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Microsoft Blocks Pirates From Security Essentials Software
CWmike writes "Microsoft will block users running counterfeit copies of Windows from installing the free Security Essentials antivirus software, said Alex Kochis, director of Microsoft's Genuine Windows team, in a post to a company blog. On-again, off-again debates about the wisdom of blocking security-oriented downloads like patches or defensive software have centered around the argument that Microsoft should protect all users, including pirates, since hijacked PCs threaten the entire Windows ecosystem. In this case, though, one analyst isn't buying that line. 'I can't see any justification for making Microsoft give away Security Essentials [to counterfeit Windows users],' said John Pescatore, Gartner's primary security analyst. 'Those people have many other choices, including free. There are plenty of alternatives to Security Essentials,' he said, adding that that makes a difference. Windows patches, on the other hand, aren't available from anyone but Microsoft."
With vaccination, this is known as herd immunity. Basically, even if an individual is not vaccinated (or virus/malware/etc protected in this case), by virtue of others being vaccinated, there is less chance the non-vaccinated will become infected since there are less people who they are coming into contact with who are harboring the virus. Following with this, the greater the number of immune, the less likely the unprotected will become ill.
I strongly suspect the same concepts would apply to computers, and allowing pirates to have this protection would indeed provide greater security to ALL the unprotected windows users. Thus, the choices for MS are 1) increase security for all users (paying or not) by allowing even pirates to download in order to increase the protection via herd immunity or 2) increase company profit by trying to coerce hackers into buying a copy by not allowing them this download. Since the latter will never happen, all MS is really doing is simply missing an opportunity to increase security because they *think* they can increase profit. Alternatively, maybe they think they are simply teaching those pirates a lesson, but sadly it would be at the expense of others.
He's right in that many people who have the tech-savvy to pirate a copy of Windows will know what their options are regarding anti-virus.
On the other hand, how much does Microsoft actually stand to lose when it comes to giving this away?
I'm willing to bet that they ran the numbers... "how much will the bandwidth cost us" vs "how much do we lose in good will by weakening the herd immunity".
Now that would be an interesting (read: evil) spreadsheet to look at :D
Microsoft would be just protecting their own reputation when unknowing users of pirated installs are complaining less about Windows instability and others see fewer attacks from zombie farms. If you created a problem such as IE6, you should do everything in your power to solve it rather than ranting about others. Good for karma, good for pocketbook.
John Pescatore makes a good point. AVG, Avast, etc... are all free antivirus. When MS withholds patches, it can lead to stronger botnets and ID theft. However, antivirus applications are plentiful and the money MS will be investing in this thing makes them justified in not wanting to simply give it away.
As much as I hate to say it, I won't blame Microsoft for this move.
Anyone running pirated versions of the OSs eligible for MSE will probable have cracked WGA, and will be able to install this if they wish.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
The problem is microsoft has a love/hate relationship with the pirates. They have an absolute need for piracy to be possible but not to become attractive enough (in the first world) to become popular enough to eat into their profits overmuch.
Think about it, Microsoft could eliminate 99% of piracy overnight by using harsh copy protection combined with mandatory Genuine Advantage plus a couple of targeted logic bombs launched against a few of the more flagrant pirate copies. Problem is most pirates these days either built their PC from scratch (else they would have been force fed a license) or bought a PC from a pirate. The DIY crowd is too influential to piss off and what they are doing already stops the bulk of the chopshop pirates in the developed world. If they make pirate windows too unstable in the third world where it is popular they simply can't pay so would be driven to look for alternatives.... and would find them.
So this move is easily understandable, it gives the pirates a nudge but won't overly annoy any of the major groups who pirate. The DIY type who pirates Windows because those guys pirate everything just for fun will have little trouble finding cracked copies of whatever they have been using. At all appearances nobody in the secondary markets updates anything on their damned machines already, considering how much crap spews out.
Democrat delenda est
Everyone can blab on about herd immunity etc but this seems like denying a stolen car a repair under warranty. Systems are going to be used for attacks, it might as well be the pirates systems and not mine. Security these days is more about running faster than your peers, not outrunning the hackers. Microsoft doing this will put paying customers closer to the front of the race. And I am not a microsoft fanboy so don't write some bs about that.
What will everyone want next? Metadata updates for your stolen music from the record companies? As much as I hate some things about companies, you have to draw a line somewhere.
Giving this software free to pirates is almost a promotion of piracy - if you get same stuff when you pirate, then there is no downside to do it.
ll
Also, few pirates might feel bad about the fact that their copy is not 'genuine'. And some owners of valid copies might feel satisfied knowing that people who got free ride didn't get the whole package.
Wait I run Linux, thank god I'm already safe!
I don't believe that Microsoft considers itself to be part of any "Free OS" market at all. Maybe they should be. I can't speak for all linux users, but I hardly consider myself to be a pirate. I use a legal OS: GNU/linux. But, alas, I'm certain that Microsoft would hasten to point out how the license code for the copy of XP that resides in a Virtualbox guest is actually the license code that came with the copy of XP which was OEM'd onto the laptop that hosts that guest and that the EULA was for XP to run on a real laptop, not a virtual laptop. Which makes me already a pirate in their eyes.
I don't see that many pirated Windows installs but the ones I do see are all from poor people who were given a bootleg XP or Windows 2000 disk with no product code and no questions asked. I mean, fair is fair and Microsoft is selling a product as a business not giving away their OS as a charity but in my experience the people they're hurting are the ones least able to help themselves.
