Software pirates can now be remotely scanned by a stealth security software suite that identifies them, finds their location on a Google map, then "phones home" to software vendors with forensic evidence about them.

With billions of dollars a year lost to illegal copying of licensed software, V.i. Laboratories has made a business of helping independent software vendors recover lost revenue. Its stealthy security suite called CodeArmor Intelligence offers users of unlicensed software a deal on buying a valid license, and if they do not agree, reduces the program's functionality or revokes access entirely.

"It's all about revenue recovery," said Victor DeMarines, vice president of products at V.i. Labs.

Worldwide losses from PC software piracy cost the industry more than $50 billion a year, according to the International Data Group, which says that one-fifth of the software on U.S. PCs and more than 40 percent worldwide is pirated.

For workstations using professional software that costs as much as $50,000 per copy, such as electronic design automation (EDA), computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided engineering (CAE) programs, the problem is even worse. For these high-end programs, users can buy a copy from pirates for as little as 1 percent of the original cost. At that price even legitimate customers are tempted to cheat by installing "cracked" copies on more machines than their legitimate license allows.

"These people are experts at reverse-engineering the licensing protection out of expensive applications, then reselling the cracked copies at a fraction of their original cost," said DeMarines. "Over 80 percent of our software vendors selling high-end EDA, CAD and CAE software have found instances of overuse by their existing customers who were using cracked versions too."

The Software and Information Industry Association pays informants inside companies up to $1 million to turn in their bosses when they start using cracked copies of high-end software packages, but CodeArmor Intelligence puts an informant inside every program sold.

Once CodeArmor Intelligence has been installed in the latest version of a program, the software vendor starts getting daily reports summarizing how many unlicensed copies "phoned home" the day before, which were in violation, their location on a Google map and any forensic evidence being developed. Software vendors first use the information as a sales lead, trying to persuade the user to buy a valid license, resorting to revoking access only if the user declines to pay up. Software vendors can signal specific users, every unlicensed copy at a given company or all violators in a geographical region. And if a user takes his computer off-line to avoid the software vendor, then CodeArmor Intelligence starts keeping a secret encrypted file that logs infringement data to be forwarded to the software vendor at the next opportunity.