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Microsoft Piracy Plan Means Concerns for IT
coondoggie writes to mention an article on Information Week about possible unintended consequences of the Microsoft Software Protection Plan (SPP) discussed on Slashdot on Wednesday. The new initiative is intended to protect consumers from pirated software, but may cause major headaches for IT shops. From the article: "Microsoft will support SPP in current and future reporting and asset management tools such as System Center Operations Manager. 'On paper it might sound pretty good, but we have to see how it works,' says Jeff Allred, manager of network services for the Duke University Cancer Center. One of his concerns is that a reduced functionality mode kicks in three days after changing out a motherboard in a server if the software is not revalidated. 'That really jumped out at me. We change out motherboards in our servers all the time,' he says. The provision only covers a swap with a non-OEM motherboard, which Allred admits doesn't happen often."
To avoid all the problems with Vista, don't install Vista. Voila. Problem solved. It's like upgrading your OS every time Microsoft puts something new out is a disease that IT suffers from. There are companies who never upgraded NT 4 or 2000 who are doing just fine.
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
My work here is dung.
Why do you think you should have a say when it comes to protection on your PC when you don't have a say when it comes to protecting your life? After all, all those cams, that screening, that data mining, all's just done for your protection!
Do you want that? Did you agree to that? Does it matter what you want?
When your consent doesn't matter in things like privacy, why do you think it would when it's only about software?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Let me raise a very viable scenario that may not have been presented. This is that the system reports a false positive for pirated hardware. Now, the person quoted in the submission works for the Duke Cancer Center; this might mean they get the same licensing deal that the university presumably gets. Now, let me use an example I am familiar with.
At Ohio State, one of the most populous universities in the country, they have a deal with Microsoft that gives students access to Microsoft software on the cheap. At the same time, this deal applies to departments and other machines for the university. Since this deal is based on mass distribution, and in many cases does not include permanent media, if any media at all (basically, students take the disks, install the software, return the disks), everyone uses the same key. This is the case for XP and Server 2003. It is also the case for 2000, in fact the key is "embedded" on the Win 2k disk, so no input is required from the user.
Now, let us assume that OSU has about 50,000 students (not too far off actually). And each student has this version of Vista installed. Now, let us assume each department is using Windows (actually very few at OSU are not), that is even more copies of the software being used. I would venture that it might not be too far fetched to assume that OSU could have 100,000 or more copies of the same OS installed on various student, faculty and departmental machines. Now, the server installations are quite a bit fewer; however, I do know the department I worked for already have several (as in 8-10) servers running various Windows versions. If all these were upgraded to the server equivalent to Vista, then that would mean 10 servers with the same key, and possibly hundreds (if not thousands) across the campus.
Okay, so let us assume none of this duplication creates a false positive. Instead, let us take the example where someone has offered these versions of Windows to the internet as pirated copies. We now hit a new dilemma. There is the potential for massive piracy in this. You cannot simply cut off every version with this key, since you would be cutting off thousands of legitimate copies. You also cannot do some sort of limitation based solely on IP, since students do not live strictly in dorms and since this would enter a new realm of privacy invasion. You see, there is a huge problem with this sort of re-activation issue. You risk hurting many people. Also, for gaming enthusiast who changes components frequently, this could also lead to issues. And what if your MoBo died? Will it be a problem replacing it with another copy of the same board? You should not have to activate this product everytime your system changes. Defeating piracy is one thing, but causing a lot of headache and issues for paying customers is not. In the end, they will only hurt the paying customers, since the hackers will defeat whatever stupid system they come up with anyway.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
Well, the scapegoat is people who believe they've bought a legitimate copy, but in fact haven't. I mean, I'd be pretty pissed if I bought a Rolex or Levis or whatever and found out it was counterfeit. The fallacy is of course that the pirated version of Windows is 100% identical to the retail one, but I don't expect the general public to understand that. But that is the big difference between theft and piracy, the copyright holder isn't a party to the action.
Owner -- Item --> thief
Pirate A -- Item --> pirate B
Where's the hurt party in the first case? Right there on the left. Where's the hurt party in the second case? Somewhere over there --> Copyright holder. The copyright holder can say as much bullshit as he likes, but he's the only one really hurt by the situation (unless we go the whole nine yards with "Progress of science and usefuls Arts").
