This particular project management tool is used to look at different processes and determine what can be done to make them better and more effective. Unlike quality audit, the process analysis looks at the process improvement from both the technical and organizational standpoint. It examines three different things:

·        Problems that are experienced while conducting a particular project

·        Problems experienced while conducting the work of the project

·        Ineffective activities that are identified during the operation

This particular tool is often mistaken for quality audit which is basically seeing whether the team is following the defined process. The process analysis also includes root cause analysis and other techniques necessary to identify a particular problem. It also involves discovering the underlying causes that can lead to problems so that preventive actions can be developed.

e. Gant Chart Progress Chart:

	January	February	March	April
Analysis
Design
Development
Testing
Implementation
Maintenance

 

Activity Analysis

a. Tasks Completed since last report

Project status reports are taken repeatedly, throughout every phase of the project’s execution, as a means to maintain your schedule and keep everyone on the same page. The status report for a project will generally include the following:

                               i.            The work that’s been completed:

                             ii.            The plan for what will follow:

                          iii.            The summary of the project budget and schedule:

                           iv.            A list of action items:

                             v.            Any issues and risks, and what’s being done about them:

The true value of a project status report lies beyond its use as a communication channel. It also provides a documented history of the project. This gives you historical data, so the next time you’re planning a similar project, you can avoid any missteps or bottlenecks.

Because project status reports cover so many topics, historically, they were time-consuming to create. Fortunately, modern project management software like ProjectManager.com expedites the all-important reporting process. Try out our automated project reports, and simplify your project reporting.

b. Current Tasks and deliverables

“Code and fix” development is not so much a deliberate strategy as a result of schedule pressure on software developers. Without much of a design in the way, programmers immediately begin producing code. At some point, testing begins (often late in the development cycle), and the unavoidable bugs must then be fixed before the product can be shipped. Programming without a planned-out design is also known as cowboy coding.

c. Short term future tasks and deliverables

There is a distinction between project and product deliverables. Project deliverables are such outputs as the project plans, project reports and even meeting minutes. Product deliverables, on the other hand, could be hardware, software, mobile applications, contracts, or even test assessment results.

The deliverables that clients and stakeholders expect at the end of the project are the product or service, of course, but there is also paperwork, as noted. These documents, when completed, are deliverables that clients and stakeholders need in order to evaluate the progress or completion of the project.

This paperwork can include:

                               i.            Signed contracts

                             ii.            Finalized expense reports

Other types of project reports which show how work is proceeding versus project plan estimations

Deliverables can vary according to the project’s specifications and the stakeholders’ requirements. But all clients and stakeholders want deliverables that thoroughly wrap up the project at its closure and measure performance against expectations throughout the project.

 

Previous Problem and Issues

Problem-1: An unestablished project environment is always a common challenge in terms of its impact on project delivery. If the environment is not available, then there is no way you can proceed with your project on time and under budget.

Solution: To ensure efficient project development, test and pre-production environments should be made available during the development, testing, and user acceptance testing (UAT) phases. Invest in a solid IT infrastructure upfront to create a better software development environment.

 

Problem-2: A major reason for the complexity of software projects is the constant changing of requirements. Not surprisingly, 33% of the respondents of the Stack Overflow Developer Survey consider building products with unspecific requirements, as their biggest challenge. Requirements gathering is a lot more than a handful of business consultants coming up with their ideal product – it is understanding fully what a project will deliver.

Solution: To ensure that the product outcomes align with expectations and requirements, a solid process and line of communication need to be established. Remember the following best practices.

·        Define and agree on the scope of the project

·        Don’t assume end-user needs and requirements

·        Communicate the needs and expectations between the development and ideation teams

·        Involve users from the start of existing product refurbishment

·        Consider UX from the start of new product development

·        Create a clear, concise and thorough requirements document and confirm your understanding of the requirements

·        Create a prototype to confirm and/or refine final agreed-upon requirements

Problem-3: Not reviewing code, or suppressing errors are just a means that developers use to save time and meet deadlines.

Solution: Following a formal quality assurance process is imperative for a successful launch. If you witness developers trying to cut corners in the development process, discourage it immediately. Encourage them to use the best code development practices to meet the requirements sooner and more efficiently.

