Microsoft Security Updates for Pirated Windows?

zachlipton writes "DSL Reports has an interesting question posted: should users with pirated copies of Windows be allowed to download security updates, such as for Sasser? Apparently, without a valid CD key, users cannot download these updates. Do they get what they deserve, or should they be allowed these updates through Windows Update in order to reduce the impact of these worms on the rest of the net? Should security updates only for worms be made available to pirated users, or also updates for issues that while not posing a risk to other internet users, would open the pirate up to a security hole?"

Comments

What about MSDN windows

[superpulpsicle]

I am pretty sure MSDN version of windows XP don't have activation keys and such. Does that mean they can't upgrade?

Re:What about MSDN windows

[Satan's Librarian]

Actually, they do. You have to request a key online on msdn.microsoft.com in the subscribers area, and you get one that's tied to your account - generally good for 10 uses for a professional-level MSDN subscription. It's rather a pain in the arse really, because it means that for those you have to be extremely careful with the number of times you activate them - which can put a bit of a crimp in your plans when you want to run a large test farm for a product with more than 10 PC's.

XP and Longhorn-beta are special that way. Most other packages (2000 included) have generic MSDN keys.

Re:What about MSDN windows

[saden1]

It is fair to say that all the pirated versions of windows in china and south east Asia infected with a virus can easily overwhelm any network.

It would be wise to provide patches for everyone.

Re:What about MSDN windows

[Soko]

You would be wrong.

Last time I had an MSDN sub, all the products that required activation off the shelf also required activation when installed from the MSDN CDs. That includes Windows XP, Office XP, Visio 2002 and Windows Server 2003. IIRC, even VS.Net requires activation.

Microsoft ships you all of thier patches with the MSDN update CDs too, so you can test your application and find out what thier latest patches broke and why.

As I said, I haven't had access to MSDN for a couple of years, but I imagine this would still be the case.

Soko

Re:What about MSDN windows

[Oriumpor]

There are corporate CDs out there that have been available for quite some time they only require a valid "volume license" cd key to operate. In point of fact, they ignore the stupid Activation BS and are what we use for Unattended installation scripts since they don't require activation once installed.

Then again I'm not an active member in the Warez community. I would assume something like this would be near holy grail status.

Re:What about MSDN windows

[Dever]

that is true, but they have blacklisted one (maybe more) corporate keys. i still use them when i use vmware, but one that began FCKGW if i remember correctly, couldn't install SP1. Evidently they caught wind that a corp key was being used predominantly for warezd copies, and nipped it.

Re:What about MSDN windows

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not exactly 'part of the warez scene' either, but I was easiy able to find corporate editions of XP, win2k, office, and so on, via p2p networks. Valid serial numbers that still allow windows updates are even easier to find.

I quite frequently use them when I have to reinstall friends computers, because even though they already have an OEM copy of XP home it's tedious going through the activation process for Windows, Office, and whatever other crap got bundled with the computer. They paid for windows with the computer, they get windows. I don't have any ethical problem with it.

Re:What about MSDN windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Why only pirated installations in south east asia? Any system connected to other systems and not updated is a security threat. And Microsoft would be *very* wise to keep the impact on their monoculture as low as possible.

The financial loss of millions of pirated systems is far less than any damage a few pirated systems can do to their valid customers and their pretty own reputation.

cb

Re:What about MSDN windows

[$exyNerdie]

even VS.Net requires activation
Not true for VS.NET. Not for VS.NET 2002 and VS.NET 2003 at least...

Re:What about MSDN windows

[.com b4 .storm]

It would be wise to provide patches for everyone.

Yeah, but Microsoft is a corporation. Wise != Profitable.

Re:What about MSDN windows

[Brad Mace]

I agree. I understand why they would like to 'punish' pirates, but infected computers hurt *everyone*. /.ers already know that even linux and mac users are affected by major windows viruses. Often the users of infected computers don't even notice, yet they can interfere with huge numbers of other users.

Restricting patches guarantees hackers a healthy number of drones to use in DDoS attacks, and runs counter to all the other efforts focused on getting users to keep their systems up to date.

Re:What about MSDN windows

[RTPMatt]

my college has free coppies of XP, 98, win 2k3, and a bunch more M$ crap, for those of us in CS, none of them require activation, and can all be upgraded, im sure many people just pirate these.

Re:What about MSDN windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Corporate versions are easy to find. I use one at work constantly. Although we have a valid license for every system (who knows when the BSA may come knocking), I keep it for upgrades to the systems or re-installs. Wasting my time for 1/2 hour to get a new registration number is just not productive.

Funny thing about that: although Microsoft claims that they will allow 2 (or 3??) automatic registrations over the 'net without calling, I have found that not to be the case. Since XP was released, reg process for win2k or office2k always reports server down or too busy and then I must call. I haven't gotten any flack from the flunkies passing out reg numbers, but the 1/2 hour wasted is a pain. Microsoft has forced me to pirate a copy of their software to use valid licenses.

Re:What about MSDN windows

[waterbear]

Why only pirated installations in south east asia?

What the mention of China and SE Asia said to me, to spell it out, was this reminder: that however tight and hard the legislative screw is turned in US and Europe, and however hard punitive enforcement is set up there, those measures will not address the problem because that still leaves plenty of infected machines elsewhere, in countries that such legal measures don't reach, to screw the internet with virus traffic and worms.

It's also not about how much it is worth to the user to pay: Making patches universally available would rationally be seen by MS as an initiative to retain/(re)build market reputation and maintain market share.

-wb-

Re:What about MSDN windows

[Donny Smith]

Yeah infected computers hurt others but most themselves. I don't give a damn if my neighbor's Windows XP is falling apart because
a) He either doesn't give a damn about security and hasn't updated OR uses an illegal copy which can't be updated
b) My own systems are well protected (or perhaps run Linux, etc.).

Microsoft has no obligation whatsoever to provide any freebies to folks with illegally copied (the P word - "pirated" - seems to be politically incorrect here at Slashdot) versions of Windows. People are not _supposed_ to use such software anyway - Linux and Mac have been viable long before 2001 (Windows XP), I don't see how anyone could have been "locked" into using an illegal copy of Windows XP.

I propose that Slashdotters who care buy Windows licenses for the underprivileged, the stingy, or the lazy (lazy to learn Linux). Or provide them with free migration (Win->Lin) service.

(Speaking of updates - if Windows updates should be free, why aren't Red Hat Enterprise Linux security updates free? That's even more critical because it's mostly servers than run this OS. So much for balanced reporting on Slashdot).

Re:What about MSDN windows

[mcc]

Yeah, but Microsoft is a corporation. Wise != Profitable.

Alas, this is only becuase of Microsoft's interesting position where security or safety flaws in their products never have any consequences whatsoever for Microsoft, only for Microsoft's customers. If only Microsoft were in some fashion accountable for the messes their products made on the internet, then acting wisely would be profitable...

Re:What about MSDN windows

[gujo-odori]

I used to live in SE Asia. I have experience with the warez shops there. While I personally was running Linux (it took me over a week to download a set of Debian ISOs!), just about everything and everyone around me was running Warez. It's hard to find anyone in Viet Nam who can afford legitimate, licensed copies, and even harder to find anyone who sells them, unless you buy a new machine (Dell is there, IBM is there, I think HP is too) from a major foreign vendor.

The warez version of XP Pro for about a buck any software shop will install most XP patches, but will not install SP 1. SP 1 recognizes the key as bogus and refuses to install.

In any case, it hardly matters. People are on slow and unreliable dial-up connections. DSL is almost unknown. ISDN is not available at all, as far as I could tell. Hardly anyone has the bandwidth to actually patch their machines, and even fewer people have the knowledge or interest (even fewer than here). There are some really great programmers and admins in Viet Nam, but just like there, those highly knowledgeable people are a tiny minority. Most people with computers neither know nor care about anything like keeping them secure.

So even if MS made all patches available to warez versions of Windows, it would hardly matter in many parts of the world, because the people running them couldn't and/or wouldn't apply the patches anyway.

Re:What about MSDN windows

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't. It's called Corporate Pro, and was pirated by Devilsown about a month and a half before Windows XP Launched. You think the Warez community would bother with anything less than the best? Remember, money is (literally) no object to them.

The few pirates I know are all running Advanced Server and Datacenter when they feel like running Windows.

Re:What about MSDN windows

[pantherace]

RedHat's security updates are free: in SRPM form, which means you get to compile them, and you can redistribute them.

Why? RedHat decided to make people pay for service, and considered compiled updates part of the service. Fortunately they still follow the "Always Open" part, and you can download all of RedHat Enterprise Linux & build it yourself. (Why someone would do that, and not just run gentoo is beyond me. (Maybe they like messing with RPMS & they annoynce they are to rebuild & install?))

Yeah, it is an issue that should be addressed, but people have already. As many people have pointed out: Corperations are often not very wise. (case in point: Red Hat canceling their desktop version, which has led people to change distributions very quickly)

However, what obligation does Red Hat have to provide those that they don't have a contract with updates? They and Microsoft don't. (Nor does anyone who uses BSD or GPL software: your warranty was where? and your contract was what?) It's just that people who write software or package it tend to not want to have their reputation on security sink to as low as IIS or genuinely want to help others.

Re:What about MSDN windows

[ArsenneLupin]

My aunt can use windows because that's what she knows. She could learn linux, but it's too much of a bother for her. Same for mac os. she could learn it, but why bother because what she has works.

You are using the wrong arguments to convince her. Try saying: "But an iMac goes so much better with your furniture than that ugly beige-box PC".

Re:What about MSDN windows

[pmc]

The list of MSDN products that require activation are:

FrontPage Professional 2003
Office 2000 Premium (Brazil & Chinese Versions)
Office 2003 Proofing Tools
Office Professional Enterprise Edition 2003
Office XP Suite (Retail)
OneNote 2003
Project Professional 2002
Project Professional 2003
Project Standard 2003
Publisher 2002
Publisher 2003
Small Business Server 2003
Visio 2002 Professional
Visio 2002 Professional (Chinese Versions)
Visio Professional 2003
Windows "Longhorn" Client Preview
Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition
Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition (64 bit)
Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition
Windows Server 2003 Web Edition
Windows XP Home Edition (Retail, MSDN)
Windows XP Media Center Edition
Windows XP Professional (64 bit)
Windows XP Professional (Retail, MSDN)
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition MSDN

BTW - retail just means you can use the product for real, and not just for test purposes (this comes with the MSDN universal licence). You are limited to an initial 10 installations (but you don't have to activate every install - 60 days for OS and 50 users for office products). If you use up your 10 uses you can get more activations (I believe - I've not actually tried this).

Re:What about MSDN windows

[zero_offset]

To the contrary, the consequences to Microsoft are the impact on their image. The consequences are long term and not so easily quantified, but they are real. Otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion at all.

This is what we call "market forces".
Like many things in the real world, they don't act at "Internet speed"...

Re:What about MSDN windows

[mr_z_beeblebrox]

Your post leaves me with the distinct impression that you believe Asians pirate more software and get more viruses than the rest of the world which is just false.

That's a little trick we engineers like to call math. See, there are as many computers in asia as there are in the rest of the world combined. Add to that the fact that Microsoft has admitted to leniency in pirating and the fact that business people KNOW that in Bangkok they can buy a burned XP cd for around 8$ and you can easily believe the original statement.

If the original statement said something to the effect of "yeah on my network its just the chinese people that get viruses", that would be racist. But pointing out that the largest distribution of computers is statistically likely to have the largest distribution of viruses.

Re:What about MSDN windows

[Spiked_Three]

I've had an MSDN subscription for years and it has never been a pain in the ass. For temporary test farms you do not even need to activate windows, and that is clearly spelled out in your MSDN agreeement. I know I've activated permenant development machines probably 30-40 times, and again, it has never once been any effort at all. Quit blowing smoke.

Re:What about MSDN windows

[jridley]

You've never been to Asia, apparently. I've talked to several people who have been there, and they were just amazed. There are stores operating openly in malls there that carry NOTHING but pirated software and music. They say everything's a buck a disc. You want The Matrix DVD? $1. Microsoft Office? $1. A music CD? $1.

I've seen articles where they interviewed shop owners, and they just didn't understand what the problem was. They considered the *DISCS* to be the product, not the content, and said they didn't understand, they bought the discs for x, they sell them for x*2, they're doing nothing wrong, what's the problem?

Another friend said it's about the same in Russia, though less open. For about $15, you can buy a CD pack containing Windows, Office, and a selection of games and stuff. Even when someone has the legitimate software, they sometimes use the "pirate pack" because the pirates take the time to have the properly localized versions of everything already set up. I think the Russians know that what they're doing isn't considered "right" though.

Certainly there are big pirating operations everywhere, but in some countries, pirating is the norm, and nobody thinks twice about it.

Re:What about MSDN windows

[Sunda666]

too true, but not anymore... the guys at SRF seemed to come to their senses and released
a java version of the proggie this year (IRPF2004). Runs on OsX, Solaris, Linux, anywhere
that the sun JDK runs. Used it this year and it is very nice. Check it in 2005.

cheers.

Re:What about MSDN windows

[Satan's Librarian]

Perhaps you have a volume license agreement with volume keys, a corporate version of XP, or did not perform installs on 30-40 substantially different PC's. I've always had an individual Professional level subscription. With either, you may reinstall multiple times to a single PC so long as that PC's hardware does not change dramatically without decrementing your usage count more than once for that given PC.

However, there is a limit to the number of different/reconfigured PC's you can install to using the provided key, and yes tracking that can be a pain in the ass. I've worked on projects where we needed to test on lots of PC's over a multiple month period, and we ended up having to basically make a pool of keys from multiple subscriptions so that people with more extreme requirements (like the device driver guys) wouldn't run out of activations.

Yes, we could have constantly reinstalled without activating or kept calling MS tech support, but both of those also qualify as a pain in the ass in my book.

Suck your own smoke.

Re:What about MSDN windows

[sk8king]

Playing UT2003 one day [purchased, legitimate copy] and for an hour I kept getting booted off the network because some pirate had a key generator that was generating MY key. Boy was I bitter at that one.

I guess the same thing could happen with WindowsXP...someone generates your key and then you look like the pirate because to the microsoft servers, this key is showing up on two [or more] computers.

So, imagine how you, the legitimate consumer would feel being denied updates and accused of being a pirate because of a real pirate.