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I used to work as a subcontractor in a classified secure facility. We ran into an activation nightmare not once, but twice. The problem was that the PC I was installing onto didn't have (and would never have) an internet connection, nor was there a commerical phone in the room where the machine was. The rest of the operation was all Suns and SGIs, but my boss insisted on a Windows machine, which had to be a retail version because we weren't supported by the facility host company and we couldn't use our company's volume license because of association issues.
What ended up happening is that we had to walk through the XP Pro "enter each line into your touch-tone phone" thing without the phone, writing everything down, leave the area, call, write down everything the phone system told us, then come back into the area. Something messed up the first time and it ended up taking over an hour to get it done and working. We had a similar (but not quite as frustrating) experience activating Macromedia Flash.
Given how bad this experience was (and this was pre-WGA!), I can't imagine what a nightmare it would be if Vista suddenly decided it wasn't legit in that sort of environment. I have heard from my former co-workers that they've basically abandoned that machine and are using linux for all their day-to-day work. It interoperates better with the big iron anyway.
Side note on the unintended consequence of this: I removed the windows software on the box and moved to a linux based solution because I couldn't activate. I am sure I am not the only one who has done so.
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
Yes, you did.
Say you are a home user with maybe two or three computers that you want to upgrade to Vista. Okay, you either do an Internet registration or you spend a few minutes on the phone with Microsoft activating your new O/S. No problem. Even if you have to reactivate a few times when you swap out components due to upgrades, failures, what-have-you, it's still not *that* much of a PITA.
Now, you are working desktop support for a small corporation with ~100 desktops. You are upgrading to Vista, you have a volume license for the O/S and you basically build an image for each type of desktop you have, then load the image on each individual desktop. Now, you have to walk through the activation process *100 times* to roll out the new O/S. And, every time someone in that company has a hard drive fail, or someone on the network picks up a virus that corrupts executables on their computer, or <insert reason to re-image here> you have to call M$ and reactivate again. THAT is a PITA.
Now, you work for a very large company with 5,000 desktops. How many man-hours is that company going to waste on product activation now???
IMHO, if Microsoft wants to drive their legitimate business to alternative operating systems, they are going about it the right way. I decided not to *ever* buy another MS operating system after Win2K when they launched the consumer product activation requirement in XP (and I've been quite happy with Slackware or Gentoo since). I expect more corporations will make the same choice now that Vista will be doing the same thing to volume customers.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
I swap hardware plenty often enough to make software that requires activation a big PITA. When I need it done, sometimes, it's fairly urgent and I don't want to have to call Microsoft to get things reactivated.
I'll grant you that Microsoft isn't the worst offender of these "activation" schemes. I have software in house that requires activation, and if you reformat the same computer, reinstall on the same exact hardware, it won't recognize that it's the same computer and activation won't work. On the other hand, with this same software, if you reimage to a different hard drive and put it in the original computer, it will recognize that the hard drive is different and shut down. This company doesn't offer instructions on what to do if you have a problem with activation. They don't offer a public tech support phone number or e-mail address. The only way I've been able to reactivate it is to call their main line, get transferred 3 times, and get put on hold for an hour and a half.
So, yeah, it could be worse. I tolerate software that requires activation so long as they offer an "enterprise" version that doesn't have any of this "piracy protection", and that's what I'm doing with Windows, Office, Photoshop, etc. right now. That means you get to pay extra and jump through additional hoops for unbroken versions of their software. It's not ideal because you don't necessarily get OEM prices or the upgradability of retail versions, and though you can buy their "assurance", it means a yearly charge for "free" upgrades. Meanwhile, Microsoft hasn't released a new version of Windows in 5 years, and the new version they're supposed to release soon, I don't want. So once any "piracy protection" shows up in an enterprise version and prevents me from doing reasonable things, I am done putting up with it.
I've upgraded the bios on a motherboard and have had WPA reactivation triggered, granted this MB had everything intergrated on it. Microsoft is following the game manufactures, inconveincing there legitimate users, and making a pirated product look better then there own.
Which would you rather use? A game that requires 15 to 20 seconds to validate that your cd is orginal, or a no-cd patch that opens instantly?
Which would you rather use? An operating system that shuts down if you swap out hardware, or a crack that allows you to swap out failed components?
I personally chose linux whenever possible. As long as you have your drivers and filesystem support compiled in your kernel, you could swap between Intel and AMD processor and the OS wouldn't give a damn.
If my understanding is correct, virtual machines do not suffer from this problem.
In a VM, you never have to "replace the motherboard", the NIC card always appears to have the same MAC, etc.
I wonder if MS's tougher rules for Vista will help to drive significantly more people to use virtual machines.