 

New Problem and Issues

 

Problem-1: Product designs are under constant influence from stakeholders, the development organization, and other internal and external factors. Managing these influences is essential for maximizing the quality of systems and their related influence on future business opportunities. The increase of easily accessible, simple applications has resulted in user expectations growing exponentially.

Solution: Make sure you streamline your design and offer a consistent experience across devices, operating systems, and form factors.

Problem-2: There are thousands of different technologies, systems, and applications available for businesses. Integrating third-party or other custom applications, such as your ERP systems, website, or inventory management database adds substantial complexity to your project. And the bigger challenge with integration is that they remain hidden throughout the development process, and surface only at the end, leading to extra costs, delays, lowered quality, and sometimes even failure of the project.

Solution: To conform your software solution to the external constraints of other systems, you should:

·        Get a clear understanding of end-user requirements

·        Implement an enterprise-wide framework for the platform structure of the application

·        Discover and research new technologies

·        Design and develop new solutions

·        Test and evaluate ideas to ensure optimum integration

·        Pay extra attention to research and development, testing, and prototyping.

·        Test, test, and test again before deploying the solution

 

Financial Analysis

Most of the people in universities are using pirated software. Statistics of the present study shows that 67.3% of people do use pirated software. The activation of the software is done by using fake (illegal) cracks and other activation methods. The fake key is used as an alternate for showing the software is original, while in the actual original software, it is allowed only to those users who purchased the license of the software. Using fake keys is the piracy of software is a serious crime. According to the statistics of the study, the activation by online payment is too low, which is 7.3%. Buying CD/DVD from the market is still less (38.2%) compared to activation by cracking the software (54.5%). The online payment facility in educational institutions shows that 81.8% of the participants do not have to buy the software online and pay for it, while only 18.2% have the facility to buy the software online. The rates of the total number of pirated software were identified to be much higher from the survey. According to the survey, 49.1% of each participant uses more than six pirated software. Other participants are not exempted from piracy but differ only in a smaller number of pirated software, and their ratio is 18.2% for (4–6) number of pirated software and 32.7% for (1–3) number of pirated software. The study shows that the existing piracy is too high and the majority of people use pirated software. About 80% of participants think that people do piracy. Figure 2 shows the details of a different aspect of the existing level of piracy.

High software cost is one of the reasons behind software piracy. From the survey statistics, about 70% of participants consider it because of the price, while another reason is lack of awareness that has statistics of 23.6%. Software piracy ratio can be reduced by lower software cost, as in survey its statistics are high (54.5%) as compared to other alternative increasing awareness (30.9%) and easy payment methods (14.5%). Piracy of software saves money and prices of paid software as most of the participants (72.7%) say that piracy saves a significant amount of money for them because software prices are high. From statistics, the software is expensive for 85.5% of the survey members, while others consider it normal (10.9%) or cheap (4.6%). The economic factor of software was studied and the study shows that economy is an incentive for purchasing pirated software. 52.7% of participants agreed, while others did not know (30.9%) or disagreed (16.4%).

Unfamiliarity and unavailability of online purchasing is a factor of the survey in which most of the people (67.8%) are not able to buy software directly from the Internet because they do not have an online buying facility. The participants were not in favor of software piracy. Only 32.7% of the participants are on the other side. The participants receive fake software registration notifications not too often (50.9%), while only 25.5% of participants receive notifications very often and 23.6% do not receive them at all. Receiving warnings and notifications also has a psychological bad effect on the participants. They do not like at all the warning they receive for doing piracy. A total of 61.8% of participants feel bad after this, while 29.1% do not care. Still, some of them feel happy to receive it.

Finding fake/pirated software activation codes and licenses on the Internet is easy and statistics do not differ significantly (54.5%). In contrast, 45.5% of participants find it easy to find activation codes on the Internet. The difference is not significant enough and we cannot say that activation codes can easily be found on the Internet based on the higher percentage of responses (54.5%). Also, registration of software from the Internet is the easiest way (70.9%) for people are compared to other alternatives. The low probability of getting caught during piracy is medium for 49.1% of participants, while 41.8% of the participants’ probability of being caught is low. Poor implementation of software policy has been studied and the execution of software policy needs to be implemented in the academic institutions. 90.9% of the respondent agreed to have a software policy to be implemented in academic institutions. Figure 6 shows software piracy and its causes from user perspectives.