ARRRGGGHHHHH! Darn crooks.

Re:What about MSDN windows

[Satan's Librarian]

You are aware that I said 'multiple developers' and 'multiple subscriptions' and 'testing' which is usually considered a part of software development? What's your point?

Okay, here, I'll slow it down a bit for those that don't grok the problems here...

Say I want to test a piece of software with 10 PC's simultaneously for 3 months without reformatting them. That's fine by the license - just activate each and go for it.

Now say I get two new machines in with completely different hardware that is supposedly having an incompatibility with the product. I remove XP on two of the old machines that have proven to work well with the product and do a format, then send them off to IT to be used for whatever. The licensed software has been removed - you'd think one could install it on the two new machines now and run for three more months without problems, yes? No, because of the stupid activation limitations. That's scenario 1.

Now, howabout a situation where there are 2 developers, each with his own MSDN license. Both are working on a single project, but their testing needs are different. Developer A needs to do a lot of different OS/configuration testing, but the actual hardware doesn't matter that much - let's say he's the apps guy. Developer B needs to test on every variation of hardware he can possibly get his hands on, because he's the driver guy working on a USB device. Because of the large variety of USB implementations out there (many of which are flawed in their own special way), he really needs to do hard-core, long term testing on several different machines. So, Developer A and Developer B pool their resources - both are working on the same project within a single room, so it makes sense that they should be able to do that. A gets 5 machines, B gets 15.

Now, combine the two situations and add more developers over a longer period of time. What you have now is a clusterfuck. Despite the fact that your team has legitimately purchased enough licenses to run on all the machines they have at any one time, you now have a definite possibility of a license shortage and you're forced to keep a list of all of the developer keys with tallies on how many times each has been used so you'll have known keys available when it comes time to remove old/broken/obsoleted test machines and bring in new ones.

Now, to add another issue in the mix - if you renew your subscription, you keep the same key and don't get additional reinstalls. So, either you beg your representative to refresh your key or give you a new one, or you're even more limited on test machines unless you cancel your MSDN subscription and buy a new one - getting 10 more installs in the process.

Got it?

Re:What about MSDN windows

[goodydot]

This is similar to needle exchange programs...we are giving away needles to known 'criminals,' but it is okay because of the positive health consequences. I agree with this logic absolutely...illegal copies of windows should be patched because it helps keep the rest of the net safer. BAH!

Hey lets support the thieves!

[Anonymous Coward]

Pirates should get updates as much as they get support from any other product they stole: Zero.

Want software without paying for it? Use Free Software. Theres heaps of it.

Re:Hey lets support the thieves!

[bromba]

But if they don't update, then the rest with legal copies is also affected when pirates computers get infected by worms.

I have a modest proposition: MS should made for pirates a "special" version of the security update: one that will disable the whole TPC/IP stack

Muahahahahaha!!!!! Take that, Mr. Pirate!!!!

Re:Hey lets support the thieves!

[mentin]

They can still download security updates from download area. You don't have to use windowsupdate.com to get updates. Go to technical bulletins, select one that you want to patch, download stand-alone fix.

Re:Hey lets support the thieves!

[ValourX]

I totally agree, however Microsoft should horon their "pirates." After all, if it weren't for the people who illegally copy and distribute Windows, the Microsoft market share would not be what it is right now. Microsoft owes a lot to "pirates."

-Jem

Re:Hey lets support the thieves!

[arivanov]

That is correct. I have "on the ground" observation from 3-5th world countries that it does not enforce until market penetration reaches at least 80%. In fact I have seen Microsoft reps and partners handing out CDs like candy to kids especially in the academia. All of them with versions that are later blamed to be pirated and with keys like 1234-5678. Once all alternatives are dead Bill comes to discuss the matters of software piracy with the prime minister or the president and bolts start to tighten. Two years later MSFT has one more steady revenue stream.

It is the same scheme crack dealers use in schools and IMO it should be prohibited. If you do not enforce a license you must lose your rights as entitled by the license.

Re:Hey lets support the thieves!

[RTMFD]

TPC/IP stack? What's that, Transactions per Century/IP?

Re:Hey lets support the thieves!

[ndpatel]

Not funny... Insightful.. I fully support this idea. (As someone who is currently using LEGAL copies of Windows XP Pro, .Net Studio, and Windows 2000 Server.

at last, someone with some real credentials.

Re:Hey lets support the thieves!

[localhost00]

Want software without paying for it? Use Free Software. Theres heaps of it.

There is a problem with that. I don't call myself a Lixux zealot, and in fact, I triple-boot XP/ME/Mdk 10. I live in a dorm where I know of at least two people on my floor alone who have snaked copies of XP Pro. I try to convey to these people that Linux is out there and is free, if they really don't want to pay for XP. Yet, I get the distinct impression that their motive for snaking XP isn't just to have a free OS, but because they are used to Windows, and have this need to conform to the majority of the online population. They probably believe it to be uncool to use Linux.

I also think they would have an illegal XP if just to feel rebelious rather than play it safe and have Linux on their computer. So I don't think pointing them to legitamite free software is going to get them to dump their illegal copy of XP.

I find it odd that in America, we have goals of individuality, yet, some people choose to let the majority overly influence their choices. They do everything that 75% of Americans do because they want to express their individuality. Do I smell a contradiction here?

Re:Hey lets support the thieves!

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

My textbook says, "In one form of dumping, a company sells products abroad at prices below its cost of production. In another, a company exports a large quantity of a product at a lower price than the same product in the home market and drives down the price of the domestic product." (Contemporary Business, 11e). Dumping is an illegal pratice. Of course, that's never stopped Microsoft before. They come from the school that believes laws are just "guidlines" and use their huge cash reserves to pay off any indiscretions.

Re:Hey lets support the thieves!

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot install service packs without a valid CD key, neither from windows update, or downloaded. If you have one of the infamous 'corporate' xp keys, it will not let you complete the install. There is a workaroud, however. You can generate a CD-Key and modify your installation's key with simple software tools and a few minutes.

Re:Hey lets support the thieves!

[Solstice]

http://www.apple.com

Windows free, 24x7 support, and even CD Recording.

Re:Hey lets support the thieves!

[Anonymous Coward]

You can unpack them and copy the DLLs over.
That will install updates.

Yes, I patched DCOM on a machine without SP1
this way.

Re:Hey lets support the thieves!

[Finuvir]

It's a hoop that's not there for pirated copies. And it's a hoop that shouldn't exist at all. I'm not inclined to give money to a company that assumes I'm a pirate by default and asks me to prove otherwise. Would you shop at a store where the security guard frisked you as you left every time (or even just the first time)?

Re:Hey lets support the thieves!

[Myopic]

Just remember: it's not that Microsoft thinks it can get away with breaking the law; rather, Microsoft realizes it can get away with breaking the law.

Just pirate the patches

[britneys 9th husband]

If they can pirate the operating system, why can't they just pirate the patches too?

Re:Just pirate the patches

[Anonymous Coward]

But they already trusted a pirated copy of Windows.

Re:Just pirate the patches

[jawtheshark]

That depends... I don't run Windows XP (I run Windows 2000 and Mac OS X), but if I did and if it was a pirated copy, my box wouldn't get infected. Simply because I'm cautious and I have a nice firewall (different box, running OpenBSD). I know, I know, a firewall is just one level of security and doesn't guarantee a full comprimise. It still ensures that I'd be safe of worms like Sasser. A lot would be solved if all users on broadband would have a firewall (preferably a hardware one). I'm pretty sure that many pirates of Windows XP are computer-literate and know how to enable the built-in firewall of XP.

Pirate doesn't equal stupid, it just equals "too cheap to buy a version of Windows". As other posters have stated: Microsoft owes *a lot* to pirates. Imagine what would have happened if Windows 95 would have had "real" copy protection. The migration would have happened a lot slower. Heck, I only "upgraded" to Windows 95 in 97. From OS/2 that is. I loved OS/2. *sniff*

Re:Just pirate the patches

[jawtheshark]

Well, I do patch my Win2000 system. However I stay at SP2 because of the EULA, so I can only apply hotfixes. Works fine. No worries, I do not rely on my firewall only.

The problems with pirating an OS (at least to the consumer) is that it is part of the computer they bought. On top of that the OS has no percieved value to the consumer. At least *not* 200$. You should see the reaction you get of people when you actually try to explain to them that their OS costs nearly more than the hardware. It is just too expensive for the average consumer. Compare it a bit to music CD's: people are perpared to pay 0.99$ per song, but not 20$ for a copy-proteced Audio-CD with only fillup songs and one hit.

It is easy to say "just use Linux/BSD" (I do for the matter - I run a variety of systems), but what am I going to say to my brother: uhm, brother, give me 200$, I need to buy Windows XP for you so that you can legally play GTA Vice City on your computer (which originally came with 98SE, but it can't handle the hardware I added later on -- and yes, he bought the game, it's not pirated). You might find it strange, but I usually frown upon pirating with one exception: the OS. There are free OSes, and I can use them. My brother can't.

Re:Just pirate the patches

[AKnightCowboy]

If they can pirate the operating system, why can't they just pirate the patches too?

Because pirates are stupid and lazy... too lazy to download invidual patches without letting WindowsUpdate figure it out for them. Personally I feel Microsoft should have code in all their patches that checks for software piracy (not only of their operating system, but of other software like Photoshop and Office) and disables the whole operating system if it finds evidence of it. If you're going to use Microsoft then you have to learn to eat dogshit and buy it like you're supposed to. Sure, it'll bankrupt you to spend thousands of dollars for legitimate software, but by pirating it you're just artificially reducing the cost to zero. Use Linux and free software instead.

Re:Just pirate the patches

[Rylfaeth]

Use Linux and free software instead.

Fact: professional software costs a shitload of money that most home users can't afford.

Fact: using pirated software builds both familiarity and brand loyalty

Fact: most free software cannot hold a candle to the commercial software it attempts to emulate (see GIMP vs Photoshop argument)

Keeping those three points in mind, companies like Microsoft and Adobe secretly don't care that you didn't pay for your copy of Windows or Photoshop.. it's the perfect scenario: Person pirates sofware. Person feels like a rebel and is doubly excited to use it. Person learns software and becomes dependant on it. Person gains employment. Person's employer purchases software for person to do their job. Software company profits. Simple as that. Piracy sucks for game companies, but in my opinion really helps large software powerhouses.

-Rylfaeth

Microsoft knows what they're doing

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever they decide will no doubt be best for everyone. Afterall, they have the resources to really look into the questions while all we can do is speculate.

Well

[222]

If they cant download the updates, and havoc is all the more extreme because of poor MS coding, it only shines a brighter light on alternative operating systems.
Ive been saying forever that the year MS perfects its anti-piracy technique really WILL BE the year of the linux desktop, and this (at least in my eyes) is a step closer to that.

Re:Well

[Joel Carr]

Actually, not letting pirates update their copy of Windows I believe partly works in Microsoft's favour. I personally have 3 friends who have purchased a copy of Windows XP simply because of the hassles of trying to patch their pirated copies.

---

Re:Well

[praksys]

You hit the nail on the head. MS has no obligation to pirates, and no responsibility for the problems caused by pirates. But the problems caused by these insecure windows machines are a PR black-eye for MS, a pain for their paying customers, and a great reason for the pirates to switch to free software. If the pirates switch then that will eventually cut into the network effect value of windows. If MS had any sense they would provide the patches to all. Fortunately I think it is unlikely.

Re:Well

[thogard]

MS has an obligation to ensure that their products do not cause harm to others according to nearly ever product safety law in the world. If you steal a Ford pickup and it needs a recall and you kill someone as a result of the defect, Ford won't be let off the hook.

One of these days Microsoft is going to get nailed by a "innocent third party" law suit and then the avalanche of law suits will start.

Re:Well

[Oinos]

if MS made a genuine attempt to stop piracy it would be the beginning of their end.

This reminds me of the immortal words of Steve Ballmer:

"I'd rather have someone using a pirated copy of my software instead of a legitimate copy of someone else's."

Re:Well

[dcw3]

MS has an obligation to ensure that their products do not cause harm to others according to nearly ever product safety law in the world. If you steal a Ford pickup and it needs a recall and you kill someone as a result of the defect, Ford won't be let off the hook.

One of these days Microsoft is going to get nailed by a "innocent third party" law suit and then the avalanche of law suits will start.


IANAL, and I doubt that you are either, but I suspect the result would be that the MS attorney will appropriately point out that they didn't build the stolen version...otherwise it would have been patched. Case dismissed.

Re:Well

[ReallyQuietGuy]

One of these days Microsoft is going to get nailed by a "innocent third party" law suit

This isn't +5 interesting, this is +5 wishful thinking.

Re:Well

[ReallyQuietGuy]

If the pirates switch

why do you assume they won't just switch to paid Windows?

"damn it sucks, my windows doesn't work anymore, all this worm stuff on it makes it really fucked up, i can't patch it 'cos, well, its pirated"

"hey man, just try this CD, it's got this great OS on it and it's called Linux, sorry I mean GNU/Linux, and not only are the security updates free, the entire OS is free and legal!"

##next day##

"hey, man, i dunno what the thing is that you gave me, but i dunno how to use it, and they tell me none of my (also-pirated) games work on it, so i'm gonna go to the store now and cough up that money for windows, thanks anyway"

you're rated +4 interesting now, but it looks more like +5 wishful thinking. there's a whole ecology around windows that doesn't go away. unless linux can become in some way a "drop in replacement" of windows (distribs with WINE bundled are headed that way but is not there yet, and MS may yet find a way to stop it), any switchers-to-linux will be negligible.

best of all, winxp's firewall WILL stop most of these worms, so whats most likely gonna happen is these guys are gonna 1. reinstall, 2. live with an unpatched pirated windows but with the firewall on.

Re:Well

[deadlinegrunt]

"MS has an obligation to ensure that their products do not cause harm to others..."

Funny as the way I recall it seems the software industry in general through the power of EULA's require you to not hold them responsible for anything even though you are a paying consumer. One of the only industries that I am aware of that you can do this.

I believe the _only_ obligation is to its share holders. I may be wrong however...

Re:Well

[cduffy]

Go look up the legal requirements for a binding contract -- there's about five of them -- and decide for yourself if the last EULA you read meets them.

Read carefully

[News for nerds]

the EULA attached to the security patches, even when you are legitimate owner of a copy of Windows!

