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Whistler "Anti-Piracy" Tools Tie OS To Machine
Dredd13 writes: "According to this Yahoo!News article [note: the same story is also being carried at MSNBC and ZDNet] , anti-piracy features in Whistler "won't allow the use of the customer's product key on a PC different from the one originally activated"... which means that if you have that older computer and decide to try and move your Whistler license (that you buy at a retail outlet like Best Buy or wherever) to your new whiz-bang fast model, you'll be completely boned. The code won't actually activate without authorization from a clearinghouse first.
So much, also, for high security installations (where any connectivity, whatsoever, with the outside world is verboten)... without the ability to connect to the clearinghouse to "authenticate" the product key, they too will be unable to use their license.
Part of me is happy because this is obviously a Bad Move by MS and will hurt them, but what if other software vendors start to think that this is a Neat Idea? {yuk!}" It's not a new idea, and lots of software is already sold this way -- but this time it seems to have caught a lot of people's attention. Windows' ubiquity, and Microsoft's history of mostly looking the other way when it comes to illegal copying of their OS, may mean that a lot of eyes get bigger, soon.
Define "same" machine? What if I upgrade the CPU? Would that invalidate the current license? What about upgrading the motherboard? What about flashing the BIOS? Certainly some sort of machine fingerprinting would have to be done for this to work. And if so, what level of fingerprinting?
Where this becomes dangerous is if the hardware manufacturers start making motherboards which will only run a particular Windows licence. Then Linux and the other free OSes are frozen out completely.
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> will it be a 900 number? or will i be put on hold for three hours?
Yes. To both of your questions.
Microsoft does not want us (or anyone) to buy Windows, or Office, directly from them. As other posters have said, who's really going to pay $600 for a new copy of Office? Or $300 for Windows? Can you imagine paying a fucking GRAND just to word-process your resume, or send an email? Neither can anyone else.
What Microsoft does want is for us to get all this software from OEMs. Think about it (you know they've thought about it, and they're not stupid) - every move they make, every change, makes it more difficult for Joe Consumer to buy a few parts, build a computer, and load M$ software on it. Why?
Like many, I know that one of the biggest advantages of building my own boxen is upgrading cheaply to stay on the curve, rather than spend $2,500 every couple years on a new Dell. M$ wants to stop this.
Short-term money isn't the issue with them, and it never has been. More than most US companies, M$ thinks long-term, and long-term for them is one and only one goal: domination. They want every piece of hardware that boots to boot into some flavor of Windows, and run some suite of M$ apps. The best way to do this is to remove any user choice at all - you buy a new machine, you get it with Windows. OEMs are easy to control (the "Make them an offer they can't refuse" type of control), and they only have to control a few to control the industry.
IMNHO, this attitude will bite them in the ass, and hard. They're saying, in effect, "We don't care if we control every computer, but we'll damn sure control every computer with our software on it." Even M$ isn't big enough to do this, espectially with Apple making a comeback and *nux heating up.
Ob. Princess Leia quote: "The more you tighten your grip, the more systems will slip through your fingers."
question: is control controlled by its need to control?
answer: yes
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
Well that's a relief. I'll stop worrying about it then.
I think you have it backwards. Most people only assume that they need to have Windows at home because they saw it at work first. And since it's pretty much impossible to buy a non-Apple PC that doesn't already have Windows installed, they don't really have a choice anyway. Then what they do is borrow the CD from work so they can install Office at home. All MS is doing, since they've pretty much sold someone a licensed copy of their OS with each machine that leaves the computer superstore, is making sure that no one upgrades for free.
I do not have a signature
I think protection of this sort will cut down most on small to medium businesses pirating MS products and that's a damn good thing.
Individuals who want to use windows will resort to downloading dodgy cracked copies and suchlike, while businesses will be loath to use something which could say, for example, have a trojan or orifice in it, and for which they have to actually (shock horror) search for on sites with porny pictures.
I work for a small software company, writing case-management software for solicitors, and the companies we write software for, despite being in the legal biz think nothing of buying one copy of win2000, 1 copy of office 2000, then installing them on 100 or so workstations. This is downright fucking theft!
What particularly makes me sick about their behaviour is that these companies have an annual turn-over of millions of pounds- they can easily afford to buy the requisite number of licenses, but they're too tight. This annoys me *almost* as much as those companies who keep junk faxing us with offers of microsoft cds and licenses which turn out to be pirate. (Their licenses turn out to be just colour photocopies!).
