Thanks Sergiy. It's becoming clear that some hackers have gotten into a copy of Stata and gotten it around, so people are having problems. Oh well.
Tony
Peter A. Lachenbruch
Department of Public Health
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97330
Phone: 541-737-3832
FAX: 541-737-4001
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sergiy Radyakin
Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 10:18 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: st: Stata 10 is Malware (also version 11?)
Hi, Peter,
no the problem occurs not because of the small Stata. Alan Riley
(StataCorp) confirmed this behavior for Stata (in general, any
version) under the conditions of improper registration:
http://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/2008-08/msg01142.html
Whether it is an intended protection mechanism, or a side-effect of
how the program works is unknown (wan not specified by StataCorp).
A while ago there was a question from the Mr. Nathan Toronto regarding
the DOD clearance for use of Stata on the US military networks:
http://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/2009-10/msg00043.html
I wonder, what was the progress with that case? Was Stata cleared for
use in military applications?
Which version? How the decision was made? In particular, what features
where inspected?
Were the source code and algorithm description made available to the
investigators?
To Demo Crazy: I am surprized that with such an attitude you expect a
welcoming from the R or SAS users. Some of them are on this list, and
deep respect for Stata is overwhelming among them.
Best Regards,
Sergiy Radyakin
On Mon, Nov 9, 2009 at 11:29 AM, Lachenbruch, Peter
<[email protected]> wrote:
> A thought just occurred to me. Is it possible that the problem is someone was using a large dataset on small Stata? I still don't understand how a set of illegal serial numbers could lead to a version being installed. No doubt someone hacked the algorithm.
>
> I have always used a legitimate copy of Stata and had the typical pain in the neck of entering the codes - this is a very small price to pay for a wonderful program.
>
> Tony
>
> Peter A. Lachenbruch
> Department of Public Health
> Oregon State University
> Corvallis, OR 97330
> Phone: 541-737-3832
> FAX: 541-737-4001
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Filipa de Castro
> Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 5:50 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: st: Stata 10 is Malware (also version 11?)
>
> Chris,
>
> Yes, they all shared the same illegal version, and the problem was
> variables being dropped randomly after any kind of operation, but
> nothing ever happened to the observations, at least in the exercises I
> saw, but I am not sure whether this happens or not. What was really a
> pain was the time it took me to understand what was going on because
> they were all inexperienced stata users, trying to learn the basics,
> and thought that they were doing something wrong that would cause
> variables to disappear. In the end they assumed they were working with
> an illegal version, cause once we run the exercises in my computer
> nothing happened and they were puzzled with that.
>
> Bw, Filipa
>
> On Sun, Nov 8, 2009 at 4:47 PM, Christopher Hajzler <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Filipa,
>>
>> I'm still curious: did your students discover that they had all been
>> using illegal versions of the software and that this was likely
>> causing the problem? And were entire variables being dropped after a
>> particular operation was conducted?
>>
>> I'm just a little concerned that, if this type of capability is built
>> into the program to prevent piracy, it could accidentally occur even
>> on legally installed versions. Perhaps someone with advanced computer
>> or programming knowledge would find the suggestion ridiculous, but I
>> find that several day-to-day programs often don't function as they
>> should (a windows user could probably guess which company's mediocre
>> software I'm referring to) so it is a bit disconcerting to think that
>> STATA might suddenly develop a "glitch" and drop part of the dataset
>> being used.
>>
>> If it is merely dropping of variables, I suppose it should be obvious
>> if this were to ever happen. But if it applies to observations as
>> well, the potential for a glitch to occur might be cause for concern.
>> It also makes me wonder if it wouldn't have been better to just design
>> STATA to just not work altogether when unauthorized licenses or
>> activation keys are used.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>> Chris
>>
>> On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 2:59 AM, Filipa de Castro
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>> Demo Crazy:
>>>
>>> I had some students having the same problem you report, some time ago,
>>> which took me ages to understand what was going on and was very
>>> unpleasant. But once I realized what was happening (they were 3 with
>>> the same dropping variables problem) they had a mature reaction not
>>> blaming STATA for losing hours of work rather they assumed they error
>>> and apologized and accepted a penalty in their marking, and off
>>> course, moved on to use legal versions of STATA.
>>>
>>> I can´t believe you really think you could sue STATA for a pirate copy
>>> that does not work well.
>>>
>>> Filipa
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 4:46 AM, Demo Crazy <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> > After seeing this post
>>> >
>>> > http://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/2008-08/msg01142.html
>>> >
>>> > I tried to install my *legal* copy of Stata 10 with one of those serials available on the web. I found the same behaviour: random dropping of variables.
>>> >
>>> > Therefore the original Stata itself (not version modified by others as gus from Stata suggest) includes undocumented functions: this is definition of MALWARE. Is it including also other undocumentd parts of code that allows it to steal my personal data?
>>> >
>>> > I thinks that this behaviour from Stata can be sued. Just a notice telling that this dropping has beed made because the license is not valid would make it legal. But otherwise Stata guys are crackers, includign malware in their product.
>>> >
>>> > Thank you a lot STata: you have finaly convinced me that I won't ever buy a new copy of Stata and just move to other statiscal package (preferibly open source like GNU R, but maybe SAS or another)
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > *
>>> > * For searches and help try:
>>> > * http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
>>> > * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
>>> > * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
>>> >
>>>
>>> *
>>> * For searches and help try:
>>> * http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
>>> * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
>>> * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
>>
>> *
>> * For searches and help try:
>> * http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
>> * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
>> * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
>>
>
> *
> * For searches and help try:
> * http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
> * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
> * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
>
> *
> * For searches and help try:
> * http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
> * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
> * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
>
*
* For searches and help try:
* http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
* http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
*
* For searches and help try:
* http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
* http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