Re:Read carefully

[codemachine]

They can be nasty, but what can you do? If you're administering Windows machines on a network, you can't really decide not to update them (at least not without a lot of trouble). Yes, I'd love to get rid of Windows entirely, but unfortunately it isn't my call.

I really think it should be illegal for them to change your license in an update anyhow. I mean, do the warranty conditions on your car suddenly change drastically when they replace parts in a recall? I'm sure some of you can come up with better analogies.

They are basically forcing their users to change the licensing deal well after the initial agreement and purchase. But aren't we paying for the license to use the software in the first place (as the EULAs themselves make clear). How can they change the terms of that license after we've already paid for it? I suppose that is in the EULA somewhere too though.

So basically we pay for a license giving us the right to use their software. And that license may change at any time at their discretion. Especially if the product is faulty and needs an update.

Considering the cost of the software, the relative functionality compared to alternatives, and these licensing terms, I have to wonder why is it so many people buy this stuff again?

Re:Read carefully

[RLiegh]

Because a)because they do video editing, which is not possible under linux b)because their work foists Office XP documents off onto them, which are uneditable under Linux. Yes, you can open them with OO --sometimes-- but OO mucks up the files when it saves them. The result is not something you want to hand over to your boss.

In short, these people have real needs, and real considerations and Linux --as decent as it is-- does not cover all things for all people.

Re:Read carefully

[Anonymous Coward]

It all depends on where you live, in Australia we have a law which says that all terms and conditions must be presented before or at point of sale and that any thing after that is entirely null and void, the M$ EULA fits entirely into this category. The question is do you want to take them to court over it? if 14 states and the DOJ failed what makes you think you stand a hope in hell..

Re:Read carefully

[dtfinch]

I'll consider it a serious problem when I wake up outside Microsoft's headquarters missing a kidney or other nonvital organs.

A EULA is not as binding as a contract is. They can say whatever they want, but they're limited in what can actually be enforced. They can make you stop using the software, and not too much more.

And they won't want you to stop using Windows, because then you'll have to use something else.

Re:Read carefully

[Jardine]

They can be nasty, but what can you do?

I go downtown and lure small children into my car with candy, money, and toys. Then I drive them to my house and ask them to click on I Agree, Yes, or Ok.

Re:Read carefully

[optimus2861]

How can an EULA make you stop using the software? Yes, I know there's all the legalese about how the EULA "grants" you the right to install & use the software, but it runs right up against Section 117 of US copyright law that says the owner of a copy of software has the right to install & use that copy on a machine link.

So right off the bat the EULA is lying. You already have the right to install and use your copy of the software; Microsoft can't grant you what you already have. Now, nothing says you can't give up this right in a binding contract, so MS would have to successfully argue before a judge that the EULA is a binding contract in order to hold you to its terms.

Fat chance, says I. I can think of a couple of defences right off the bat: coercion (if I don't want to agree to the EULA but exercise my statutory right anyway, the software gives me no means to do so), no consideration (MS doesn't give me anything in exchange for agreeing to its terms), and some take on first-sale doctrine (I bought my copy from a third party, not MS; MS shouldn't get to impose additional terms on me after a sale it wasn't even involved in).

MS has never even taken an end-user to court to attempt to enforce its terms, either, to my knowledge. They came up with product activation instead to act as their own judge.

Two notes: this scenario wouldn't apply to commercial use of the software, especially for firms that sign license agreements before any copies of software change hands; and this assumes you could afford to fight off the MS-megabuck lawyers in the first place.

(Insert usual IANAL disclaimer here.)

Already a technical error...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bull. I update my pirate copies of XP all of the time.

Re:Already a technical error...

[Phosphor3k]

The situation kinda reminds me of the illegal immigrants getting schooling in the US. I mean, we already let them have free primary and secondary educations. Why not give them in-state tuition rates at colleges and universities like so many states are starting to do.

Tricky situation...

[Cyno01]

Its microsofts perogotive, theyre not in any way required to support pirated versions of their software, and why should they bother. On the other hand, these worms negativly effect everyone. Although if your smart enough to pirate windows (there are some tricks joe sixpack wouldn't know right away) you should be savy enough to get a keygen of kazza or something. Not that thats how i got XP SP1 or anything...

Re:Tricky situation...

[Nerd With Nalgene]

Although if your smart enough to pirate windows

A great deal of windows piracy is by people who have absolutely no idea what they're doing. Other people do the pirating for them, and they just use the OS the same as if they had bought it.

oooooooooo lord yes

[ResQuad]

Not saying I pirate windows or anything of the sort. But jsut because they dont get patches doesnt mean they wont pirate. It just means that when worms come out, it will be that much worse. Pirates tend to be a lil smarter, and actually keep their systems up to date.

I would hate to see sasser or code red hit the large percetage of people that pirate, and CANT patch. Internet go byebye!

Beta versions and corporate license CDs

[frenztech]

I've seen several "corporate" XP cds floating around, as well as some beta versions which contain all XP functionality once patched through Windows Update.

Microsoft disables some CD keys already which are known to be pirated, but I wonder how many valid corporate group cd key installations there are which have been pirated. In that case, it really wouldn't be feasible for MS to disable that cd key, as it would disable that entire company, etc.

Re:Beta versions and corporate license CDs

[plasm4]

Microsoft did disable keys known to be pirated, but a simple way around this is to download the key generator and change your key with a little hack. I had to do this to get some service pack installed.

Re:Beta versions and corporate license CDs

[forged]

People w/o a valid SP1 key, please I implore you, don't look over this way =)

Re:Beta versions and corporate license CDs

[boa13]

Actually, reading his site, it seems he has been in "contact" with Microsoft lawyers several times already. They have repeatedly gotten his providers to cut access to his pages through legal threats. (The current site is the fifteenth relocation of the pages.)

However, he claims the numbers are not copyrighted nor trademarked, so the law does not forbid posting them. Since it seems he has published them for some time and still not directly been sued by Microsoft, this might actually be true.

Of course

[HenryFjord]

It is fundamentally a companies sole responsibility to ensure that any flaws within its products are fixed. By using their own mistakes as a punishment for people who pirate that are propagating flawed copies of their software. Microsoft should allow any user of their products regardless of if they have a right to it to have updates. They can fight piracy in more responsible and effective ways, for there are other people who use the network.

Re:Of course

[mentin]

I think car thefts should request dealer service and free oil change for cars they have stolen too.

And if one stole a TV from a shop, and TV is broken, he should be able to bring it back and request a replacement.

Re:Of course

[mentin]

Patches to operating systems are more analogous to repairs of design faults than gas refill, oil changes or other regular services.

It would be very nice if that was true, but it is not. Neither Windows, nor OS X, nor Linux can work connected to internet without regular patching - this is reality of software development. You can setup a firewal, but you still have to patch IE or Mozilla, probably Office or OpenOffice, etc.

In current state of the art, patching is like oil change and other regular services.

Unlike Ford, which has to guarantee some minimum safety features, neither Windows, nor OS X, nor Linux guarantee you anything. And obviously, Ford would not be liable for accident which happened to a car which went 50k without an oil change.

Re:Of course

[pi42]

I know you've been modded funny, but I feel like I've seen this argument a lot in this thread, so I'll post an earnest response.

I think that offering working upgrades to pirates is more like offering clean needles to IV drug addicts rather than free oil changes to carjackers -- it's in everybody's best intrest for them to be free of AIDS or other diseases transmitted by needles. Even though they're breaking the law by taking illegal drugs, it's certainly a much better policy to offer the needles than to let AIDS act as a deterrent to illegal drug use.

Microsoft is not a charity

[stere0]

Why should it have to pay for the bandwidth to support pirated copies? There is no benefit to them.

Most if not all infected Sasser users around here had legit but hadn't bothered to update. Real crackers use the corporate version of Windows that apparently doesn't require a CD key for updates.

Re:Microsoft is not a charity

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should it have to pay for the bandwidth to support pirated copies? There is no benefit to them.

It helps them maintain their monopoly. If people couldn't pirate Windows many of those people would switch to Linux.

Re:Microsoft is not a charity

[vida]

Why should it have to pay for the bandwidth to support pirated copies? There is no benefit to them.

I think, my friend, that therein lies the issue. Think about it for a minute and try putting yourself in MS place... You already developed your software. You already paid for it. You are spending no money in distributing it. You are not supporting in any way the people w/ pirated windows copies. The bandwith costs are negligible. 95% of all the new desktop computers sold pay a forty or so dollars tax to you. You are sitting on 50 billon dollars in fairly liquid assets. You are scared silly of open source advances... why in the world would you not provide free upgrades to a couple hundred thousand computers when the alternative they might chose is what scares you silly in the first place?

why are we even discussing this again?

Re:Microsoft is not a charity

[Xugumad]

Well, if I was running a pirated version of Windows, and found out I couldn't secure my system because it was a pirated version, it would encourage me to actually buy a copy. While it might not persuade many people, I don't see MS wanting to make life easier for people without legal copies of Windows.

Support

[Oriumpor]

Support is Free ... duh, not like they have to pay for all that bandwidth or anything. They may be able to afford it, but why would any company (ala: Redhat) be forced to maintain something that wasn't purchased? All real property vs intellectual property ideals aside, that's like blaming Ford that your stolen car can't be serviced.

I have been of the oppinion that App level firewalls at the ISP level (hell even port blocking during worm-storms) is a necessary function. During the Nachi outbreak ISPs were killing ICMP just because of the sheer mass of pings flying around were bring down gear.

At the very least, ISPs should be responsible for the prevention of outbound malicious traffic, automated or manual (aka: crackers, kiddies etc.)
When they knowingly ignore the traffic traversing their network and wreaking havoc on others, I am always disgusted.

Not that my shit don't stink, but if I got a line spewing worm, it gets pulled till it's clean. Thank goodness for the public sector.

Re:Support

[sw155kn1f3]

Do you understand what processing power ISP should have in order to filer the traffic at app-level?
The cost will skyrocket. Who gonna pay for that? Subscriber of course.

Re:Support

[Areeves]

Yes because ISP's get bandwidth free flowing from the backbone, which they repackage and sell for an outrageous markup. Massive worm traffic costs ISP's too, they pay for bandwidth at some level too, less flooding, more customers per t-1 ds3 oc whatever = more money, at some point the profit/cost of filtering vs more users per line has become favorable to the ISP.

Re:Support

[ultranova]

I have been of the oppinion that App level firewalls at the ISP level (hell even port blocking during worm-storms) is a necessary function. During the Nachi outbreak ISPs were killing ICMP just because of the sheer mass of pings flying around were bring down gear.

How, excatly speaking, can an ISP know which app generated which packet in a remote machine ?

And ISP-level port blocking is the foulest evil an ISP can commit, far worse than asymmetric connections or hidden monthly usage limits. Port blocking prevents your computer from being used as anything except a simple surf station; even some FTP sites refuse to work. There is absolutely no justification for this.

Internet was designed to be a P2P network. Do not break it. Especially just because some people insist on using computers without bothering to learn to maintain them (or hiring someone else to do so).

At the very least, ISPs should be responsible for the prevention of outbound malicious traffic, automated or manual (aka: crackers, kiddies etc.) When they knowingly ignore the traffic traversing their network and wreaking havoc on others, I am always disgusted.

Yes, it's so simple and straightforward to tell a good packet from a bad. All it requires... is checking the evil bit !

An ISP is just a traffick carrier. In no way, shape or form, should they be responsible for the actions of their users. If they are, it will be an additional incentive for them to block all the ports from incoming connections, reducing the value of Internet for all and making interesting and important applications like Freenet impossible. But even if they block all the incoming ports, it still won't stop the worms from spreading (by e-mail), it will simply give them an excuse for the Courts ("Hey, we did our best !"). All pain, no gain.

As this is self-obvious, I must ask: Are you a RIAA mole, trying to destroy the P2P networks ? Or are you a government mole, trying to destroy the capacity of Internet for applications like Freenet ? Or are you just a particularly clever troll who got modded insightfull by a not-so-clever moderator ?

Inquiring minds want to know ?-)

Re:Support

[mcrbids]

Wow. All or nothin', eh?

Really. Given the choice between 90% of users being able to use the net, or 100% of users being unable to use the net, which do you choose?

It's perfectly reasonable to block certain types of packets during times of need. Is it desirable? No - but it's also not desirable to have worms, viruses, trojans, and other malware in the first place.

Get over it. Idealism on the 'net ended when it became a commercial entity. Now pragmatism is the rule of order.

If your ISP blocks ICMP during a ping storm (as the grandparent examples) in order to preserve some semblance of service, and you are offended by that, get another ISP.

And while you are getting over it, get real, too. Freenet is cool, but it's not going to save mankind, and not everybody in favor of pragmatic use of private resources is a fan of the Record Industry Association.

Re:Support

[Darkangael]

"All real property vs intellectual property ideals aside, that's like blaming Ford that your stolen car can't be serviced."

A stolen car which poses a danger to legitimate road users will normally be removed from the roads fairly quickly if it is really causing a problem, thus removing any threat an unroadworthy stolen car can pose to other road users and, importantly, in a way which does not disadvantage legitimate road users.

A pirate copy of XP will be used regardless of it being infected by many virii (Sasser excluded seeing as it shuts down most infected PCs :P) causing harm to other legitimate users of networks. In many cases this means that the only way to stop infected PCs becoming a problem is to do something similar to the approach blocking all ICMP to stop Nachi. This blocks legitimate ICMP as well, thus disadvantaging legitimate network users.

Eventually a there will probably be at least one flaw affecting each of the most popular ports. Blocking these would render the internet effectively useless, so unless another better method can be found, we have the choice of either blocking EVERY access to potentially vulnerable (ALL) services, or we allow infected PC's to remain, putting an unnecessary load on networks worldwide and eventually most likely destroying said networks.

For a while...

[HFactor_UM]

...I was using a pirated version of Windows XP. I'm now using a 100% legit copy, thanks to the MSDNAA and Microsoft's attempt at farming software dependencies.

It's probably in everyone's interest to give out patches to all, even those that Micro$oft knows are illegal copies, as it probably impacts the spread of viruses such as Sasser more than it does their pocketbook.

Updates

[evilmuffins]

Uhhh, you can still download updates with a pirated version of Windows Xp. There are many programs that anyone can easily download, that will generate, and put to use a new serial number that will allow you to use Windows Update.