I am not biased. I like certain MS products, true; I love windows 2000, and I love Office 2000, I think DirectX (from a standardization perspective) was a damn fine idea, also COM/ACTIVE-X is phenomenal. (yeah so you have corba in linux but it's nowhere near as widely used). Visual Studio.NET (esp. when C# is used) is the best thing MS have EVER written- it blows any linux development environment/library/language out of the water and into near-Earth Orbit.
I also however love linux. Linux is different to Win2000, but I love both. There's actually nothing I need Linux for, since I play games, do office stuff and program in win32, but I appreciate the beautiful architecture of linux- treating it like a text-only adventure game as I discover the wonderful world of pipes which work, a decent command shell and so on.
So, if you don't, like me love lots of things MS have done recently, and don't want to use Windows, then don't use Windows- use linux or QNX or Plan9 or whatever, just don't bloody moan on about MS' evil world domination- you're not forced into it. And especially don't bitch about how much you hate microsoft, but then download a dodgy copy of Whistler anyway, and go round with a bloated head because you're so damn clever you get one over on MS, you're so 3l337. yeah.... whatever. And to all those people who moan on about "Windows Tax" on new machines, well duh! Build your own machine you idiots! If you're qualified enough to choose linux over windows and think yourself clever enough to be able to use it, then what's hard about plugging a few components in a mboard and fitting it into a case? Even a cappuchino (sic) monkey can put a GeForce in an AGP slot.
What happens when the authentication server no longer exists? Do you still own the software? Did you ever?
If MS really makes it extraordinarily difficult to pirate software, this will only drive people to software which is easier to pirate, or is free, such as Linux and *BSD. This will be a good thing in the end. It will make Windows people either stick with older products or suffer some annoyances, which will hopefully cause them to look at alternatives. I think this could make for a much more competitive OS market, meaning more cross platform programs and platform independent solutions. I think this will be a good thing.
Logic ... merely enables one to be wrong with authority. -- Doctor Who
Even if the solution is as simple as you've said MS promises, they cannot avoid the few that will try to grok the license number, and abuse it for their own gain. What if you install a legal copy of Whistler, and use it for 6 months, then decide to reinstall on the SAME machine (no change in MAC address), but just days before you install, some script kiddie guesses or obtains your PID, uses it to install Whistler (after calling MS to reactivate it), and then when you the denied message, you call MS and they question why you need to reactivate that PID on a different MAC? This case can be defeated if MS does collect personal information about you such that they can verify that it is you that is doing the reactivation, but then you lose the anonymosity and raise more questions, putting them right back into Blizzard's position.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
>Paying for software sucks.
Yah, and paying for food sucks too, but you gotta eat.
You have two choices: Go to the grocery store (Microsoft), or plant a garden (Linux, BSD, etc.).
I am not sure why it's such a bad thing for Microsoft to lock their software to a single computer. Of course, customers should be told this *up front* and they can decide.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
It's only in beta and it's likely to get axed, especially after corporations show the difficulties it will cause in rolling systems out. Chill out.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
I had reason to call such a Microsoft number two years ago. I was on the road and I toasted my Windows partition. I had the Windows CD with me but it refused to install without its id code - but gave me a toll free number to call: 1-800-RULEGIT. I am *not* making this up. I felt bad but I called the number anyway. After 5 minutes on hold I hung up in disgust, and have never since installed a Microsoft OS on anything, and I am now the proud owner of a number of unopened Windows OS's, waiting for the day when Microsoft will give me my money back.
This experience turned out to be exactly what was required to move me entirely off windows. Up till that time I had been dual-booting Linux and Windows 98, but my disgust with the way I was treated that day by Microsoft motivated me to solve all the remaining problems I had with Linux that kept me going back to windows: getting online, getting sound to work, usb, etc. Thinking back on it, none of it was that hard (but harder than now, where you basically just stick in the CD and go). But it was psychologically hard to kick the Windows habit. Thanks, Bill, without that one last kick I would have probably continued suffering for another year.
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Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
about nothing. The vast bulk of the readers here, seem to think that MS wanting to make it more difficult to pirate their software, is some horrible conspiracy against god and man.
First, how is it horrible, if a company takes measures to preserve their copyrights?
Second, MS isn't so stupid as to make it impossible to move the license from one machine to another. It's a given, that people will upgrade machines, and reload systems from time to time. They know better than to prevent that. No matter how much you disapprove of their business practices, nobody has ever accused them of being that inept at marketing things.
Thirdly, by and large the users here have been quite supportive of the thought of MS getting split into pieces. If OS's are split off to a separate company, it's definitely in that companies interest to tighten controls on the OS products. They won't have the oceans of Office license money propping things up. So did anyone ever consider, that this might be a move being engineered with a split in mind?
