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Anti-Piracy Windows 7 Update Phones Home Quarterly
Lauren Weinstein sends in news of a major and disturbing Microsoft anti-piracy initiative called Windows Activation Technologies, or WAT. Here is Microsoft's blog post giving their perspective on what WAT is for. From Lauren's blog: "The release of Windows 7 'Update for Microsoft Windows (KB71033)' will change the current activation and anti-piracy behavior of Windows 7 by triggering automatic 'phone home' operations over the Internet to Microsoft servers, typically for now at intervals of around 90 days. ... These automatic queries will repeatedly — apparently for as long as Windows is installed — validate your Windows 7 system against Microsoft's latest database of pirated system signatures (currently including more than 70 activation exploits known to Microsoft). If your system matches — again even if up to that time (which could be months or even years since you obtained the system) it had been declared to be genuine — then your system will be 'downgraded' to 'non-genuine' status until you take steps to obtain what Microsoft considers to be an authentic, validated, Windows 7 license. ... KB971033... is scheduled to deploy to the manual downloading 'Genuine Microsoft Software' site on February 16, and start pushing out automatically through the Windows Update environment on February 23. ... [F]or Microsoft to assert that they have the right to treat ordinary PC-using consumers in this manner — declaring their systems to be non-genuine and downgrading them at any time — is rather staggering." Update: 02/12 02:08 GMT by KD : Corrected the Microsoft Knowledge Base number to include a leading 9 that had been omitted in the pre-announcement, per L. Weinstein.
...skip update KB71033.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
...they want their mainframes back. This is not unlike IBM charging for use of their hardware and software on a per cycle basis. One of the people I worked with back in the 90s remembers earlier models of mainframes actually had mechanical car-like odometers that were read by a "meter reader" like the gas company, and IBM would send them a bill.
And it is a guarantee that enterprising individuals will come up with a solution to WAT as my former co-worker did; crack the box and reset the numbers. Not enough to arouse suspicion, but just enough that they wouldn't be charged for a huge end-of-month load on the processor.
What happens if the domain name and IP addresses used for validation are null-routed?
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Every time I don't have an Internet connection,win7 informs me within a few minutes that I "may not be running a legitimate copy". The link it provides to "resolve" this is a essentially a "buy win7 now" page. Without fail a few minutes after the Internet connection is restored, the warning goes away and the desktop watermark accusing me of piracy also disappears again.
I'm actually more than a little peeved about being called a thief every time I resume my session from suspend -- during the few seconds it takes to reconnect -- or use my laptop out of range of my wireless. But my point is that if it wasn't phoning home, it wouldn't be telling me this *only* when there was no Internet connection; and it wouldn't stop telling me *only* when my connection was restored.
Of course, no matter how peeved I am - as long as it doesn't get in my way, it's not worth waiting on hold for 20 minutes of my life to get a solution which may or may not resolve it.
The problem is that... well... it doesn't work the way they say it does.
I have a legit copy of Win7 Ultimate, received directly from MS at the Win7 launch event. Installed in October, not genuine on November 1st. Called, got reactivated. Not genuine on December 1st. Called, got reactivated. Not genuine on January 1st. Installed WGA crack. February 11th, still "genuine".
It's been legit all along, and I only had a problem with it until I used the same method used by pirates.
This does NOT affect piracy and it never will. It does, however, ensure that I will be attending every Microsoft OS launch event in order to never give them another red cent, eat their free food, and get my free copy of their shiny new toy.
If I had paid for this, I'd be outraged. Knowing that it WILL happen IF I pay means I'll NEVER pay. Period.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Linux is always Genuine. And with the open distros, it doesn't cost a cent. You can put copies of it on as many computers as you want. You have server functionality if you want it - for free.
As Microsoft keeps tightening up on people, I really have to wonder why anyone still puts up with it.
I understand that they are a company, entitled to sell licenses to their stuff, and to enforce those licenses. But this seems to be changing the rules on legitimate users after they already bought the licenses.
Doesn't matter to me. I run XP on a system not on a network and don't need to patch it for anything. Everything else I run is Linux and I haven't booted the XP box in over a year - probably more like two.
I voted with my feet a long time ago.
You have clearly never encountered machines that were illegally upgraded to Windows XP Pro by some "tech" who put it on the computer of his/her customers in an attempt to fix said machines. Here is how it works:
End user never makes a recovery CD/DVD set, and one is never provided with the computer. When Windows get badly corrupted(root kit, nasty piece of malware, etc), and the tech can't fix the problem without doing a clean install, many of these techs will do a clean install from a pirated Windows CD they have with them. Initially, there is no problem until that key gets flagged. The next Windows Update that comes through then sees that the machine is using a bogus key, and starts screaming about the copy being illegal.
Now, the problem is that the key that came with the computer does not work on the version that has been installed, and there is no way to fix the problem with the bogus version. So, end user calls a new tech to deal with the problem. Even if the customer has a valid key, if the OS refuses to accept it because the current install is a Pro or Ultimate version, there is no good solution. The end user never asked for the "upgraded version", but is now stuck with it, and with no way to downgrade.
What I wish Microsoft would do would be to have a downgrade method to go from Ultimate down to Home based on the key, even on a system that is up and running, just to protect end users who get scammed like this.
Dead on.
Remember Spore? It was released with some of the most restrictive DRM to date. PRIOR to it's release date it was easily found on P2P, cracked, and with literally 10,000+ seeders. This stopped piracy in what way?
Oddly enough the backlash from legal, paid users was so harsh they stepped back from that DRM scheme.
Of all the popular products out there only the PS3 comes to mind as not being fairly quickly cracked (though I read something recently this may have been done). Everything from hardware-interlocks (dongles) of CAD/CAM, device OS restrictions (iphone, droid, etc.), gaming consoles locks (NES to Wii), serial numbers, online registration (windows activation, etc.), DVD/Blu-Ray have all been hacked/cracked.
Funny thing though - Apple is *notorious* about controlling your experience with their hardware and software yet their OS updates have no restrictions, no serial numbers, no registration. It's the honor system that you don't share the DVD with all your friends. Plus there isn't multiple versions of the same OS to worry about *AND* it's cheaper than the least expensive Win7 build. I'm not a applefag but seriously - take a hint MS.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.