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Vista Pirates To Get "Black Screen of Darkness"
jcatcw writes "Microsoft has just turned on Reduced Functionality mode, worldwide, and sent a letter to OEMs explaining the consequences of Vista piracy. These include a black screen after 1 hour of browsing, no start menu or task bar, and no desktop. Using fear as a motivator, the email warns resellers to 'make sure your customers always get genuine Windows Vista preinstalled.'"
"To help protect honest partners and fight piracy, Microsoft will continue to block product keys that are determined to be pirated, stolen or otherwise deemed nongenuine."
So, what is going to happen when M$ screws up and starts blocking products that are 'genuine'? This will happen and I'll bet that the least painful thing that a customer will be able to do is purchase a new copy. I doubt that M$ will go out of their way to check to see if a blocked customer has a legit copy.
"The ad concludes with "Don't risk it!" and "make sure your customers always get genuine Windows Vista preinstalled."
So basically, M$ is going to screw customers if their OEMs screw M$. This should be fun to watch. Just another reason for linux.
Asshats
According to Microsoft, this is obviously the other way around: websites should change themselves to support the new Operating System.
Because we don't like this "OS independency" that websites seem to enjoy at the moment.
You can bet on a class action as a direct result of this.
Considering other missteps by MicroSoft, it's an absolute certainty that legit users will get snagged here, and then they get to experience the famous MicroSoft support system.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
I wonder how long until some company loses a production SQL server costing millions of dollars because of this when they owned a group license. Its more then enough to stop any company from using vista if they where considering it.
I am glad that Microsoft is actually backing up the restrictions that they say they have on their software. I've noticed that many Linux vs. Windows debates are about legitimate use of Linux vs. illegitimate use of Windows.
And when I try to point out to people that there are strict legal limits on what you can do with Windows, they look at me like I am making something up. "But, I can install Windows on this computer...I have a CD my brother-in-law gave me!"
So, I am just as glad that Microsoft is doing something to demonstrate the nature of licensed software. If people want to use licensed, commercial software, I don't object to it (even though I use almost totally free software), but they should realize that means they have to pay for it.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
In other news, Apple, Sun, and a billion linux supporters simultaneously screamed their praise at this latest initiative by Microsoft.
It gets worse. Let's take that line of thought a bit further. From TFA:
Great. Just what we need: deliberately make some machines more vulnerable to attack. As if those machines are the only ones that will suffer when they get infected.
A malware infection doesn't just impact the infected system's users. Those systems then become nodes in a botnet. They pump out more spam, more viruses, more phishing. They host phishing sites. They could theoretically be used for distributed computing projects... like cracking into paying customers' systems.
What's Microsoft going to say when a large site gets hacked, using someone else's pwned box as a launch platform, and the attacker got into that box because it was pirated, and Microsoft deliberately disabled the update that would have fixed a remote root exploit?
And what if the WGA server is down again?
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Let me get this straight.. Not even two weeks ago, their WGA system completely blew up leaving millions of genuine users "in the dark", and now they are do confident in their system that they are going to do something like this?
I think I will just wait a few days for M$ to shot themselves in the foot... This type of poor business behavior is not sustainable longterm...
I'm honestly hoping this was typed in sarcasm.
I use sudo in my everyday conversations so I can gain root access.
Anybody remember this?
Windows Genuine Advantage Servers Down, Taking Users With Them
Sat Aug 25, 2007 4:26PM EDT
Breaking news: Some of Microsoft's WGA servers reportedly went offline last night or early this morning. What's that mean? If your copy of Windows tries to validate itself with Microsoft, it might be marked as unvalidated, or put simply, counterfeit.
The rest of the story is here.
I can't wait until Vista tries to dial home, and they have another server blackout. I wonder if MS can be held legally liable the same way virus/worm authors are? You know, whenever some huge worm takes everybody's machines down for a day or two they tally up some outrageous dollar amount due to lost productivity? I smell a huge class action lawsuit waiting in the wings.
This is going to be seriously entertaining when it happens.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I don't want Vista at all. Not genuine, not pirated, not at all. Before you get too excited, I wouldn't buy a laptop for Linux either. For what I want I need Windows XP. I'd want it to be legit of course, but Vista is useless to me and I don't want it. It's hard to find anything new with XP these days though, and thus I am not buying anything. I may have to buy a laptop with Vista and buy XP and try to send Vista back or something. Then I need to wonder about driver support, does this new laptop work properly with XP, or do I lose something that lacks or has poor drivers under XP since they're all supposed to go Vista now for periherals?
People are going on and on as if it's a forgone conclusion that this will happen en-mass with legitimate copies of Vista, but this is nothing more than speculation based on MS-hate, not facts.
There are a lot of reasons to "hate" Microsoft, and credibility demands actual facts, so when it comes to pass, we can all say "I told you so". But at the present, this is a non-story.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I'll tell you what's making it more appealing too. It's these guys. 2 years ago, Linux on the desktop was no more compelling than it was when I first started using Slackware back in the early 90s. Getting simple things like audio and graphics working was still more of a chore than 99% of end users are willing to put up with.
It's still a long way from perfect, but the Ubuntu team are challenging all these things which should be completely hidden from the user so they don't have to know how to modify their X config, write a Modeline, or learn m4 so they can create a sendmail config. They're doing the things which have always been considered "good enough" to the hardcore, but which have prevented mainstream acceptance, and I think that's bloody great.