Lastly, slashdot is rumored to be a bastion of Linux users. And MS users, are far and away a minority here. What do you all care, if us few MS users, are inconvenienced in some way.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
How about everyone who's got a licenced copy of W2K+1 updates their hardware (swaps NICs, etc) every day and hassles MS manually for a new ProductID.
How long before they stop with this sh1t?
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How hard would it be for a manufacturer to start selling NICs with a custom MAC address (if this doesn't exist already)?
Most do this already, although the instructions for setting MAC addresses are not commonly available. Why would someone like 3COM want to manufacture all their cards differently ?
They want to make all their cards identical, and use the easiest possible technique to set the MAC address.
But anyway, this strikes at a very critical issue. When I buy as licence of Whistler, do I have an intrinsic right to use that software on any machine I feel like, whenever I feel like ? Provided of course the software runs on only one machine at a time. Or does Microsoft have the right to dictate how and when I can use their software ??
Software is protected by copyright. This is akin to saying I can use the copyright in any one place.
Suppose we apply this analogy to books. Is it possible I would have the right to read a book at home, but not anywhere else ? And that the book would magically become pixie dust if I tried to read it at work instead ?? It is really quite silly. I have the right to read that book wherever and whenever I like. I can even make copies as long as I keep them to myself. I can even give that book to my friend, as long as I give him all my copies too. That is copyright law applied to books. But for software, somehow the rights are completely different.
Microsoft is perverting copyright protection into infinite time patent protection through schemes like this one. Copyright was never designed to offer such protection, and the patent system actually expires after some time.
It is really quite silly. Microsoft cannot devise a copyright protection system that also protects consumer rights. They want to protect machine exclusive licensing (which I believe to be illegal if ever challenged). Then they will go to a strict licensing model. Then they will tell you to bend over.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
although i can understand where they're coming from...(i don't know anybody in real life who actually owns their copy of windows, nor do i know anybody who owned a copy of win 3.11 or even dos for that matter, they just seemed to "appear" on burnt cdr's or piles of floppies)
:)
it just seems that microsoft has so much more to gain by giving their OS away free, even if they do it unofficially (by looking the other way when it comes to piracy). sure, my copy of win2k is not exactly legal, but i have piles of software that IS legal, and alot of windows only hardware made by manufacturers who had to pay for that nice little "designed for windows" emblem on the boxes. microsoft does get alot of money from me, just not directly. now if i'm forced to pay for windows (especially with so many rules involving use and non-transferability) in the future, that NTFS partition on my hard drive is going to go away.
i was going to say something about giving the razors away and making money on the blades, but i forgot how it went
"I hope I don't make a mistake and manage to remain a virgin." - Britney Spears
" It's easy to fall out of compliance ... this should stop that."
The open source community ought to full heartedly embrace and celebrate the birth of any technology that prevents people from copying software. If people actually had to pay for their copies of software they would be encouraged to investigate lower cost alternatives and free software.
Right now too many people (billions outside the united states) are using MS operating systems and office software because they don't have to pay for it. As a result of this widespread pirating of MS software, lower cost and free alternatives don't get a chance to gain market share and MS software becomes the "default".
Imagine a world where every person who uses a computer is faces with the following dillema.
Do I pay $400.00 for MS-Office, $99.00 for Wordperfect office or $0.00 for star office?
Imagine a person in Africa, China, or El-Salvador making this choice.
A significant percentage (if not most) would choose to pay less and this would once and for all break the MS hegemony in software and more importantly file formats.
The open source community ought to be helping MS achieve better copy protection methods and encouraging them by any means possible. Feel free to call every person who pirates software a thief, liar, coward or bum or whatever. Maybe they'll switch out of shame.
War is necrophilia.
But (unless you're rich or have one of those auto-upgrade leases) you don't upgrade your car every year or two - the average lifespan is more around 4-10 years (depending on use and abuse level)
Now...what MS has done is say - "Thanks for buying MS tires for your 2000 Ford Explorer - We appreciate your business" - then turn around, after you upgrade from the 2000 model to the 2001 model "We're sorry, but you can't put those (bought/paid for/perfectly good) tires on your new 2001 Explorer, even though they'll fit - instead, you have to buy four new tires from us"
This is a fairly logical extension of the current licensing policies - where even though you have gone to a store, paid money, and brought home a physical object, YOU DON'T OWN IT -- this kind of thing *shouldn't* be legal - in the above case, you paid money for a product - you should OWN it. Extending this a bit further gets us to this issue with Whistler - where not only don't you OWN it, but you can't USE it if you get a new computer - or even upgrade certain parts of your current computer.
We used to joke about the "MS Tax" on a new computer because of the restrictions MS used on vendors such as Dell or Gateway - forcing you to buy a copy of Windows with your new computer, even if you didn't plan on EVER running Windows on the computer.
