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Windows 7 Leaked To Pirates By Microsoft?
nandemoari writes "The beta version of Windows 7 has been widely distributed through torrents and other file sharing systems. But now some commentators claim Microsoft deliberately allowed the package to get into the hands of pirates. 'I'm not being critical here, as some Microsoft Watch commenters will surely claim. It's rather smart marketing. Microsoft fills a big news void with something bloggers and journalists will write about. The suspense of stealth downloads from torrents and races to post the best screenshots first make the Windows 7 leak buzz all the more exciting. For other people, there is delight in seeing Microsoft squirm because Seven leaked early. Not that I see much squirming going on.'"
Hmm... let's see ... pirated software, where even having it is proof that it's pirated, as it's not released yet. And yesterday's news on WGA convictions.
That's not hypocrisy -- that's a trojan horse.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
These pirate trackers also have working versions of both XP and Vista that have working Microsoft validation. Supposedly this isn't possible, Microsoft is tracking re-used keys, etc etc - except that the pirates have found a way around it, and all those pirate distributions of XP that come bundled with tools like Adobe and Nero all can be patched using Microsoft Windows Update.
I wouldn't touch them with a 10-foot pole, even if they were reviewed file for file for viruses and you ran a firewall that blocked outbound connections like Comodo or Zonealarm, because if they want to create a zombie machine, they'll do it using SSL for the control channel.
Windows 7 can't be patched online yet, but after release if these sites have copies that can be, then I doubt Microsoft would be so happy.
As to whether or not this is some MS developers idea of a viral marketing campaign: we give those guys in redmond too much credit. I don't think they like seeing it in the wild, esp. with the comments flowing in about how it's no better than Vista.
Delighted to see MS squirmin'
But they ain't wrigglin'
Cause they leaked 7 on the Bay
Seen sunshine and made hay
Now bloggers are talkin 'bout
That the new OS is out
But I see a frown
Cause their computer is down!
Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
I don't doubt they did leak it on purpose...but TFA gives no evidence...save some personal projecting.
THL phish sticks
Did they leak the beta intentionally? Of course they did. It's a great way to generate buzz about the new OS for virtually no cost.
Buzzz?!?!? You get excited about Windows?!? ... Pervert!
would microsoft send me a take down notice to remove windows 7 files uploaded onto our hosting servers by one of our customers last week?
And there is about zero substantiation. No unnamed sources. No evidence.
Slashdot -- speculation for nerds and rumors that matter.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
if you s/Darwin/Microsoft/, (or stop reading after the first half) this comment would be +5 insightful.
Summary: Theory: Microsoft intentionally leaked windows 7. Since it's not verifiable, it's garbage and should be ignored.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Actually, the interior of a watermelon is very nearly black until it's cut open. Light has that strange effect, you know.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Good idea! Reset the clock to Decemeber 31st and see if it zunes.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Guess we're again seeing that any PR is good PR. W7 is getting 'geek' exposure while it's still sounding squirreled up in development. Cruise various forums and blogs, early feedback from the tech-savvy. Makes enough sense to some of us. Whether or not this was planned very far up the line is a good question, but it's not too bad. If the source, rather than a distro was released, OTOH...
Here is a link to leaked videos of the KDE 4.2 beta!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg0ma-qKHrM
There are numerous of those on that site, Youtube.
Wait.. I thought windows 7 WAS window vista; It was a trick to get some dumb model/actors to actually try it and say nice things on "hidden" camera.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I think drivers were only one piece of the problem, and a fairly small piece at that. The generally viewed performance and requirements are what really caused Vista to tank in the eyes of consumers. Good as it may be for some, not everyone has a new computer or a desire to buy a new one. Couple that with bad performance on budget laptops and there's your whole case right there.
Windows 7 has been widely distributed through torrents
Does that qualify as a distributed virus attack?
