The reason you notice mIRC now has a cyclic redundancy check is because people have been distributing modified versions of mIRC on the internet. It is bad enough that scripters fail to yield to Khaled's License Agreement that states simply "may not be distributed as a part of any package". What's worse is that scripters and modifiers have gone beyond simply redistributing mIRC as part of their package, and have been changing its name and taking credit for its creation.
With this blow to mIRC's already shaky integrity (what with people wrapping mIRC as part of virus payloads) one of the ways to help ensure to the internet community (and to anti-virus software) that mIRC is safe is to ensure it hasn't been tampered with. While this may not be the best way, it's probably one of the few that Khaled is capable of. Perhaps if you can convince the thousands of scripters out there currently breaking the License Agreement? who knows.
I can simpathize with your situation though, and personally feel the CRC is not the best solution. I believe users have the right to modify and backwards engineer the software running on their machine... giving them full control over their hardware provided they have paid for the software. Modifying mIRC allows the user access to a visually appealing interface, translated resources into their own language, and even hardware optimizations that allow it to run smoother in a given environment.
But this right comes with the strictest of responsibilities... and that is NO modification may be distributed to another person under any circomstances, and especially not over a wide or public medium. Modifications must be made and fully acknowledged by the user making them. If the user knows nothing about modifying software, then they have no right to be using modified software. This simple rule is too often ignored.
I also appreciate the fact that restrictions typically only restrict the innocent, while dedicated bad guys will always circomvent these restrictions. So it becomes a cat/mouse game of "what's the point?". I'm not sure there's an answer to that, and I'm not sure I know all that lead up to Khaled's decision to add a redundancy check. For right now, it's probably best we just honor the restriction. You can also email him and ask more about it.
- Raccoon