Re:Updates

[Dun Malg]

Uhhh, you can still download updates with a pirated version of Windows Xp. There are many programs that anyone can easily download, that will generate, and put to use a new serial number that will allow you to use Windows Update.

Even better than that is "Reset5". Updates are allowed for unactivated XP installs that are still in the first 30 days. Reset5 is a little service that runs at startup and magically keeps that 30 day grace period timer set at 30 days. This is actually more than just a handy tool for pirates. I personally use it on my legitimate copy of XP Pro because the stupid piece of crap DE-ACTIVATES ITSELF if I change more than a couple pieces of hardware (something I do with remarkable frequency).

MSFT Can Pick Its Poison

[aerojad]

Company profits vs. general good of the internet. I really wonder which one they'll choose.

(note that I left out writing better software)

Re:MSFT Can Pick Its Poison

[codemachine]

Company profits vs. general good of the internet. I really wonder which one they'll choose.

(note that I left out writing better software)

Yeah, because writing better software would both cost money and serve the general good. So they have the same choice to make in that regards. We've all seen how they've made that decision in the past.

A better pick your poison scenario is this:

Spending money on bandwidth patching unpaid clients
vs
Spending money on bandwidth due to DDOS attacks from unpatched clients

Who knows.

[modifried]

Maybe it's something you could get used to.

Frank: Hey Bob, could I burn a CD on your computer?
Bob: Yeah sure.
Frank: Uhh. It says it's going to shut down in 60 seconds.
Bob: Yep. Gotta work fast.

Re:Who knows.

[Glug]

An uptime of 60 seconds sounds pretty good to me, but I never get the message that it's going to shut down. Are you saying I'd get that feature if I switched to a pirated copy of Windows?

Not quite,

[Bon bons]

Considering the vast amount of bandwidth that is sent out with each patch, I don't think it is unfair for M$ to prevent pirated copies from patching.

Give people more incentive to use linux instead of a pirated copy of XP.

Windows Xp Sp2 Latest Build

[Anonymous Coward]

The latest build( released in the last 4 days ) of the xp service pack2 beta, blocks a whole range of keys. People who have been using the corporate version of xp, using a keygen will find it will find it needs activating when the apply service pack 2.

The keygen(a very very very popular one) generates product keys in the range 640-645. SP2 turns activation back on when it detects this.

Re:Windows Xp Sp2 Latest Build

[PhrostyMcByte]

Unfortunately for them, there is already a keygen out that will generate within any range you give it, and not take 20min to do it. Or so I hear. I'm a beta tester for SP2, don't need to gen keys for it :P

Re:Windows Xp Sp2 Latest Build

[Jarnis]

Irrelevant. Once SP2 final is out, a new keychanger will be around within a day or two. Nobody is just bothering with it right now because MS could just block the volume keys in the next build.

(And obiviously a new corporate edition of WinXP+SP2 with working volume license key will be out - probably even faster than the SP2 installer)

But way too many warez windows user is *still* using the first Devils0wn release with a blacklisted key. No SP1 for j00. Perfect host for all kinds of viral stuff...

Even MS knows it cannot prevent it completely, but by making it hard for the joe average user they are selling new licenses. Like when a joe sixpack goes 'updates don't work *again*? And if I don't update, my comp will be hosed this time next week? I need to bother my brother's kid again and let him to mess up my computer while installing some new warez version? BAH I go buy original.'

This happens pretty damn often - I work at PC repairs and when we get warez windows PC which is unpatched, we clearly say that either you buy a windows license, or all of the non-hardware problems you have are yours. We won't touch it. Certain age group tends to take their PC back and either live with the problems or get the new warez version, but those who don't care if it costs 100$ for an OEM WinXP tend to fork out money and ask us to fix the damn thing for good. They have used a pirated copy earlier because they felt that the 100$ was 'wasted money' - pirated copy worked just as fine. As soon as it suddenly doesn't work just as fine, they see value in tossing the 100$ at MS.

Re:Windows Xp Sp2 Latest Build

[Powerdog]

If you look at your System Properties, on the General tab it should say "Registered to:". In that section is a number of the form NNNNN-NNN-NNNNNNN-NNNNN. It's the second group of Ns that the poster is referring to (640-645).

Why should they be able to?

[Maddog2030]

We need to create an environment where piracy is looked down upon, not encouraged. Giving them updates is simply encouraging pirate behavior.

If an infected machine becomes such a problem that they're affecting other people, ISP's should simply revoke a users access until they upgrade to the latest patches and remove the virus. A pirated version of Windows wouldn't be able to get the updates and therefore would probably keep on getting the virus, costing them a great deal of inconvience every time their internet is shut off. Not to mention the knowledge that thier machine is going to be swamped with viruses and that their computer will be completely insecure.

The best way to get rid of pirates is to make the cost of pirating greater than the cost of buying the software (or finding a legit alternative).

Re:Why should they be able to?

[l0ungeb0y]

You don't get out much do you?

Ever noticed the amount of spam and worm traffic that comes out of Asia, Russia and South America?
Do you have any idea how pervasive warez are in China, Thailand and other countries?

Maybe you haven't noticed all that spam and virii.
I for one have firewalled, installed spam assassin, razor, run a second set bayesian filteres on my email client and STILL get spam in my inbox and see funky crap in my server logs.

Ohhh.... and I don't even RUN WINDOWS.
All my machines are either OS X or RH 9.

The fact is, microsoft puts out a product and that product is flawed (no ones perfect). By not allowing ALL users of their product to correct those flaws, they harm EVERYONE regardless of OS used. If you're online in any way, shape or form YOU are effected.

If Ford had such flaws that would cause a car to veer off course defying it's owners control, a recall would be issued and ALL owners would be elligible. Mind you, regardless if they were the 1st, 2nd 3rd or 4th owner or whether or not they had a Ford service plan or were covered under warranty.

An OS vuln is no different. And by simply ignoring 100,000 pirated copies of windows XP in China they allow for 100,000 virii hosts to spewn spam worldwide.

Those 100,000 machines then infect your licensed machine, spam my LAN, and cause a fortune 500 tens if not hundreds of thousands in costs per year in associated cost.

But hey... as long as those damn pirates don't get anything for free I guess it's ok right?

Simple answer, but not...

[Temsi]

The simple answer is yes.
For the common good of the internet, as well as for the sake of protecting Microsoft's already spotty image, they should be allowed to download hotfixes... after all, they wouldn't need them if Micrsoft had done it right in the first place.

The corporate answer is no.
They didn't pay for the software and are therefore ineligible for updates.

My opinion?
For the common good, Windows should go away. But until then, everyone running it, legally or not, needs to have access to emergency patches and fixes.

xp updates

[arfuni]

I'm pretty sure that most copies of pirated XP floating around (the keyless corporate versions) will let users install everything but service packs. I don't know a lick about international piracy, but I imagine it's the same software.

Not sure what's going on exactly...

[Robotech_Master]

I downloaded the patch to Win XP against Sasser, and it never even asked me for a CD key. (Which, given that I don't know where mine has gotten to now, is a good thing.)

Re:Not sure what's going on exactly...

[StevenMaurer]

Ah yes, but if you actually try to run it on an unpatched system still vulnerable to Sasser, it will ask you to upgrade. And that upgrade requires a key.

I had to do this just a couple hours ago -- on my Tektronix scope (that happens to run Win2k).

Re:Not sure what's going on exactly...

[|<amikaze]

If they key started with FCKGW then it is considered "Invalid". There were a few other keys that were considered Invalid too. Attempting to install SP1 with one of these keys would pop up a message saying that there's a license problem.

FCKGW-... being they key that was commonly distributed with the first major pirate release of XP (Devil's own).

Re:Not sure what's going on exactly...

[Anonymous Coward]

"FCK GW", man politics gets everywhere these days

The obvious answer is no, but it may not right.

[buro9]

Of course the initial response is to think that those who have pirated copies must not receive updates.

As with all things though it's seldom that simple.

When a company such as Microsoft gain a significant share of the market (yes... monopoly), then the damage that saying no could be could actually threaten the stability of that society were their software to fail sigificantly.

i.e. If machines cannot be patched with at least the bare security updates, and those machines then assist in the even wider propagation of a virus or worm such that it affects the infrastructure of the Internet as a more general thing.

Then in those cases, would it not have been a civic duty upon the company to protect the wider Internet and society (of their original shortcomings in allowing the vunerability to exist) regardless.

So I'm more of the opinion that No should be the answer for all bells and whistles things... such as Media Player. But that all security patches should be installed on every machine possible... regardless of whether that is a machine without a legit key or not.

Interesetingly, this is probably opposite Microsofts view. As to be able to manipulate market forces they need critical mass in areas suh as Media Player. So I think from their perspective they would probably wish to allow the whistles, but to encourage/force the upgrade to a legal version would probably wish to disallow stability patches (read: security) so that legit systems are more stable.

Re:The obvious answer is no, but it may not right.

[The Vulture]

Microsoft, nor does any other company, have a civic duty - their only duty is to make the shareholders money.

That said, if a person did not legally acquire a product, they don't deserve support for it, I couldn't care less if it was a product that almost everybody had, and only one company made it.

I'd be in favor of Microsoft giving out the security update, if they tracked everybody who didn't have a valid license and then tried to sue said user.

If I bring a stolen car for service at any place that checks the VIN on the car, I can fully expect to be arrested, I don't see why people who copy software should be any different.

-- Joe

Re:The obvious answer is no, but it may not right.

[sholden]

Microsoft, nor does any other company, have a civic duty - their only duty is to make the shareholders money.

The scary thing, the *people* actually believe that is how it should be.

The whole concept of corporate charters seems to have been completely forgotten and the idiotic notion "corporate personhood" accepted without question.

It didn't take all that long for America to chain itself back up with most of the chains it broke free from in 1776.

Re:The obvious answer is no, but it may not right.

[RevRigel]

Actually, the original reason corporations were granted charters at all were so that they could serve the citizenry in a way that was not possible for individuals to accomplish. They at all times exist at the whim of the citizens, at least in the United States.

Re:The obvious answer is no, but it may not right.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Microsoft, nor does any other company, have a civic duty - their only duty is to make the shareholders money."

You are very much mistaken. Microsoft, like any other company, can only function as it does by the grace of our civil society and its rules. Among which, the rules that protect (to an absurd extend imo) Microsofts intellectual property. Pirated copies are only pirated copies because we as a society say so, not because MS says so. Same goes for private property in general.

MS, and all other companies that profit from the possibilities and protection our society gives them owe that society.

They sure as hell have a civic duty. As do we all.

If you're not legally licensed,

[The Vulture]

You don't deserve the software update.

Granted, these people not getting the software updates will cause problems for the rest of us, in that they're propagating some sort of virus.

My solution to that is to shut off the users. If the ISP of this user can prove that the user's PC is infected and sending out the virus, then it should be simple for the ISP to say, "patch it, or we're shutting you down".

I'm not really fond of ISPs snooping in on my traffic to determine whether or not to cut me off, so they should base it on a complaint system - if somebody complains that you're spreading the virus, then the ISP investigates (I recall lots of people with logs of Code Red attacks). If they find proof that you're spreading the virus, then you're forced to patch, or if you can't, you're shut down.

Extreme, perhaps, but the only way that people will properly maintain their machines.

-- Joe

A tough call, indeed.

[Tokerat]

On the one hand there is piracy. Even if you say it's an advantage for Microsoft because of more dependency, the truth is that it isn't what they want people doing with their product, and it is illegal. If you want the support you should fork over for the product; after all Windows is about as Not-Free-Software as you can get. Perhaps if it wasn't such as widespread, costs to cover piracy would come down, and Windows would be cheaper and thus more easily availible. A rock and a hard place, people will need to buy before they can afford, and the numbers on actual piracy are way out of the realm of possible statistical analysis.

That being said, not getting security updates can cause problems for the Internet as a whole, not to mention for valid Windows users as pirate machines which can't be patched propigate viruses. That is more than just a problem for the people with bootleg'd copies themselves, that causes network congestion and performance problems for valid users as well. I know my Apache logs are still crammed with exploit attempts...

It's a question of responsibility vs. assisting lawbreakers. My (personal, humble) opinion is that Microsoft should allow security patches to all copies of Windows as it defeats expliots and worms/virii much quicker, but as for feature upgrades and bug fixes which are not a security issue, Microsoft should withold those unless the user has a valid serial key. True seriousness about security means defeating the problem for more than just customers, it means providing a better enviroment for everyone. This, I believe, is the root of the problem in the Microsoft attitude, and it's kind of sad that the largest software company on Earth can't see far enough past their bottom line to make such a move.

No one is (or should) ask them to give away anything more than saftey.

Can't they...

[ilyag]

.. download the patches form Windows Catalogue? Or do even they not work? What about service packs?

There's always a way ....

[charlos]

Why are we even discussing this stuff here? There's always going to be a way for people to change their pirate keys, just like there is now in order to install SP1 under XP. So, big deal! charlos

Because their bugs are trashing the net.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Its microsofts perogotive, theyre not in any way required to support pirated versions of their software, and why should they bother.

Because infected and unpatched instances of their software generally continue to operate for the user while clogging the net with viral traffic, serving as zombies for DDoS attacks and acting as spam forwarders.

This is damaging to legitimate customers of Microsoft's products, users of competitors' products, users of open-source products, and operators of the network infrastructure, as well as the users of unlicenced copies of their product.

But they CAN download updates!

[js3]

It is called the Microsoft Baseline security analyzer. It will tell you which updates you need to get and even point you to the security bulletin page to download it

The answer to this is simple...

[tarunthegreat2]

Say there is an outbreak of a highly contagious disease in your country, which can spread simply by breathing or something. Do you only inoculate your citizens, and skip the illegal immigrants? Only if you want to kill off your population.....

It depends.

[dtfinch]

It depends on what you call a "pirated copy of Windows". If you buy a new PC, it's probably preloaded with some version of Windows. At some point, you may decide or need to reinstall Windows, and you may not have the restore cd/dvd handy when that time comes. If you install a cracked version of Windows, same edition as the one you had before, are you a pirate? Nobody's going to steal a copy of Windows XP Home edition when they have the option of choosing any edition they want, unless they already had a legitimate right to use the Home edition and wanted to keep their conscience clean.