I recently reinstalled XP on my home machine due to a failed drive. I'd actually forgotten how horrible it was. Things like.. trying to get SP2. You go to Microsoft, and they have a whole 'SP2 is great!' page which extols the virtues of installing it, suggesting that the best way to get it is via Windows update.. So, you go to Windows update, and it says.. "Hey, you need SP2! You should check out this page which explains why it's great, and how to get it!", and links back to the first page. Took me a few hours to figure out how to bypass that one.
Anyway, my point is.. I installed Ubuntu about 3 weeks ago, at my new job. Took about an hour from when I first put the CD in the drive to the point where I had fired up Eclipse and was writing code. It used to be that Linux on the desktop was as much of a pain in the ass as Windows was, but for different reasons. That's not true any more, and it can only get better from here, and I see things accelerating with the Ubuntu team putting so much effort into it.
2007, the year of Linux? Yeah. And 2008, and 2009, and 2010, and...
then people would be demanding a reversal on this Genuine Advantage program.
It's been a few decades since the people have "demanded" ANYTHING. So long as they have their beer and their sports channels and big screen tv's, the people - for perhaps the first time in history - are content to let you take everything else away from them. Or am I wrong?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
If poor software is criminal, who do I get arrested for all those times I tried to install Linux only to be greeted with the inability to connect to the network, get X running, or use most of my peripherals?
All of your examples neglect the possibility of being wrongfully accused. If I report your car stolen and the police enforce it blindly, you have venues available to retreive your rightfully purchased things, including your car. In this case it is slightly different. the accusors and enforcers are the same entity. They are also not infallable and are also in a high profile public position to attract virus writers and others who have the means to innitiate a failure of this system. since it has no checks and ballances outside of their control you will be left with only the legal system to argue against this multibillion dollar company with lobbyists and campain funds, let alone legal earmarks far in excess of your income or credit.
It would be at minimum an uphill battle even if you had all the documentation available to prove that you deserve the use of your legally purchased OS. They could always say that your key was leaked and therefore forfit as part of the EULA you agreed to without seeing. You may be able to use technology to retrieve your data because you are tech savy and aware of alternate methods, but are you a valid representation of the general Windows User base? Would your mother or grandmother be able to do these things if they did not have you around? Or would at a minimum have to pay a tech to do it for them, and is that "Right" to punish them monitarily for using the pretty new OS?
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
If you take someone's money by using a pirated copy of Windows, that's theft of money.
Taking property by knowingly exchanging a false token for that money is theft. Read the law in your state, they are all very nearly the same.
You're wrong about the "for the first time in history" part, that's for sure.
Just because you sold your soul to the devil that needn't make you a teetotaler. --The Devil and Daniel Webster
Well split any hair you wish. This LOWERS Vista value to everyone.
I believe that Microsoft will discover that this is a tactic who's unintended consequences include a movement away from Vista - and to some extent from Windows in general.
Apple's moment to strike a hot iron is rapidly upon us.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Microsoft has some pretty smart people working there.
Microsoft is driven by marketing, not by smart people.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
So now it's possible to disable Windows machines remotely, how long will it be before someone writes a worm exploiting this? How long will it be before people start getting ransom notes in their inbox demanding cash "or the PC gets it"? And imagine the resulting chaos...MS would have to re-activate hundreds, probably thousands of computers that were maliciously disabled, presuming they can do that remotely too. The irony of course being that any affected machine would be incapable of updating itself with a patch to fix it. Machine gets infected, goes into reduced functionality mode...MS releases patch, but reduced functionality mode means that computer won't get said patch. Marvelous idea!
Seriously though, I could never use an operating system that not only could at any time be remotely triggered to lock me out, but that actually has that functionality deliberately built into it.
This is like a Judge Dredd strip I read years ago where in a hostage situation, Dredd killed the hostage. Microsoft is saying "You've been unlucky enough to buy Vista from a dodgy OEM. We're going to compound your misery." Since I doubt the consumer has any comeback whatsoever on this.
Microsoft are just a company that sells misery really aren't they.
A hoax, or a test balloon?
I wish I could agree that Apple's moment to 'strike a hot iron' is a good thing -- however, Apple is just as bad about vendor lock in as Microsoft is. Some might venture to say worse. Especially in a situation like this where our main gripe is Microsoft's overall control of your computer regardless of the situation. Apple can in theory do the same thing, but so far, hasn't bothered except to make it overly difficult to run their flagship OS on standard off the shelf hardware.
Oh well, maybe someday we'll see a cool thing like Apple's hardware actually becoming as cost-efficient to own as normal x86 hardware...but I don't intend to hold my breath.
If Apple were to release their OS, without throwing in Intel's hardware, it would be. Unfortunately Apple continues the straight and narrow as a hardware company. Part of what saves Apple from something like this is controlling their empire with tighter leashes than Microsoft. I'm not putting them down but if they were to start releasing the OS without requiring their relabeled hardware they would be fighting similar issues. Apple is out to make money just the same.
Microsoft has been fighting piracy for a while now, deactivating pirated sofware. Obviously those unintended consequences don't seem to exist or else your theory would have come true a while ago.
Microsoft has just turned on Reduced Functionality mode, worldwide
If the fact that Vista includes client-side software to do this, which Microsoft can "turn on" at their whim, isn't enough to keep people away from Vista then I don't know what is...
"If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it." --- Arthur Kasspe