End anonymous moderation and posting on
Also the fact that literally nothing was in the same place as it was in XP meaning there was a learning curve right out of the box in finding where the settings have been moved to. I know I got a bit more than frustrated when I tried to actually do anything in Vista. It wasn't because it was slow, (I didn't really notice it being "fast" either) but everything was renamed and/or moved around so much it made changing things a bit of a hunt and peck routine I haven't had since Win95.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Waiting for Windows 7 is like waiting for the new Ford Taurus to come out!
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
That was the exact problem. Despite being given plenty of warning, many software developers (applications and drivers) did not adjust to the new environment in time for its release. Couple that phenomenon with weak integrated GPUs that should never have been certified for Vista, and that's that. I've run Vista flawlessly on Athlon XPs on nForce2 chipsets and Socket 478 Pentium 4s on Intel 865 chipsets, so old hardware isn't the issue. Windows 7 is just a stripped-down, modular Vista with a streamlined user interface; the big difference is that drivers and applications are finally up to speed.
I've never yet had to use Vista myself, but in my limited experience helping friends who do use it, the "budget laptops" issue looks to be a serious one. A friend of mine was given a budget laptop for work, but he couldn't get wireless networking to work and asked me for help.
The first thing I noticed was that it took something ridiculous like 10 minutes to start up, and was incredibly slow even when no applications were running. So I went to the "System" control panel, and discovered the laptop had only 384MB of RAM.
So...it's a new laptop, that ships with Vista, and it falls short of Vista's minimum RAM requirements? I never did figure that one out.
I finally told him that the first thing he needed to do before I could help him was to get a laptop that met or exceeded Vista's minimum system requirements. I didn't hear anything about it after that.
Burma Shave.
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
By MS guys at various events. And no, MS knows full well that Vista was a failure, and generating underground hype for their next rev is kinda a big deal for them. It's worked for them in the past, and they figure it'll work for them again.
Anyway, that's what I heard from one of their employees. But it's not a new thing, I've known a lot of folks who would tell me, off the record, that they know they're a little too "carefree" with their software for many years. The general thought there is that they'd rather have their stuff pirated than not used, but the business folks and shareholders wanted the WGA crap inserted to make themselves feel better. While taking a very broad shot at the pirates that were burning, repackaging, and reselling their stuff. Those are the types of pirates that pretty much anyone can agree are assholes.
Whether it's Windows 7 or not, there's one thing that's guaranteed: it's going to be a pane.
Be relentless!
I am seriously amazed this is news. This has been happening almost as long as piracy has been around. I used to release for several groups, and helped run sites. We had several people who were friends with industry people (sometimes software producers (but this was rarer), mostly movies/music/tv). This is how we got PRE's ages before the movie/album/show was released. There were instances of people stealing the property, but this was unsustainable and so those people were only able to provide us with 1 or so releases. The people who continually delivered were often from the marketing/producers/execs from the big parent companies and similar. However, there were some people who worked in development, or at cd presses, however this was a much smaller subset of releasers, as this section always got the most scrutiny on security.
I am perpetually amazed by how little people actually know about the scene. It provides us with so much awesome, yet very few people understand it.
I may be misunderstanding you, but Authenticode is a technology used to verify the publisher of binaries so that there is some assurance "lol32.exe" is worth running.
As such, Authenticode isn't an anti-piracy feature insamuch as its an anti-malware feature. As and end user, you'd not want want this to be busted.
You may be thinking of WGA and WPA, the former being the "Genuine Advantage" stuff that Windows Update and MS Download center look for, and the latter being Product Activation [that cares about keys and key activation, etc].
The latter two are most certainly anti-piracy features and confer no functional/usability advantages to the enduser who isn't concerned with the legality/legitimacy of their installation.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
This is nothing new... Microsoft did the exact same thing in '94-'95 with Windows 95, only back then we got our leaked betas by way of pirate BBSs and 28.8 modems. This unofficial beta test put pre-release Win95 in the hands of thousands of computer geeks, who ended up lining up outside CompUSAs, Computer Citys, and Best Buys to get their copies of Win95 at 12:00am on 8/24/95... Win95's positive buzz was a direct result of the leaked betas.