And the Microsoft monopoly adds an interesting spin to the issue of piracy. People no longer use Windows because they want to, but because Microsofts tactics have ensured that they'll probably need to. Microsoft is actively attacking legal alternatives to Windows, through investments in litigious bastards, software patents, and false advertising campaigns. They left the realm of capitalism and the free market years ago. They took choice out of the hands of the consumer and now they get free money. I personally respect their IP but it's getting harder and harder to blame Windows pirates these days. All the other pirates can go #### themselves, but stealing Windows is like stealing water from a company that poisoned your well.

Microsoft should definitely be able block updates to pirated copies of Windows if they wish. I think if they do it'll just fuel the switch to alternative operating systems, which their other commercial offerings won't run on. If they're confident that everyone that pirates Windows pirates the rest of their stuff as well, and they don't think giving alternative operating systems a foothold is going to be bad for their future, then they should go ahead.

But if you think about it, the most monopolistic action they could take would be to ALLOW pirated copies of Windows to be updated. It'd slow the adoption of alternative operating systems, and help keep estimates of worm and virus infection rates that so often make the news as low as possible. If the rates of Windows exploitation increases dramatically, people aren't going to think, "Oh, those are mostly just pirates who are being affected," they'll think, "Windows is looking less secure than ever before and look, I just got another dozen virus infected emails over my lunch break, maybe I should try this /.*[ui]x|.*BSD/ thing everyone's talking about."

Re:Hey! Are you getting Sasser with me?

[Lord Kano]

I run XP unpatched with no Antivirus and no problems.

You sound like the people in the porn industry who try to justify having sex without condoms.

If you have no antivirus software, how can you be so sure that there are no viruses?

LK

only for critical issues

[sir_cello]

This is a public policy issue.

The fact is that piracy levels are there. If updates against these critical security issues are not publically available, then the infected pirated machines are a social nuisance. These people are unlikely to buy a legitimate version anyway.

However, it should stop at critical issues: anything related to bug fixes or performance or reliability issues only available to licensed users.

Look at some of the AV companies: they do provide free disinfectant tools for critical issues: you can download and use these even if you are not the AV customer. However, if you want true AV support, then you do need to buy the product for the licensed updates.

Don't use Windows Update

[Gary Destruction]

Go to the Microsoft download center. Use the Microsoft Network Security Hotfix Checker Tool
Or better yet, use the Microsoft Security Baseline Analyzer Tool which includes Hfnetchk.exe.

Windows Update actually deletes downloaded updates once they're installed. You can try to retrieve them before they're installed. But it's easier to just download them from the download center. That way you can qchain 'em if you do a reinstall.

They CAN download security updates

[Zarxrax]

I know people with pirated windows, and they download all the security updates, straight frmo microsofts site. MS makes them available to everyone. You just can't get them off windows update. You can still find them by searching through the site the old fashoined way though.

Yes we should all pay for this too

[goombah99]

Since you think this act would have value how much are you willing to pay? Maybe there should be a per PC sold charge that you get charged regardless whether you install Windows or not. The money would go to microsoft to pay for all of those update they will be giving to pirates.

this seem only fair since providing service to pirates will only encourage piracy and shrink their market share. On the other hand since you get value out of not being bombarded with viruses and virus spawned spam you of course are happy to pay this small fee even if you install linux.

what do you think? How much would you pay to get MS to do this?

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[pantherace]

Among the stupidist ideas I have heard for a while. Either you get a moral right to pirate Microsoft (isn't that what the tax is for? to pay for your copyright infringing copy?) or you support a company that has screwed up security badly, and even if I don't use it wholy or in part due to the lack of security, you want me to pay?

And you are VERY wrong if you think that piracy will shrink their market share. I personally would be very happy if Microsoft stamped out EVERY pirate version, because their market share would be pretty small. Microsoft grew based on the piracy, and they know it. Now they are reaching the saturation point, and really only now have they started trying to make the pirates pay, because they are no longer contributing to the increase in profits, because the market share is so relatively high. They have known in the past that they can't stomp too hard or they would lose market share, but now they no longer care, and they can pull out the "the soul-stealing demonic copyright infringing people" (or pirates) sympathy/stupid-law-making card out.

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a better idea:

Maybe Microsoft should be charged for every byte of bandwidth that their stupid programming practices chew up when one of these viruses run rampant.

This would force Microsoft to clean up their act. They might actually start thinking about security instead of just paying lip service to it. Then, whether copies of Windows are pirated or legitimate, we just wouldn't have to deal with as much crap on the Internet!

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[black mariah]

It's a lame reference to most computers being sold with Windows pre-installed. If you're not going to use Windows, it's called the "Microsoft Tax" because you have to pay for Windows anyway. Lame thing to have a phrase for, isn't it? That's like complaining that your car comes with more seats than you use, so you have a "Seatbelt Tax".

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[Urkki]

• That's like complaining that your car comes with more seats than you use, so you have a "Seatbelt Tax".

Differences being

a) there's not only one company that makes seatbelts, and won't sell you any if you don't install them on every seat

b) you don't have to pay for 5 seatbelts if you get a 2-seater sports car

c) that seatbelts are mandated by government, not by some corporation that makes them but does not make cars

So actually it's nothing like it at all.

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[Anonymous Coward]

Seatbelts are required by law (and even if they weren't it would be more analogous to being required to use seatbelts by a particular manufacturer). Microsoft Windows isn't required by law (yet).

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[JPriest]

If I already own a copy of XP pro I should not have to pay another $300 for another copy to upgrade my other XP home machine. Also if I am going to pay for a windows license when I buy a computer, I should get a copy of windows with it and not a "quick restore" disk.

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[pearljam145]

I totally agree. I recently purchased a couple of computers with xp pro preinstalled. Now I wanted a clean install of xp without all that junk. but nopes, that's not possible. I DO NOT want real, aol, and all that crap on my pc. Please give me the opportunity to install the way I want to. My friend purchased a sony vaio preinstalled with xp home (ugh). He upgraded to pro. However he coulnt get drivers for the hot keys since sony says that they have tested those drivers only with home and u are supposed to install only home on it. What a piece of crap

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[ajs318]

Quick solution: If, like me, you bought a laptop and had to pay for Windows XP Home Edition even though you subsequently installed Linux on it, you effectively have a "spare" licence key. Why not everyone who has such a licence key, pass it on to somebody with a pirated copy of XP? That way you get some use out of it {through the rest of the Internet being one machine more secure than it would have used to have been otherwise}, and the Windows user gets updates. You might even get a pint out of it!

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[morcego]

You are actually forbidden to do that by the EULA.
So, even having the key, you would still be illegal.

You can be very sure Microsoft have ways to track the license number so the reseler.

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[Anonymous Coward]

Won't work... the keys on preinstalled windows are OEM keys. They won't work on a copy of windows that you install from a retail disk, or indeed, install at all. They only work with "restore discs" from your manufacturer.

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[zero_offset]

If you can't find or build a PC without Windows installed, you probably aren't the kind of user who can keep a computer running without Windows' hand-holding in the first place. I have NEVER bought a machine with Windows pre-installed -- I've bought very few pre-built machines, in fact -- which basically proves this "Microsoft Tax" thing is pure bullshit.

If you actually want a non-Windows PC, it's extremely easy to find one -- now more than ever, in fact.

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[Anonymous Coward]

You are actually forbidden to do that by the EULA.

Since I got my laptop with XP on, and clicked "I do not agree", reformatted and installed Slackware, I don't see what such an EULA has to do with me. I never agreed to the EULA, I never had any contact with Microsoft. The PC manufacturer gave me something I didn't want with the hardware, I had to spend time and effort cleaning it off the hard drive, and I'm giving away the last remnant unused.
Here's my unused key for Windows XP Home edition:

VQDYD-CBPCT-MR2JV-6WR9Y-Y6HX3

First come, first served!

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[Sunda666]

> in fact I wish they would write code that makes illigimate versions of windows to not allow any virus scanner to run
> plus crash randomly.

And how would they differ from the regular versions, anyway?!

cheers.

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[Junior J. Junior III]

That's a neat idea, and it's been a long time since I read the EULA for Windows, but I'm pretty sure that Microsoft's EULA specifically prohibits the transfer of licenses to other hardware than that which it came bundled with.

Which, means that yes, technically we have to live with such stupidities as I can't give away my old PC with Windows installed on it to someone else when I buy a new PC, and if I want to decomission some outdated system and install my existing Windows license on new hardware, I can't.

It's a good thing the damn licensing agreements are unenforceable.

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[nospmiS remoH]

Actually, I'd say it is more like trying to by a car without an engine. Say I have an old Toyota with a perfectly good engine. Now I want a new Toyota but I just want to re-install my old engine in the new car. The car is useless without an engine so most people just want whatever comes standard, but there are always people that want a "better" engine in their car. I'm not sure what my point is, but I think it is a better analgy.

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[nospmiS remoH]

That is quite possibly the best post I have ever read. Thank you.

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[gfxguy]

Well, I had a long rant and decided to just shorten it... the meaning of "Microsoft Tax" depends on WHEN you apply it. It used to be that all computers sold paid a royalty to MS wether or not they came with MSDOS. That was really what was known as the MS Tax.

Nowadays people use it to refer to the fact that you can't buy a major brand PC without Windows installed. Even IBM, at one point, who were competing with MS with OS/2, wouldn't sell you a computer without Windows. That had to do with the cliff pricing tactics MS used.

It's still hard to find a major brand you can buy "naked" or with an alternative OS. I know a bunch of idiots are going to respond about how that's not true, that you can buy a Dell, for example, with Linux - but I said it's "hard", not impossible. They do not make it easy.

Notebooks are the worst.

So often enough people who might run an alternative OS will buy a prebuilt system with Windows on it, even if they don't want it.

In other words, MS makes money off of almost every prebuilt PC sold (probably upwards of 99%). That's the MS tax.

Here's another one for you - let's say you bought a prebuilt computer with Windows XP. One day after the warranty expires, you spill coffee on it and fry it, and decide to just buy another PC - now you've bought two licenses of Windows XP but only use one. Yes, again, you CAN build your own PC or find a "naked" one somewhere, and then you can give MS all your private information over the phone, trying to explain you had to replace your computer all the while they think you are a pirate, but most people just buy the pre-built system and pay the "MS Tax".

Any geek can easily avoid it, though, and since most users of alternate OS' are geeks, I fail to see the big deal. Of course, if we hadn't fought it for years and years, you still wouldn't be able to buy a naked PC.

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[Pig Hogger]

You are actually forbidden to do that by the EULA.
So, even having the key, you would still be illegal.

This is Microsoft-concocted bullshit. They can say whatever they want in their EULAs, but any illegal clause, such as one that invalidates the right of first-sale, is inoperative.

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[ajs318]

You are talking out of your arse. You are permitted to sell it by the law of the land. If you haven't agreed to the End User Licence Agreement, then it doesn't apply to you at all. If you have agreed to the EULA, then only those parts that do not conflict with the law of the land apply to you.

If you were using a legal key obtained from a Linux user who purchased a copy of Windows without agreeing to the EULA, to activate a borrowed Windows CD, then you would be entirely within your rights under the "any necessary step" provision -- especially as the purchase was made under duress and under protest {which fact it might help to write on the cheque or payment card receipt}. Where someone is physically preventing you from doing something which you have a legal right to do, then you are entitled to use reasonable force. This defence will fail, however, if the court believes that you could have accomplished your intention using less force. Show me a court that wouldn't consider installing a "pirated" copy of Windows to be less forceful than, say, holding a knife to someone's throat and demanding that they sell you a laptop without Windows.

If you accept the EULA, you are not prohibited from selling your copy of Windows -- you have an inalienable right to do that; just like selling a used book, CD or video cassette. It is an offence for anyone to try to persuade you that you do not have that right.

Note that none of this has ever been tested in court. And the numbers of people prepared to jump through all the hoops are so small, that Microsoft could afford to pay compensation equivalent to several times the theoretical amount refundable, by way of "hush money".

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[pantherace]

The courts have explicitly said you can resell bundled software. I think it was a case that involved Gateway (back when it was Gateway 2000) Ticked off some companies that were riding less-than-stellar software on the bundles.

Unfortunately google searches don't have it where I can find it easily.

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[arkanes]

It's actually a little more complicated - at one time (I don't know if this is still true), EVERY major OEM and most minor ones had Windows OEM licenses. The agreement for that license (which got you Windows priced cheap enough to be competetive) required that you pay MS for every PC you sold, whether Windows was shipped with it or not. Therefore, the price for pretty much every PC you could buy included the price for an OEM copy of Windows. THAT was the "Windows Tax" and it was an issue in the antitrust case.

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[arkanes]

There was anther (or this may be the same one you're thinking of) involving adobe, where a company bought bundles of Adobe software, cut them open and resold the individual titles. Adobe got pissed off and sued, but the court decided that right of first sale and lack of a formal agreement basically meant that Adobes EULA didn't apply. This was in a CA district court, not federal.

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[zero_offset]

Not true.

At the moment I'm typing this on a Sager NP4780-S which I bought four months ago. Besides being a far better machine than almost anything sold by the likes of Dell or HP, I ordered it without an operating system. It took me about 30 minutes of screwing around online to locate it and make my decision.

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[morcego]

If you accept the EULA, you are not prohibited from selling your copy of Windows -- you have an inalienable right to do that; just like selling a used book, CD or video cassette. It is an offence for anyone to try to persuade you that you do not have that right.

You are actually wrong about this. You don't buy a copy of Windows. You buy the media and manual, and pay for the rights to use Windows (ie. LICENSE). So you don't actually own it to sell. Non-transferable rights are everywhere to be seen, and enforced many times over on different courts all around the world.

If you don't agree with the EULA, you still can't resell it. You can, however, return it for a full refund. I know of many people who did this: got a computer with windows, and returned the windows license to Microsoft (or an authorized office) for a full refund. This is, so far, the only legal alternative. If someone know of any court rulling otherwise, I would be happy to receive a link to the rulling.

Unless someone whats to take the pain to go to court, and prove that this is wrong, this is how it works.

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[Espectr0]

In the 50's in Venezuela, we had a dictator called Marcos Perez Jimenez.

When a tunnel was built in a city, he ordered the arquitects to stand in it, and ordered 10 tanks to drive slowly above the tunnel with the crew below to see if the tunnel would hold the weight.