The poor people I'm talking about here are usually seniors with little computer knowledge using out of date hardware and single parent families with few resources. They're not buying new computers and $150 for a Microsoft OS is too steep for their budget.
They're not leet hackers laughing at Microsoft, they're simple folk. One little old lady who had her computer in was completely horrified when I told her that her Windows was pirated, she literally had no idea. Our policy is we don't help you once we discover your Windows is pirated for the simple reason that we have no way of knowing what has been done to the OS or what has been corrupted or is missing. In that case she came in a couple of months later with a legal Windows disk she'd saved up and bought and I installed it for her gratis. I know the price tag hurt her though but she would have no truck with illegal Windows.
Anyway, my point is that these folks are for the most part clueless and are ripe targets for botnetting since they lack the knowledge to acquire and keep an AV updated on their own. Free Avast and Free AVG are available to them but without handholding they'd never figure out how to jump through the hoops to download, install and set these up. The beauty of Microsoft Security Essentials is that they've made it pretty much self-running and idiot-proof. Like I said in my post yesterday, I'd push it out to everyone not already running an AV if I were Microsoft. It increases the general health of the Windows eco-system, makes Windows more secure and run better as a result, which in turn makes the Windows experience better for everyone and increases the likelihood of Windows purchases down the road through good word of mouth.
The leet hackers have the tools to look after themselves. If it were just them running pirated Windows, I'd agree with Microsoft and say stuff 'em. It's not though and things look a lot different on the bottom of the food chain; it's those most unable to protect themselves who get hurt the most.
"Microsoft will block users running counterfeit copies of Windows..."
No, try this rewording instead:
"Microsoft will block users not running WGA certified copies of Windows..."
It can be non-counterfeit and yet not registered or certified by the Windows Genuine "Advantage" stuff. It can even be non-counterfeit and REJECTED by WGA.
True pirates will use Avast! anyway.
The problem is that Windows is intentionally designed to be easy to crack, as a marketing tool. They wanted it to spread as wide as possible. In former Soviet Union about 99% of Windows are cracked versions.
Now they stop critical updates because they want the bot-nets to grow and make the Internet unusable, because they are losing in the Internet to Google. So they destroy the Internet, and the world is returning to the Desktop.
It is quite possible. For example, I cannot already use the torrent, if I use it, then my provider disconnects me next day for several hours. Crime and punishment.
I begin to see a new meaning in the words: The freedom is not free.
She is highly unlikely to be reliant on any industry vertical software or anything obscure like that (she probably just wants a web browser and email client), and would be much better off with a free OS.
MS also blocks pirates from installing an illegal copy of Windows, but yet they do it. I'm sure they can also install an illegal copy of the Security Essentials Software. If they want to.
But perhaps you'd like to manually go get yourself a backbone so that you can demonstrate some strength of character...
Don't like Windows or don't want to pay for it? Then don't use it, get off your backside and spend some time learning about a free alternative like Linux or BSD.
Smart-mouthed idiots like you just give the evil corporations the justification they need to stick on DRM and all manner of protection that make it bad for legitimate users as well.
So please don't expect me to be impressed because when it comes down to it, if you're a pirate then you're a jerk.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Wow, I went from a +3, informative, down to 0, flamebait. Nice. Despite the swearing, everything I said was true, and you are wrong. LOTS of Windows malware has spread WITHOUT user interaction, thanks to a slew of MS apps that execute code willy-nilly, for example Klez ("The text portion [of the email] consists of either an HTML internal frame tag which causes buggy e-mail clients to automatically execute the worm...") and Sasser ("Sasser spreads by exploiting the system through a vulnerable network port...") and the Kak worm ("...a VBScript worm that uses a bug in Outlook Express to spread itself.")
Your argument about administering Linux and Windows boils down to "Neither Linux nor Windows can be secured 100%, therefore they're equally bad" and that is NOT the case. If Linux or Mac OS X were dominant they'd have SOME problems, but not the amount that Windows has.
That aside, I agree with you when you say security is not an easy thing. However, security comes in layers, and having an OS that's not equal parts mashed potatoes and swiss cheese is a good start. LOTS of the technologies that could have stopped the spread of MOST malware were WELL KNOWN and EASILY IMPLEMENTED at the time needed but MS just sat on their hands and did NOTHING for YEARS. Buffer overflows can take some work to find but MS has made COUNTLESS stupid decisions over the years, like having Outlook Express automatically execute code sent IN ATTACHMENTS (besides displaying/executing bad HTML/JS/etc in EMAIL CLIENTS) and having lots of services OPEN BY DEFAULT.
Botnets are an example of how MS's shoddy code has made everyone's--not just Windows users--lives worse. So, like I said, MS owes it to the world. Again, the guy in the article is saying "I can't see any justification for making Microsoft give away Security Essentials [to counterfeit Windows users]..." but MS is already giving it away for free to registered users so it's not like they're losing sales. All they'd had to pay for would be bandwidth, and there are already a zillion sites that give away bandwidth to deserving downloads--universities, ISPs, etc. Don't you think every single school in the world would host a copy (AT LEAST for their internal users) to keep their own networks safe? Same for every ISP. Large companies would also distribute it internally. There is NO WEIGHT WHATSOEVER to this inconsiderate asshole's* argument. (-1, here I come!)
* just to be clear that I'm not flaming the wrong person: "this inconsiderate asshole" refers to John Pescatore as quoted in the summary, not the poster to whom I'm replying.
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