Figure 1: Software piracy and its causes

 Attachment

The proposed study was conducted to identify the impact of software piracy in educational institutions. The first step of the study is to find the current level of piracy, its awareness, and the reasons behind why people are doing piracy. This paper addresses the following research questions which are based on a study of the literature and market:

(a) Is the software piracy rate high in academia?

(b) Are people aware of the software piracy issue?

(c) Why do people commit piracy and what are the main reasons behind this issue?

(d) What could be the possible solutions to reduce software piracy in academic institutions?

Level of Piracy

piracy is too high and the majority of people use pirated software. About 80% of participants think that people do piracy.

Figure 2: Level of Piracy

 

Representation of Different Part Piracy Area

Representation of different groups of variables in the area from the current research perspectives. These variables include the use of pirated software, activation by online payment, buying CD/DVD, cracking the software, online facility to buy the software, piracy of more than 6 software products, piracy of 4–6 pieces of software, piracy of 1–3 software, participants doing piracy, importance of piracy, aware of the demerits of piracy, knowledge about the penalties of piracy, different functionalities, participant preferring to use the software, participants not attending any seminar on piracy, caught/warned, participants not caring about warning, sharing software not considered a good act, and participants being aware of the side effects. These variables were taken as important considerations of the proposed research.

Figure 3: Representation of Different part Piracy Area

Awareness about software piracy

The awareness of software piracy is analyzed through the questionnaire. Piracy of software is an important issue for participants to be stopped. The survey statistics show that only 1% does not give importance to piracy. 

Figure 4: Awareness about software piracy

Piracy protection set on a software

 

Figure 5: Software Piracy Awareness in Educational Institutions

 

Main Reason for Issues behind Software Piracy and Awareness

 

We have identified some of the reasons behind software piracy. These are discussed in detail in the following subsections.

(i) Unsuitable payment methods for software purchasing:

One of the reasons behind software piracy is the unavailability of online payment methods for people. Credit card or other ways are not widely being used by student(s) and all the faculty members for online transactions which forces them to use another way of registering or getting registered software.

(ii) Basic knowledge about software piracy:

The people have only basic knowledge about software piracy which is not enough. The people do not know the penalties for software piracy and therefore, it seems like a normal act, although it is a crime too.

(iii) Conduction of seminar/workshops:

One of the reasons for the lack of awareness includes less or lack of awareness program about software piracy. Not enough seminars or workshops have been conducted to spread awareness about software piracy. As a result, they do not know the penalties that can be given to the person doing piracy.

(iv) Poor implementation of HEC software policies by academic institutions:

The people use pirated software inside academic institutions, although the HEC provides facilities of free access for some important software products.

(v) High software cost:

The main and key reason is software cost. People have to get paid a significant amount of money while getting pirated software to save much of it. As a result, along with some knowledge and awareness, the people do piracy.

 

 

Conclusion

Software theft and piracy are rapidly ever-increasing problems of the present-day software industry. Software piracy is the illegal copy and use of software in a way other than that is officially documented by exclusive rights of the developer in the form of an individual or organization as described in the relevant sale agreement (license). Owing to the evolution in software development and Internet, software piracy has become a main concern for many software companies. Software companies are confronted with extremely high losses due to the piracy of software. Pirates achieve a lot of money by doing business with pirated software. General end-users of the software are not aware of this serious crime and of the legal consequences of breaking the law. Even most of the time, end-users and consumers think that it is none of their concern and not an important issue for them. Although, in reality, if an organization is working with pirated software, there is a risk of failure of the software, and it might put their organization at risk as pirated software does not receive any support from the development organization. This ultimately puts the consumer organization in huge financial loss. Due to these reasons, software piracy has turned out to be a major concern, more emergent due to the extravagant development of the software industry and the availability of software(s) on the Internet. In this paper, we analyzed and identified the ratio of software piracy, awareness regarding piracy, and the policy of the licensed software provided. Based on the results of the study, some suggestions are proposed by which the level of piracy can be reduced.

 

 

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