I'm sure you can tell the quality of the work that was done here in that time. /me hopes Windows can reach that quality. It certainly has improved, but the user hasn't. Stupid people clicking all those .exe, .vbs and .pif files

Re:Yes we should all pay for this too

[Red Alastor]

They clearly state in the EULA that if you don't agree with it THEY refuse to sell it to you and you MUST return it where you bought it for a full refund. Then those who sold it to you must ask for a refund from Microsoft. They never gave any. But the reseller agree with the EULA or else would not be able to sell you this software. There is a legal action you can use in case they don't want. You know the one without lawyers for small cases (no idea how it is called in english, sorry. It's "petites créances" in french). You are almost sure to win. The reseller must then sue Microsoft to get the money back. I don't think any tried that.

Google, anyone?

[monkeyfamily]

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/tools/mb sahome.mspx

"I'm Feeling Lucky", even.

And the truth comes out on Slashdot...

[Canberra Bob]

So we have it folks. People on here pretty much saying its Microsofts (oops...sorry...M$) fault for people stealing their software, and somehow they should be made to pay for it. Look, this software is STOLEN. Microsoft owes these thieves nothing.

I have a better idea. Microsoft should set the updates to automatically remove the operating system from anyone who is not a legit user. Not touching the data, just the system files. That way these thieves will not be able to spew forth more worms onto the net. That way they reclaim their stolen property.

I bet you dont start bleating away when a flaw is found in Apache or sshd do you? Oh no...these products have been produced insecurely so they must be made to PAY, must they not? Why dont you bleat about Red Hat not providing support to those not on RHN? These people got a Red Hat product, they should be supported by Red Hat? No, of course not, different rules for FOSS isnt it?

Re:And the truth comes out on Slashdot...

[smcv]

What some people are suggesting is that people using illegal copies of Windows should be allowed to install security patches, at least the important ones, in order to reduce the damage done when a worm starts spreading - if illegal copies can't be patched, every illegal copy is an extra carrier for worms. The only way MS pay for that is in extra bandwidth for the Windows Update servers, which I suspect would be a pretty small cost (particularly if the next big worm DoSs Microsoft yet again, in which case having more updates downloaded would probably be a net saving).

The other side of the argument is that Microsoft should have no obligation to support illegal copies, and indeed should reduce the functionality of illegal copies in order to encourage people to buy a copy instead; this is the philosophy MS currently follow, to some extent, by having Windows Update and service packs not install on copies with a bad CD-key.

The problem with using patches as an area of reduced functionality is that most people don't particularly care about the security of their computer at the best of times, so it's not a big deterrent to illegal copying; at the same time, illegal copies getting worms and such affects everyone on the Internet, whether they're illegal Windows users, legit Windows users, or not even using Windows.

(There's also the argument that Microsoft have tacitly encouraged illegal copies in the past in order to get more market share, which I think might be what you're referring to, but the above applies whether you believe this or not.)

Microsoft should set the updates to automatically remove the operating system from anyone who is not a legit user

False positives under MS's current policy are merely an annoyance, but if they followed your policy and their warez-detection algorithm got any false positives whatsoever, it'd wipe the OS of a legit user - I for one wouldn't appreciate that. Microsoft have, um, a bit of a reputation problem as it is :-) and I can't imagine it'd get any better if it became public knowledge that their security updates sometimes deleted the operating system.

I can't imagine it would kill that many warezed copies either (once word got around), it'd just encourage anyone with an illegal copy not to install patches, and since that has a negative effect on the rest of the Internet, it'd be irresponsible.

*** now talking on #hypothetical-warez-channel - Topic: Get your XP isos here!
<w4r3z-k1dd1e> don't install yesterday's critical update whatever you do, I got burned by it
<@l33t_d00d> how's that?
<w4r3z-k1dd1e> it deleted my OS!
<w4r3z-k1dd1e> had to reinstall it
<@l33t_d00d> lol, didn't you know?
<@l33t_d00d> some of the patches do stuff like that
<@l33t_d00d> safest way is to skip them all
<w4r3z-k1dd1e> doesn't that make your pc not secure?
<@l33t_d00d> heh, whatever
<@l33t_d00d> that's what *they* tell you
<w4r3z-k1dd1e> ah, k
*** l33t_d00d has changed topic to "Remember kids, patches are for the weak"

Is that really what you want the warez kiddies to be thinking, and if so, would your answer change when the next Code Red/Nimda/Slammer/Sasser/... turns up?

Re:And the truth comes out on Slashdot...

[shaitand]

"this software is STOLEN"

At what point did someone steal something? You can't steal without taking something away from the owner... when did you take something away from Microsoft again?

Microsoft's copyright gives them control over how software is distributed, it gives them ZERO legal right to control how a copyrighted work is used. That right belongs to the public, since the public actually owns the work to which MS has the copyright.

Even those who illegally distribute a pirated windows copy aren't stealing. Their commiting copyright infringment, it's a different law being broken, and a different charge for a very good reason. Copyright infringment by definition means COPYING and distribution. By definition it cannot be theft since nothing is taken from the original owner, you've merely trespassed on the rights granted them by copyright.

"I bet you dont start bleating away when a flaw is found in Apache or sshd do you? Oh no...these products have been produced insecurely so they must be made to PAY, must they not? Why dont you bleat about Red Hat not providing support to those not on RHN? These people got a Red Hat product, they should be supported by Red Hat? No, of course not, different rules for FOSS isnt it?"

Well yeah, I mean come on, we all know people pirating software which is completely free and downloadable and redistributable. After all, it just makes sense to hunt for hours to find a copy which in some way violates the license amidst the dozens of legally redistributed copies on the web and p2p networks!

Updates from redhat are freely downloadable and freely redistributable. As such you can get them dozens of places. Repsoitories like you'll find at apt.freshrpms.net are actually MORE convient to use for updating than RHN.

Re:And the truth comes out on Slashdot...

[the pickle]

Microsoft have, um, a bit of a reputation problem as it is :-) and I can't imagine it'd get any better if it became public knowledge that their security updates sometimes deleted the operating system.

Yeah, like that hasn't happened several times already.

p

it is no prob to use windows update

[atarione]

If you have a "valid" corp key for you no Activation corp copy of XP.

as soon (or slightly before if memory serves?) their was a number of work arounds for the 'keys' m$ disabled with SP1,

I have a large number of 'friends' running XP pro with corp 'keys' and all have been able to use windows update without much difficulty.. other than changing keys for SP1 but no biggie.

of course for the slightly less 'advanced' warez copy users out there they may have difficulties.

As long as all the people in China and other SE Asian countries refuse / can't afford to pay M$ prices for software 'fixes' for m$ anti piracy efforts seem likely to presist. M$ can 'raise the bar' for how much work it is to successfully pirate and then update their os .... but I doubt they can stop it totally.

Clean the web

[Mr Europe]

It it's clear that MS has no obligation to support stolen software. If you steal property you should be ready for some kind of problems.

Yet I see that the point is that MS is making a mistake in not giving security fixes to everyone.

Here's why: There will be millions of pirated XP's also in future. They will have trouble in fixing their system. During that period they are harming the network experience of all of us. And they do have a significant effect, because of their huge amount. Finally they find a solution from firewalls or installing other OS's, such as Linux or OS/X !

If 50% of worlds PC's carry pirated XP and 10 % of those will end up in moving to Linux, we will have quite a boost for Linux ! I don't mind that..

Great opportunity to blame the pirates

[2WheelCowboy]

If the Microsoft PR machine is smart they'll withhold security updates from pirated copies. Then they can blame the spread of viruses and worms on the evil software pirates who are running the insecure systems.

Something to think about

[EdMcMan]

How many people have valid licenses but don't use valid cd keys? For instance, does Dell give cd keys for their products? Having an invalid cd key does not necesarily mean the product is pirated.

Re:What do you expect?

[innocent_white_lamb]

Since when is it their responsibility?

Since they started distributing software that interferes with the stability of everyone else's networks, of course.

NT Server product key accepts all 1's

[Gary Destruction]

Believe or not, the NT server product key will accept all 1's. I don't know why Microsoft did that, but it seems to contradict anti-piracy tactics. It almost seems intentional. But if you don't believe me, just give a try.

Upgrade works OK for pirated WinXP

[dimss]

95% of Windows installations here in Latvia are from pirated CD. WindowsUpdate works fine for them. Installing and updating of pirated software is eevryday duty of 95% of IT-people in eastern europe.

Just like hospitals

[Nice2Cats]

We treat anybody who walks into a hospital, regardless of where his or her wounds come from -- this is one of those famous "cornerstones of civilization". In this case, it is even worse, because the people affected pose a threat to everybody else, too.

So: Would we treat somebody in a hospital because he caught an infectious disease while doing something illegal? Yes. Then, the same should be true for patches.

Re:Just like hospitals

[3rdParty]

Can the woman with tuberculosis shut off the source of trouble? If so, then your analogy is 100% correct.

Even criminals deserve medical care

[JoeShmoe]

This question's answer is really quite obvious if you move it into a real-world scenario:

"Should drug users be allowed to receive treatment in a hospital (public or private) even if treatment is due to drug-related illness or injury? Or do they get what they deserve and have to fend for themselves?"

People who pirate do it for a myriad of reasons. How about the poor inner-cities child whose family can barely afford the $299 Wal-Mart PC and has no chance of a retail priced copy of Windows and Office? How about the elderly grandmother whos well-meaning grandson hooked her up with the latest copy of XP Home because it had larger fonts and buttons than her legally licensed copy of 95 did?

Support for Windows should be user agnostic. I've said many many times in the past, someday the laws of this country will recognize that computer professionals need the same legal protection that priests and doctors currently enjoy. People who have computer problems need to know they can get them fixed without worrying about the tech turning around and reporting them to the BSA or DOJ. Otherwise, they will sit on the problem and contribute to a greater harm.

If Microsoft wants to exclude pirates users from receiving assistance, then they should be legally liable for any further or collateral injury that occurs as a result of this...the same way a doctor or nurse would be liable for turning away a mental patient complaining of "voices telling me to do bad things" who then goes on to murder someone.

The simplest thing for Microsoft to do is drop the whole cockamamie "Windows Update" bullcrap and just post the damn updates on an FTP or website where people can download them without handing over Product IDs (and from other operating systems as well). If they don't want to do this, well, then let's make sure they they are responsible for whatever happens.

- JoeShmoe
.

User base

[jg_elliott]

I would have thought that Microsoft actually like to have pirated copies of windows out there. If everyone is running windows, then it will be very hard for other operating systems to get a foot hold, where as, if they alienate everyone not running a legit copy of windows, then they will either have to pay, or turn to an alternative. If they stop using windows, then windows stops being the defacto standard and that is currently microsoft's big advantage on the market.
Should they provide support to people that pirate their products? No. But if it means losing out on their user base; shouldn't they?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

In other industries?

[Stevyn]

What if I stole a ford explorer and then took it to the dealer to replace the tires because they were recalled? I'd look like an idiot. I could say to the dealer "well me driving on the road with these bad firestones is unsafe to everybody" and he'd retort back "yeah...and you stole this car!" Just because everyone hates microsoft, doesn't mean they should be expected to support products that are stolen. Even though we're dealing with software and the cost to them for stealing is zilch, they still have to pay for the bandwidth and servers to host windows update.

Attn. Mr. Moron

[Anonymous Coward]

(not the same AC, btw).

He said he doesn't have ethical problems. He never said he didn't have legal problems with it.

Updates are readily available

[drzero]

I only have Linux machines and I was able to download the updates from Microsofts own security advisary pages without any problems (links found through earlier slashdot story).
I have then made CDs containing Symantecs Sasser removal tool and the hotfix for both Windows 2000 and XP and made copies to pass around to friends and family that still run Windows.
So even if Windows Update requires a valid key for Windows XP users, the updates are still readily available. Albeit, not quite as easy as Windows Update, but if you run pirated software, you deserve to suffer just a bit.

This is False Information

[toaster13]

I'd like to point out to everybody that this is a moot point. You CAN get the update regardless of version a regardless of whether you have pirated your copy of XP. Just see: this to download the appropriate version of the update.

Actually, most software in Asia *is* pirated.

[Earle Martin]

Are you racist or something?

Who modded this flamebait tripe as "insightful"?

Perhaps you were ignorant of the fact, but:

In Asia, nearly 54 percent of software programs were pirated. Reducing the rate 10 points to 44 percent by 2006 could create 1.1 million new jobs, increase economic growth by US$170 billion, and generate another US$15 billion in tax revenues.

- according to the Business Software Alliance.

Re:Actually, most software in Asia *is* pirated.

[deconvolution]

Yes, Why? The average income for most chinese people is below than 300 USD per month. But the price of a Chinese windows XP home edition is priced nearly 200USD... Office XP is sold with 450 USD and a single Visio2003 Chinese Edition is marked up to 500 USD... Even MUCH MORE than in Europe and America!

Re:Actually, most software in Asia *is* pirated.

[Moraelin]

Look, I'm against piracy. Not only I wouldn't give them any updates, but I think pirates should swing from the mast, like in 1600. Or make them walk the plank.

But I also think there's a reason why there's "BS" in "BSA". Their statistics make me want to puke. They do such bullshit statistics as taking a pirated CD from Taiwan or China which includes some expensive piece of softwware, like 3D Studio Max, and say "see, there's 5000 USD worth of software on this CD. We think 10,000 chinese kids bought this CD for 5$, which robbed us of 50,000,000 USD."

That's utter bullshit. Most of those Asian and Eastern European pirates do not need 3D Studio Max and wouldn't buy it anyway, even if they could afford to. (Which they can't. As was said before, a chinese family would need to pay _all_ their income for _two_ _years_ to afford a license. Again: _all_ their income. That is, leaving them with no money for food, rent, clothes, etc.)

We're not talking 10,000 professional designers and architects who actually need it, we're talking mostly kids who much around with it a bit to make some skins for mods for old games. Maybe 1 of them will actually release an obscure mod, the rest just mucked a round a bit with it, uninstalled it and moved on to something else.

Would all 10,000 of them have bought 3D Studio Max if they couldn't pirate it? No. _I_ wouldn't buy it either, much as (1) I could easily afford it, and (2) I'm tempted to try modding "X2 - The Threat." (Which, sadly, only supports exporting stuff from 3DS MAX.) Now I don't pirate it either, but even I think it would be utterly retarded to pay $4000 on tools to mod a $40 game.

Yet the BSA would want me to believe that 10,000 dirt-poor kids from Taiwan would. That's so much bullshit, it could fertilize a few acres.

Re:Actually, most software in Asia *is* pirated.

