Dan Byström’s Bwain

I’ve written an application called PurmoMaster (its current incarnation is called PurmoMaster 2003 and a PurmoMaster 2005 will probably follow) for a company called Rettig Heating. PurmoMaster is used to calculate heat loss in buildings and then to find exactly what radiators is needed to correctly heat a building. PurmoMaster is given away for free and the obvious reason is that it will only suggest radiators from Rettig’s product line (there is still 2000 radiators to choose from). Rettig wants to keep track of their customers in order to inform them of product updates, new prices etc. Therefore a user must register a mail address on Rettig’s web site and is then given a license code in return, which is all that is needed to run the application. Simple.

I just googled for PurmoMaster 2003 and found the most amazing thing. A cracker group has TAKEN THE TIME to create a key generator for a FREE PROGRAM! According to their web page, this heroic deed has been performed by two master minds using the nicknames absolut and oktan. Their parents must be proud.

(As a side note: IF the program WAS NOT free, this would have been useless anyway, since Rettig would immediately spot a pirated version once the customer placed an order, but that’s another story.)

Apart from being a good story, this is also tragic. If people can spend their time doing things like this (with absolutely no gain what so ever) – what chances are there that a “real commercial” application should ever be left alone?