Anyone else get Miscrosoft Anti-Pirating mail at home?

[Ozz1113]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Oh I see. So because they make a lot of money, losing 25% of your revenue is ok. I'm curious, how much money does a company have to make before it becomes ok for people to steal from them?

I never said it was ok. It just seems that they never really tried to stop any of the piracy until recently. Some might speculate that in the past (and even now to an extent) MS doesn't mind a certain level of piracy because it keeps their marketshare up, if pirating Windows was impossible I'd be willing to be there would be a lot more people looking at Linux as an alternative, maybe not 25% but still more than there are right now.

IMO, if companies really wanted to stop it, they really would STOP it.

Care to explain how they would go about stopping it?

Well, i don' t know too much about securing data but there has got to be a way to encrypt all data on a disc. When you purchase something, you will be required to call a number to receive the encryption key. Other wise the disc will be useless.
Mainly, I just dont believe that they are doing all they can.

 

[Nothinman]

Well, i don' t know too much about securing data but there has got to be a way to encrypt all data on a disc. When you purchase something, you will be required to call a number to receive the encryption key. Other wise the disc will be useless.

And you have the same problems they currently have, you either have everything encrypted with a few keys so that once one or two keys are leaked they're useless or you have every disc encrypted with a different key which is pretty much impossible to manage.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: Dopefiend

Originally posted by: bsobel

Remember how Windows XP didn't have a rapid uptake, how it took a while before people started switching over from the Win9x and W2k OSes?
Well what did MS do?

They released a version that did not require activation.

The fact that they where released at the same time (heck, we got our corp drop from MS before the activated versions) kinda dispells that part of your theory.

Bill

Coupled with the picture of the Devil's Own VLK/Corporate edition CD being held in front of a "35 days to go!" sign...

I thought I felt a call.

"Corporate Edition" is the pirate's tag-name for XP Pro with a VLK.

- M4H

 

[bsobel]

Well, i don' t know too much about securing data but there has got to be a way to encrypt all data on a disc. When you purchase something, you will be required to call a number to receive the encryption key. Other wise the disc will be useless.

Usage wise how is that different from shipping the data non encrypted and requring an activation code to the product (which is what is being done today)?

 

[n0cmonkey]

I don't think Microsoft loses as much money as some of you seem to think. Sure, a bunch of copies of XP or whatever are getting pirated. The pirates are Windows users, and demand Windows software. Some companies that make Windows software pay licensing fees for various things. Who do they generally pay them to? Microsoft. If all of the pirates switched to Linux the demand for Windows software would go down, Microsoft would lose market share, and lose plenty in licensing fees. So not only are they making no money from the people that wouldn't be giving them money anyways, they'd be losing money from other businesses due to the drop in demand.

Just a theory, and not an endorsement of piracy.

 

[Garlic]

Running Win xp Pro corporate edition with integrated SP1 now. I love it....

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire

I thought I felt a call.

"Corporate Edition" is the pirate's tag-name for XP Pro with a VLK.

- M4H

I know

 

[Ozz1113]

Originally posted by: bsobel

Well, i don' t know too much about securing data but there has got to be a way to encrypt all data on a disc. When you purchase something, you will be required to call a number to receive the encryption key. Other wise the disc will be useless.

Usage wise how is that different from shipping the data non encrypted and requring an activation code to the product (which is what is being done today)?

Well, an activation code can be used to activate any CD copy of windows (many different people can use the same key). An encryption key will be unique to the one CD that it was created for. Killing the effectiveness of key generators.

And you have the same problems they currently have, you either have everything encrypted with a few keys so that once one or two keys are leaked they're useless or you have every disc encrypted with a different key which is pretty much impossible to manage.

Serial numbers of the products can be linked to the product keys. MS would have those on record, will not be very difficult to manage.
A strict policy can be kept that will disable any program that is found to have the same encryption key used twice (internet access would be needed of course).
I dunno...

 

[Nothinman]

An encryption key will be unique to the one CD that it was created for. Killing the effectiveness of key generators.

So now every CD needs it's own encryption key? Do you have any idea how much work it would take to maintain that many keys? You're talking numbers of keys in the millions.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

An encryption key will be unique to the one CD that it was created for. Killing the effectiveness of key generators.

So now every CD needs it's own encryption key? Do you have any idea how much work it would take to maintain that many keys? You're talking numbers of keys in the millions.

I imagine the CD pressing wouldn't exactly cost peanuts either, printing out a few hundred million differing discs.

 

[drag]

Microsoft's current activation sceme is 'good enough'. Except for the fact that they released a version that didn't have to be activated.

Longhorn will probably have enhanced version of the same thing.

It's not enough to stop hardcore pirates at bay, but cost of preventing something like that is not worth the benifits.

Eventually they will make it so that you can only run software prepared specificly for your computer, it will reject non-approved software, except if you hack the hardware yourself. So even if you crack your software anti-piracy stuff, your computer will still refuse to run it.

Not for a few more years though. They have to get people more used to DRM scemes so that the average person won't reject controls like that out of hand. (baby steps such as MCE recording restrictions, Apple's Itunes and Valve's Steam)

 

[BujinZero]

Originally posted by: drag
Microsoft's current activation sceme is 'good enough'. Except for the fact that they released a version that didn't have to be activated.

Longhorn will probably have enhanced version of the same thing.

It's not enough to stop hardcore pirates at bay, but cost of preventing something like that is not worth the benifits.

Eventually they will make it so that you can only run software prepared specificly for your computer, it will reject non-approved software, except if you hack the hardware yourself. So even if you crack your software anti-piracy stuff, your computer will still refuse to run it.

Not for a few more years though. They have to get people more used to DRM scemes so that the average person won't reject controls like that out of hand. (baby steps such as MCE recording restrictions, Apple's Itunes and Valve's Steam)

Man that's scary. The fact that there are indeed 'baby step' programs out there makes it freakier. There may indeed be heavy polarization (open source vs. closed/'big brother') on the horizon.

 

[KeyserSoze]

I have an Acaedmic Version that never needs to be activated, fully legit and full featured from my School. How many copies of THOSE are floating around?





KeyserSoze