Now, Windows 7 needs to deliver just like Win95 did in terms of app compatibility, drivers, and improvements...
Oh, and for the guy above who said that Vista's driver issue has improved--it really hasn't. People just replaced their older hardware, so the improvement is mostly perception.
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
More of an addendum than anything else... XP released at a time when 32-128MB of RAM on a system was fairly standard. XP required 64MB as a minimum to install, and didn't really start running very well until you had at least 256MB, which happened at large in the consumer market about 6 months after XP hit the shelves.
Vista released when 512MB-1GB was fairly standard. It runs poorly on anything less than 2GB. It's the same problem that XP had when it first released... now that new computers are generally coming with 2GB at a minimum, and 6 or 8GB is available from most major manufacturers, Vista's performance has reached acceptable levels.
I think the problem is that Microsoft has been providing its developers with very powerful workstations to design software on. Maybe for the next major releases of Office and Windows, they should replace all the workstations with '486 DX/66 with 16MB of RAM.... Hopefully then they'll learn the meaning of lean code again.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
You're a little too paranoid.
I trust the pirates and torrents FAR more than the software companys.
One works to screw me over all the time. The other has never let me down.
Chances are, it meets Vista's physical RAM requirement of 512, and is just taking that much for video.
I appreciate your rappin',
Dat win dose's still crapin',
N' all the bloggers yappin',
Then watchin' pr0n n' fappin'.
Looks like Microsoft has grown a pair,
Taken on to torrents outa despair,
Thus the new OS' come to be,
The great Windows 7 conspiracy.
Some say 't looks similar to KDE,
N' other things based on BSD.
But I really dun give a shiz,
'Bout Aero, Aqua OR Compiz.
Just wanna have all my apps,
Run smooth as ass on x86.
peace
This appears to be a common tactic for television producers. Around pre-season times there is an inevitable leak of almost all new shows that would appeal to the demographic that would know how to download them. This is in fact quite smart because they probably realize:
1)If these people will download a pre-air, they're probably going to download the regular show too, so downloading now or later has the same effect
2)People are going to talk about the show and give feedback
3)Leak it early enough and you might have a chance to tweak some things
now a TV show and operating system are in different places all together..but the concept is the same..
Announcer: We have gathered a few volunteers to try the new version of Windows Vista....I mean, Windows Mojave.... I mean Windows 7. Here is what they had to say:
Joe SixPack: Sick!
Soccer Mom: Oh, my God!
Joe Average: Wow! It's like, you know.... Stuff!
Barbie Doll: Totally!
Announcer: The new Windows 7 will revolutionize how people use PCs. The system has been designed from scratch to run smoothly on a mere 4 Gigabyte of RAM!
Joe SixPack: What's that?
Barbie Doll: 4 Gigabyte is like, 2 gallons or something.
Joe Average: Feels faster than my AOL.
Announcer: Dont take our word for it. Visit Win7.MojaveProject.Microsoft.com and test drive the new Windows. Experience what so many other people have already experienced!
On the other hand, I was _pleasantly_ surprised to see that they'd changed "Documents and Settings/.../My Documents" into "Users/../Documents", finally making it unnecessary to deal with those damn spaces in every single file path in the home directory. *huge* improvement, or rather, finally a fix to a rather annoying screw-up (imho).
(sure, software should be able to handle the spaces, but if you do any amount of work on the command-line i'm sure you'll agree sometimes it doesn't seem worth the extra effort required)
One is a public entity that needs consumer trust to stay in business, and can be brought to court if they harm their users.
The other one is under no obligation to you the user, is anonymous and unfindable, has demonstrably shady ethics, and can only make money from their work by doing something like bundling malware with it.
I'm not saying all cracked software you find on torrent trackers includes malware, but about half the malware infections I clean off of friends' computers got there through installation of NoCD cracks or pirated software that included a Trojan.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...