Now they want to implement this on a larger scale - tying Windows to the hardware you have in your system at install-time. Change some major aspect of your system - pay the MS tax - ditch one computer for another one - pay the MS tax.
If we don't find some EFFECTIVE way of fighting bull$#!^ like this, we'll get stuck with more and more of it. It's even getting to the point that US not buying it isn't going to dent their bottom line. Getting Dell or Gateway or Compaq to stop buying it - that might hurt 'em a little more. The question is how the heck do we do that? (and email/letters don't seem to work on something as big as this - the shareholders want $$$ - Dell/Gateway surely think that the only way to keep making $$$ is to acquiese to MS - as the big corporate buyers want windows...
So now we've identified the target as the corporate buyers - how do we tell them this is a bad thing? Moving to a new OS requires extensive training (especially for all-MS shops who have "standardized" on MS Office, Outlook, Exchange, NT, ASP, etc...) -- most pointy-haired types don't go for that very well.
Before you make a fuss, and think that your days of pirating MS software are over, take a closer read at the article:
.Net, sources said."
"Microsoft plans to deliver WPA in all 32-bit versions of Whistler except those sold to volume-licensing customers and the so-called "Royalty OEM initial install images" provided to PC makers, said sources close to the company. Microsoft is expected to add similar anti-piracy technology to Office 10 and Visual Studio
This "volume-licensing" program is called Microsoft Select, and it's what huge corporations get. The versions that come on those Select CDs don't need product keys at all. So, anyone want to take a guess at how long it will take people to start passing around ISO's of the Select versions of these products? (Hint: they don't call it "0-day warez" for nothing!)
Everyone can see that this feature is going to be a huge annoyance, even Microsoft. And they especially don't want to annoy their major customers, so there will always be a way around it.
Reportedly, it's going to work like this. (I don't know for sure ... I've never seen it, and I haven't installed this build.) The MAC address of your NIC is trasmitted with your PID when you register. That's ALL. If you try to install the software with the same PID on another machine, and the MAC address doesn't match up, you're denied. If you have built a new machine, and need to install it, you've have a toll-free number to call where you can re-activate the PID. This same number can be used to register the PID if you don't have a modem line.
Now, in the Beta newsgroup, Micrsoft has specifically told us not to get our panties in a bunch ... most of the internet reports are WRONG (including mine above) in some form or another ... no one has it right yet, and not to believe them. We'll have more info closer to Beta 2. But the system is going to be non-invasive, and all of the arguments we're having have already been had within MS.
Personally, while I don't LIKE the idea, I understand why it's being done. They've let casual copying go WAY too long, and many small companies are not license compliant. Mine just bought over $100K in licenses that we owed through several buyouts. It's easy to fall out of compliance ... this should stop that.
Not everyone has Internet access, you know. And out of those that do, many of them pay by the minute or hour for their calls, adding to the price of the (already expensive) software.
This is even more troubling for Pissler than for Visual Studio.NET and Office, since the machine is so dependent on the operating system. What happens if the customer has a strange network setup that Windows can't detect on install? Is he still allowed to use Control Panel and the like before activating the software? Or is the user stuck with a dead operating system until he can mail in a form? (allow several weeks for processing and delivery)
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Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
I steal trucks made by Ford. I have no qualms about it. They charge obscene prices for low quality trucks, and constantly change the workings of the engines. For example, when I wanted to have a new (1998) engine put into my old '46 Ford, I couldn't. I had to get a new Ford Explorer to have a new fuel injected engine. If they wouldn't pull stunts like this, there'd be much less truck stealing. Well, someone will figure out an easy way to steal trucks, so all hope isn't lost.
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For them to push in this direction tells me that MS has been told some encouraging things by the incoming administration, in addition to being emboldened by the success of DMCA and UCITA. (shudder)
If they're serious about this, then they've just created a dramatic barrier to entry to Whistler, et al. Of course, if they see older alternatives are eating into their Whistler sales, they could stop selling new Win98/2000 licenses. People would then be in a nasty bind... but signs of strife that significant might send people scurrying to Apple and Linux in droves.
When push comes to shove, I'd guess Microsoft will realize that they've already become the richest fucks in the world via the old ("rampant piracy") system, and almost certainly back down from rocking the boat. See Intel and their CPUID fiasco.
An effort to force a massive and fundamental change in the way software is licensed and used would probably require an effort on the scale of a massive conspiracy. At the moment I don't give MS and Co. that much credit.
In the meantime, we have some more breathing room to discover a new intellectual property doctrine that actually works...
We're on the road to Tycho.