[Moraelin]

Well, personally I'll take that 170 billion figure with a bit of salt. Knowing BSA's bullshit statistics, say, divide it by 10.

But I do think it would create new jobs. Just not jobs at Microsoft.

See for example how Via makes some living selling cheap C3 CPUs. Yes, they're not fast chips. But here's how it works: some poor chinese wants to get a computer. He/she can't pirate a CPU, and can't afford to pay 400$ for a top of the line Intel chip. So he/she gets a 40$ VIA chip instead.

Which in turn keeps some people employed at VIA.

That's how it would work for software too.

If noone could pirate MS Office, a lot more of them would look into Open Office or some locally produced software. And a lot more people would be willing to tell their government or their boss "stop asking me to send you this stuff in MS Word or MS Excel. I'm not going to pay 450$ at home, out of my own pocket, just because you're too stupid to accept plain text files."

Or if so many Chinese and Eastern Europeans were't pirating those $40 games, a lot of them would be willing to pay, say, $5 for something produced by a small company in their own country. Especially for countries which by sheer size are potentially a huge market, like Russia or China, and where salaries are very low, I can see how someone could afford to produce cheaper games locally _if_ someone bought them. Most of those wouldn't be as good as Id's or Epic's games, but they'd be playable. And they'd keep a lot of talented programmers and designers in their own country employed.

Except in practice everyone there pirates the games, so such a market doesn't exist. And as a consequence those jobs don't exist either.

So, yes, piracy does cost jobs, economic growth and tax revenue. The only catch is: not at the big corporations, like BSA seems to think.

Re:Actually, most software in Asia *is* pirated.

[TheLink]

"Although about three million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though. And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."
-- Bill Gates

I think that Bill Gates quote has less bullshit than _any_ quote from the BSA.

Re:Actually, most software in Asia *is* pirated.

[Moraelin]

"I would bet they'd be at least as likely to use a free [beer] operating system or an older operating system before paying for Windows if it comes down to it."

This is actually what I hate the most about piracy. It's effectively helped kill a lot of other options.

Had it not been for piracy, a lot of people would have looked for cheaper alternatives. E.g., StarOffice was pretty damn cheap even before Sun bought it and made OpenOffice out of it.

There were plenty of products which might not have been good enough to go head-to-head with MS Office or MS Windows or whatever, but could have had a comfortable niche market among the less rich people. Except most of that potential market went and pirated MS Office and MS Windows instead.

And more importantly: had it not been for piracy, there'd have been a _lot_ of people who'd have started saying "no" when their boss or their government accepted only Word or Excel files. As in, "No. If you want me to use Word or Excel just for you, then _you_ pay for it."

The ease with which we all basically bent over and let MS shove their own proprietary file formats up our collective hiney, and then forced us up the threadmill of pointless upgrades just because the file format had been wantonly changed, had to do with the perception that everyone else had MS Office. Even if they had pirated it. They could read your files, you could read theirs. No problem, right?

The fact that we today end up judging OOo not based on how good it is on its onw, but on how well it reads and writes Microsoft files, that has a lot to do with piracy.

Re:Actually, most software in Asia *is* pirated.

[buysse]

Not similar. If you don't have a Ferrari, and you steal one, you've deprived someone else of the Ferrari they had, changing what others have. If I were to ``pirate'' the mythical copy of 3DSMax, what have I deprived any other entity of?

You've taken someone's Ferrari. I've duplicated their Ferrari. The only person that loses anything (by the BSA's logic) is an Italian car maker. In this case, I can't afford either the Ferrari or 3DS. Therefore, there is 0 net loss by the {manufacturer|copyright holder}.

Does it make this morally right? Hell no. But is it equivalent to stealing a physical object from someone? No. If I'm just a cheap bastard and copy a work that has a cost of $0.99US (downloading a single song when it is available from iTunes [and I'm on either Windows or a Mac]), I consider that a less moral act than copying 3DS, simply because I could pay for it. And yes, I would consider someone stealing food to be significantly less immoral than stealing a luxury. Still wrong, but more justifiable.

</rant>

Re:Actually, most software in Asia *is* pirated.

[Puff Daddy]

People who pirate software are breaking the law and it is not "ok," but if the pirates never had the money to purchase in the first place, their pirated copy can hardly be counted as a loss. Whether or not it was ok for them to do it has nothing to do with it.

Re:Actually, most software in Asia *is* pirated.

[Ironica]

See for example how Via makes some living selling cheap C3 CPUs. Yes, they're not fast chips. But here's how it works: some poor chinese wants to get a computer. He/she can't pirate a CPU, and can't afford to pay 400$ for a top of the line Intel chip. So he/she gets a 40$ VIA chip instead.

Which in turn keeps some people employed at VIA.

That's how it would work for software too.

No, not really. There's a big difference in job generation between manufactured goods and services. If an entirely new software product is created because those people can't pirate from Microsoft anymore, you create a few jobs... but not many. If you simply broaden existing markets, you create practically zero jobs.

If Via needs to make low-end chips for some markets, they have to make capital investments in the assembly line and assign workers to build those chips for as long as they're making them. If Open Office needs to be translated into Chinese, they hire a translator or two on contract for a little while, and bring them back every so often when they add functionality to the interface. Maybe they even hire one full-time, but that's *one job*.

Just think about this: Microsoft has 55,000 employees, and they are by far the largest software vendor in the world. Intel, which makes a whole lot of the processors out there, but isn't anywhere near as dominant in the market as Microsoft, has 78,700 employees.

Re:Actually, most software in Asia *is* pirated.

[Ironica]

He also claimed that if they gave a statistic saying 10,000 people pirated a $5,000 piece of software, it wouldn't actually equate $50 million in losses because many of those people wouldn't have purchased the product in the first place. That's what I was arguing against. You just can't say that, because it actually legitimizes piracy.

What planet are you reading from?

In order to lose $50 million, you have to actually *have* that $50 million, or some way of obtaining it. If you stop those 10k people from pirating that $5k piece of software, you don't get $50 million from it. You get 10k fewer people using the software. It's not the same thing as losing, or gaining, $50 million in sales.

This simple fact of arithmetic has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with whether you believe software piracy is right, wrong, or purple.

analogy time

[Qrlx]

Q: If I steal a car, and some defect in that car leads to my injury, can I sue GM and win?

A: Definitely Yes.

Why is this different?

I know it's different because right now we can't sue MS for any damages even if we didn't steal Windows.

It seems to me that if they apply a double standard to products acquired legally vs. products that aren't legal, they are opening themselves up to some sort of implied warrantability for the legal product. Which of course they don't want to do.

It has gotten *really* bad with all the spyware, malware, and viruses these days. It's starting to look like the "death of a thousand cuts" we hear so much about. I wonder how many of these worms, etc. are put out there with the goal of bringing MS down?

Windows PR

[carvalhao]

Personally, if I were a PR at Microsoft, I'd be giving those patches away. The less overall damage systems running Windows would get because of security exploits, the best the PR. Furthermore, it would allow me to give the possibility to give the "we care" speech...

On the other hand, as an Open Source advocate as I am, I believe these issues should be exploited to the maximum. Not only is most Open Source software more immune to such problems but the patching speed is of critical importance for most enterprise users, and as far as I'm concerned, that would be the main entry point into the household.

Re: The Economics of Piracy

[some guy I know]

Reducing the rate 10 points to 44 percent by 2006 could create 1.1 million new jobs, increase economic growth by US$170 billion, and generate another US$15 billion in tax revenues.

- according to the Business Software Alliance.

Which, like the RIAA, ignores the fact that many, if not most "pirates" would not buy the software/music, but would instead go without.
Many "pirates" can not afford to buy the music/software that they download.

(I'm not saying that this gives them any right to infringe on others' copyrights.
I'm just saying that the BSA's figures are exaggerated.)

Re:Hey! Are you getting Sasser with me?

[Peter Cooper]

I wouldn't have sex with a new partner without a condom

Well it's lucky you're a Slashdot reader and don't have to worry about such concerns anyway ;-)

There is NO excuse for piracy...

[pandrijeczko]

Just because you do not want to pay the going price for something, this does not give you the right to steal it - end of story.

If, as a software pirate, you believe yourself to be on some moral crusade against the "scourge of Microsoft" or the high prices of commercial software in general, then the best way to hurt those comapnies is to not buy their products - it REALLY is that simple.

The problem is that for a lot of computer users, software has become a "fashion accessory" just like a pair of designer jeans or a new mobile phone - everyone HAS to have the latest version of the latest package without stopping to think about whether there is actually a need for those additional features that the latest version provides. Right down from the warez crackers on the Internet to the end users, piracy is simply about peer pressure, nothing more.

The majority of computer users need to grow up and join the world of adults rather than sit in front of their PCs with the attitudes of schoolchildren.

There is a wealth of good quality free software for any operating system that you choose to run and while it may not, on some occasions, match up to commercial offerings, it IS free and will get better if you take the trouble to voice your dislikes and likes about it to the people that program it.

Pirates achieve one thing and one thing only - they create an excuse for large corporations to restrict the rights of ALL users in making fair use of products that they own and for those corporations to push through DRM, copy protection etc. on the basis of revenue loss and the honest users just end up paying more.

We're not the only people wondering about this...

[pointbeing]

I was at a shindig in Redmond last month and Steve Ballmer took this very question from the floor.

He didn't exactly have an answer, other than to say they were still looking at the problem - but from what he did say MS is acutely aware of the problem.

I think my solution would be to allow security updates only. During this trip I had a long discussion with a pile of MS executives about community and /. came up more than a couple of times in the conversation ;-)

Re:Laptop issues

[dazk]

I don't understand. Why do you need XP pro for gaming?

Besides you are not forced to buy windows together with hardware. There are vendors that offer hardware without os.

Re:Patches for paying customers only

[pandrijeczko]

Like it's already the case with the Enterprise products from SuSE (and RH, I presume).

I do so like arguing with people whose sole experience with Linux is based on hearsay and what they read on the Internet. :-)

Anyway, to correct you - you can download free versions of SuSE, Red Hat, Mandrake, etc. from the appropriate web sites; you can then download (probably limited) updates from their sites or get what you need elsewhere on the Internet.

You can also pay these companies for service contracts and get everything you need from them that way. The choice is yours because that's how it is with Linux.

But it would bring a bit more honesty to the debate of the cost of running Windows vs. Linux/BSD ;-)

There is no debate because debate assumes two sides interested in arguing a point. The Linux community does not care about "TCO" because there are far too many variables to put forward a valid comparison anyway - for example, what you spend on supporting any OS depends on what in-house skills you do or do not have.

"Cost of running" is simply a Micrsoft marketing ploy to sell more of their products, nothing more. Let's face it, they can hardly make Windows - Linux comparisons on the security or stability issues, so they might as well go for the "Windows is cheaper" option :-)

SuSE is (currently) very lax with regards to the licensing of their Enterprise-products. They have a "We trust you not to do silly things"-attitude.

SuSE does not make money making a Linux distro, it makes money from support contracts and Linux deployments. It therefore does not have too many concerns about who runs their distro unless they can sell services with it. Standard business practice.

Linux lesson ended for today - thank you for your time...

Re:Laptop issues

[pandrijeczko]

When i ordered my laptop i HAD to buy windows XP HOME with the package

You HAD to do nothing. You SHOULD have bought your laptop elsewhere and explained to the original vendor you were not buying their product because XP Home was installed and you did not want to pay for XP Home. Then, if a lot more people did that, the laptop vendor would realise that to stay in business, he needs to give his customers what they want.

Instead, what you did, was got screwed over by the laptop maker and Microsoft because most other people do exactly the same thing you do.

Things change for the better because you take direct positive action BEFORE handing over your money rather than whining AFTER you've handed it over.

warranty on my stolen car

[nuggz]

Well we're at it, why not do warranty repairs on stolen vehicles.

This is ridiculous, you have no right to use the software. What sort of obligation does ANYONE have to help you maintain it.

Re:warranty on my stolen car

[shaitand]

"Copying a CD (software or music) for someone else to use is NOT fair use because you buy the right to fair use by buying the product in the first place. This scenario, therefore, falls within the legal control of the copyright holder to enforce."

Mostly correct, but my anal self must correct one detail here. Most of things you mentioned aren't even fair use. Their simply your rights. Ownership of a copyrighted work belongs to the public even while the copyright still exists.

THAT is why you have the right to do anything that wasn't explicitly put into the copyright holders hands when granted the copyright.

Copyright grants control over distribution, most of the examples you mentioned are "use" which copyright grants no control over because copying WITHOUT distributing anything is within your domain.

Fair use on the other hand is a set of circumstances under which you have the right to distribute a copyright'd work (or a portion thereof) despite the holder of the copyright. For example you may quote a copyrighted work in a research paper giving credit. Because of fair use you may distribute that research paper far and wide.

Your rights and fair use apply regardless of whether you've purchased the material or not, they apply if you have it. It's distributing that is copyright infringment, not using.

Anyone using MS-software is subject to MS-policies

[gotan]

If MS in the future decides that patches are a premium-service (with premium license-fees), then so be it. I also think that anyone who uses MS-software should pay their price.

If you don't like their prices or their conditions turn to the alternatives.

Re:ISPs should take responsibility for their netwo

[Sunda666]

I *would* agree with ya in a perfect world. But in our real world there are dialup user, free/anonymous ISPs over dialup, sometimes BIG corporate nets may get infected, and they do not have an 'ISP', instead they have some fat pipes going out, so no luck enforcing some TOS... etc etc.

I used to be a nasty pirate myself, until I saw the light. MS enforcing their 'rights' can only be a good thing, since it will shy people (at least people from poor countres) away form their products, thus making the internet safer. But for now it is simply wiser to give updates to the pirates.

cheers.

The summary suggested

[magefile]

Giving all patches to illegal users except those which wouldn't affect the rest of the net, but could still cause a security hole.

But any hole is a risk to the rest of us - if it's writeable, it can be used to create another spamming, DDOS'ing, crap-flooding zombie. If it's read-only, then it can either be used to find a writeable hole, or it increases costs by increasing, say, credit-card theft (chargebacks aren't totally free), ID theft (which could be used to hurt those people who know the user, or those who do business with the user), etc.

No security hole is a benign security hole.

Pirates Could Pay MS, Get Updates & Amnesty

[reallocate]

MS should detect update attempts from pirated software and offer the opportunity to: 1) pay a fee and obtain a retroactive license; 2) get a code to access and apply the updates; 3) receive an effective amnesty for the piracy.

Re:OS racists!

[julesh]

Funnily enough, I get that message despite the fact that I run Win2K. I do, however, use a proxy server that strips out my HTTP User-Agent headers.

my answer: no

[hany]

should users with pirated copies of Windows be allowed to download security updates?

My answer: No.

1. As much as I do not like the price of Windows (too high for what one gets for the money) you have to either try to restore competition in this particular market (which will lover the price of Windows to some real numbers) or change your demands and use something else (Mac, Linux, ...) or something else. It's maybe unfair there is no alternative producer of Windows but stealing does not make that better, quite contrary (helps Microsoft keep the monopoly while they have 90%+ market share also thanks to those users with illegal copies).

2. If users of illegal copies (they) get (with permission from Microsoft) those patches, they wont be stealing (patches) from Microsoft. But they will have screwed comparison tables "Windows vs. ProductX" in a way as "Windows are for free (0 monetary cost)". It will make them unwiling to switch (either to legal copy of Windows or legal copy of some other product be it free or commercial). Thus it'll help Microsoft to keep their unfairly acquired monopoly much longer and screw the market/economy/people/... much more. If Microsoft is going to give permissions to users of illegal copies of their products to use patches, I'll consider it anticompetitive and illegal move from them.

3. If [they] will be allowed to use those patches, market/economy/people may mistakenly see it as a move to the right direction (from security point of view) while the true right move - more OS diversity on desktop PCs - will be pushed away. Security will hurs, market/economy/people will hurt.

For sure, there will be short-range benefits in allowing [them] to use those patches, but in the long term I do not see it as good decision (good for market/economy/people).

Pirated versions of windows: no pay=no support.

[zerodvyd]

I have a pretty strict view of this. If one willfully (and/or knowingly) pirated an operating system: they should get no support from the manufacturer at all.

Since unpatched and vulnerable systems can wreak havoc on legitimate customers, I think the best solution is to simply disable the offending product. If you stole the OS, you have no right to use it. Force it to shut down. Don't destroy the drive or any data, just make it the ultimate in nag-ware: continually prompt on boot for a legitimate proof of purchase.

Of course, that gets into all kinds of 'big brother' bull. The end of the story is the same: pay for it. In spite of the fact that the majority of /.-ers think of Microsoft as an evil empire, there are a lot of hard working programmers working for them who do deserve to get paid. The liquid asset of that company is immaterial.

"But what if I'm using it in a lab environment?" Well, you should have paid for your license. Don't want to pay? Microsoft offers 120-day evaluations of many of their products. These are fully functional products and can even be updated in most cases (rare exceptions such as ISA exist).

I can't believe this question even deserves...

[dcocos]

I can't believe this question even deserves attention

YOU DIDN'T PAY FOR WINDOWS hence they DON'T OWE YOU SHIT for support, why is this so hard to understand.

Re:I can't believe this question even deserves...

[Junta]

-1, Clueless.

That isn't a point of contention, read at *least* the summary before going off the handle. This is not about security updates for the benefit of the pirate end user, but the impact of having pirate end users incapable of getting security updates propogating worms that make the rest of the good community suffer.

On remote-exploit security updates, now that I see this circumstance, I think they should apply no matter what. Now feature enhancements and reliability fixes for the end user, those should be denied. Those fixes not being applied are far more annoying to the typical end user anyway, so MS would improve the community by fixing even the pirate systems in the ways that impact the community, but keep things hard for the pirate users by leaving their system extra buggy (even above and beyond the normal Windows experience).

I've got a better idea

[Tablespork]

Maybe they should start programming the viruses to check for valid CD keys ;-)

No updates for pirates-no music for downloaders?

[mikehihz]

So what's the difference? Windows has a monopoly, the five labels are a cartel. Windows is a company's intellectual property, so is music. So why is it almost overwhelming that people come to the support of Microsoft in terms of protecting their liceneses and IP, while musicians get deprived of the nickle they get from the record company when someone rips and shares a CD with no guilt?

I STILL don't get why people think downloading is their right and stealing is OK.

Welfare for Netizens

[amichalo]

The question posed has striking similarities to the question of public healthcare. In the US, the EMTALA (Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act) requires hospitals and clinics to give life saving and stabilizing care to anyone, regardless of proof of insurance and/or ability to pay.

This is primarily a welfare service for the individual but has corporate benefits as well such as the reduction of communicable disease from those who would otherwise go untreated.

Without getting offtopic into the US healthcare system, I think the article brings up a similar point. If a software update is meant to benefit the end user only, in that it fixes or enables a new feature, that is one thing, but for the health of the public Internet, security patches that prevent malicious and communicable computer virii should be publicly available...by law.

It is more important to keep the Internet available to individuals, businesses, and research institutions as well as governments that rely upon it every day for communication and control of critical systems, than to ensure that a small percentage of the population is not illegally pirating software.

Pirated Users

[syntap]

Should security updates only for worms be made available to pirated users

We can pirate people now? Cool... how do I burn me a Britney?

Re:Well (I completely disagree)

[Overzeetop]

If you come into my house to burglarize it, and I shoot you in the legs to stop you, I'm liable for your loss of future income earning potential. Think it sounds farfetched? I remember a case when I was in HS that revolved around that exact scenerio, and the burglar won.

Faulty products are faulty products. If Microsoft fails to offer a repair to a product it knows is defective. Unlike the stolen Ford, our pirate friends may have tried to get the patch and were denied it. Microsoft now has knowledge of a defective instance of the product and has knowingly refused to make the necessary safety corrections. Regardless of the legal status of the ownership, the product liability remains. The fact that the "product" is digital is what makes it not quite fit the traditional product mold. All the disclaimers won't help either,as known defects _will_ make you liable no matter what. As a PE, if I say in my contract "that's not my responsibility" but the "not by me" design is clearly faulty, I'm still liable.

If they can prove it has been stolen from them, they should notify the autorities of the theft and have the product returned to them for repair or destruction.

(I'm not advocating piracy - I have legal copies of XP - but making a patch unavailable is wrong. How would you get the sasser patch if your inet connex was down due to sasser? My parents couldn't, because I couldn't get the patch and write it to disc for them, and they own a legal copy of XP home.)

Your answer: Let the innocents suffer.

[fmaxwell]

should users with pirated copies of Windows be allowed to download security updates?

My answer: No.

Your answer is not smart.

If you want to deny SW pirates access to new versions of Windows Media Player, Windows Movie Maker, or drivers for their video card, that's fine. But denying them security updates is harming people and businesses who did nothing wrong. Why should my domain be blasted with traffic from infected PCs running pirate copies of Windows XP? Why should my ISP have to bear the burden of traffic from those infected PCs? Why should someone playing a multiplayer FPS game get fragged because network congestion from infected PCs is causing packet loss and latency? Why should some guy who buys a new laptop at Best Buy find it infected within one minute of connecting to the net because there are countless infected machines looking for some particular flaw that his yet-to-be-patched PC has?

What you're advocating is analogous to companies refusing to fix natural gas leaks because the consumer is behind on his gas bill. Explain that to the neighbors when his house blows up and takes out their homes, cars, or family members.

Your "security through OS diversity" suggestion shows your lack of understanding of computer security. It is just a thinly veiled version of "security through obscurity." If your ISP has boxes running Windows Server 2003, FreeBSD, RedHat Linux, Suse Linux, and Windows Server 2000, a flaw in any of those could, depending on network configuration, cripple the network or render services unavailable. Every one of those boxes could be a hole through which an intruder could enter. Keeping all of those OSs up-to-date is a major chore that is likely to be neglected at times.

A Windows Pirate Can Use My License Key

[Long-EZ]

I bought a new HP notebook 18 months ago. Of course, due to Microsoft's anticompetitive OEM marketing agreement which has been adjudicated as illegal, I was forced to buy a copy of WinXP that I didn't need because I run Linux. Of course, I can't sell my WinXP to someone who wants to upgrade from Win98 because it's some bastardized OEM version that only works on a model of notebook PC that already shipped with XP. I'm sure they didn't do that on purpose (bastards).

I suspect there are about as many Windows pirates in the US as there are Linux notebook PC users who have a virgin Windows license. I think I'll register www.Pirate-MS-Licences.com as a place where Linux users can donate their unused licenses to pirates. When Microsoft sues me, my defense will be, "I was forced to buy this thing, and now I can't even GIVE it away? How is that not a Microsoft Tax on notebook PCs?"

me too

[Anonymous Coward]

I wiped the XP offering from this box too (with Debian). So here's my useless key for you to enjoy:

XVJW8-DB93F-2R2XD-XGB3D-3788D

To illustrate how crap things have become with preinstalled doze, my Sony didn't even come with a CD!

Re:me too

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

The problem is that's for the OEM version of it. Dell's issued keys don't work if you try to use them on a different computer. Same for the other big guys.

The "P" word

[orasio]

Microsoft has no obligation whatsoever to provide any freebies to folks with illegally copied (the P word - "pirated" - seems to be politically incorrect here at Slashdot) versions of Windows.

The word you are looking for is "copy". Every copy is illegal to the eyes of MS.

Anyway, "pirate" is a stupid word to use for someone who copies a piece of software. Pirates attacked ships, robbed, raped, killed. There is a difference. Using the word "pirate" is making the assumption that making unauthorized copies of software is equivalent to killing, raping and robbing. It's just a marketing thing that was used by record companies, and it just worked. Now we are using a word that describe a killer, to talk about a person who copies a CD. Think "diamonds are forever", that's a marketing thing that just worked, even though it's not true. It sounds good, and most people who don't know better, believe it's true, while it's just a marketng thing. The problem with the "P" word is that if we keep saying that copying CDs is as bad as raping, killing and robbing, people who don't know better start to believe it's true. That's the power of the language.
In Uruguay, my country, people who don't know what they are buying, get a computer with a copy of Windows preinstalled (that trend is changing), for which Microsoft gets no money, and know nothing about licenses. I'd rather not call them pirates, just stupid.

Re:Pirated versions CAN be updated.

[Little Brother]

Most legal users don't bother to update Windows. Why should we expect the pirated versions to be updated?

Because the people most likly to pirate Windows, are those who are more likly to do their own installs. Therefore they are the people with a little more tech savy. Therefore they are the people MOST likly to update their systems. Not that they all do, probably, but there is a reason why they would, when people who would never try anything with a computer their dell tech support representitive didn't tell them to do, would not.

True but irrelevant. Attractive nuisance.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Nope, it's not Microsoft bugs trashing the net. It's some asshole somewhere who thought it would be really cool to have lots of computers rebooting all the time (or whatever crap the latest virus does to your machine).

That's true. But it's also irrelevant.

Once the exploits are out there, the only ways to make them STOP trashing the net (short of taking out the machines) is to apply the patch. Blocking distribution of the security patch to unlicensed copies insures there will be a much larger number of infected machines chattering away than if it is open.

Selling millions of copies of software that is susceptable to infection and expecting them to remain uninfected is like laying out millions of uncovered petri dishes full of culture medium and expecting them to remain sterile. If nothing else, Microsoft bears some of the responsibility according to the doctrine of "attractive nuisance".

In case you're not aware of it: Consider a chemical company that keeps concentrated sulphuric acid in an uncovered, unfenced, outdoor tank that looks like a swimming pool. Is it the chemical company's fault if, some summer afternoon, some neighborhood kids jump in and/or push each other in? In US law: Absolutely!

By deploying a massively virus/worm susceptable system Microsoft has created an attractive nuisance. Yes the primary responsibility for damage when it is exploited rests with the exploiters. But when they "light a fire" that starts an ongoing process of consuming the neighborhood, it's Microsoft's responsibility to help put it out.

And it's in Microsoft's interest to do so, before somebody wises up and starts using the attractive nuisance doctrine to make them pay for the damage.

Simple Answer

[delus10n0]

How about this: No!

Furthermore, Microsoft's next/future service packs (or possibly Windows Update itself) should check your key against their database to ensure that you do have a valid installation of Windows. It amazes me that they haven't gotten to this point yet.

If it was up to me, I'd generate a "hotfix" for pirated copies that wipes the product key info, and pops up that little key icon in the system tray with a balloon saying "You are using a pirated key. Click here to purchase a valid one.", and linking to Microsoft's store. Perhaps a timer is also in order, giving you 30 days(?) to set things right before networking no longer works, or the system won't go past the login screen. That sort of thing.

Yes, I'm very serious.

Let's say I steal a newer car. The manufacturer of the car discovers a fault in the hood latch; it can randomly let go of your hood-- and that would be a bad thing, especially if it happens while doing 55+ on the freeway. I go to the dealership and demand they fix the fault for free. But wait, the car is stolen! The owner called the dealership and reported it as such. Does the dealership just shrug their shoulders and fix it and send me on my way? I think not. They call the police, or simply deny me the fix.

Re: The Economics of Piracy

[AlphaSys]

many, if not most "pirates" would not buy the software/music, but would instead go without.

That may well be to begin with, but it's like crack or heroin... you allow it to be given away for free for a while to get 'em hooked, then pull the rug out. Once they have too much of their process invested in using it, they'll do anything to keep from losing it, including pay and pay. Yo, biatch... suck my disk!

that @$(*& really adds value, doesn't it?

[JimmytheGeek]

I have always seen to it that the software on the networks I admin was properly licensed. Sometimes, on taking up a new job, the task was enormous.

We still got audited. So we had a double penalty of staff time: fix the problem before the audit, then prove it was fixed. Neither case advanced the organizational mission. It was pure loss, friction . All the time I was doing that, I wasn't fixing things that were broken. I wasn't making the net more secure. I wasn't installing new things.

I will grant that a company can set the terms of use for their products as they wish. They should be aware that hamfisted, user-hostile enforcement mechanisms like this are driving customers like me away. At comparable functionality, even with higher costs, I prefer the Free as in Speech solution.

Should I experience a difficult implementation due to lack of developer/test resources in an Open Source project, I experience necessary pain. That is to say, any problems I have with getting it working are a natural result of the state of the project I'm working with. Licensing friction is unnecessary pain. It's the unnatural result of the developers going out of their way to put up obstacles.

Unnecessary pain hurts way more than necessary pain for similar stimulus levels.

Gotta say, props to the commercial software outfits that have simple concurrent licensing setups that actually work. It's the ones that suck that cost you future business.