Single Verizon IP Address Used For Hundreds of Windows 7 Activations

An anonymous reader writes with this story from TorrentFreak: A presumed pirate with an unusually large appetite for activating Windows 7 has incurred the wrath of Microsoft. In a lawsuit filed [in] a Washington court, Microsoft said that it logged hundreds of suspicious product activations from a single Verizon IP address and is now seeking damages. ... Who he, she or they are behind address 74.111.202.30 is unknown at this point, but according to Microsoft they're responsible for some serious Windows pirating. "As part of its cyberforensic methods, Microsoft analyzes product key activation data voluntarily provided by users when they activate Microsoft software, including the IP address from which a given product key is activated," the lawsuit reads. The company says that its forensic tools allow the company to analyze billions of activations of software and identify patterns "that make it more likely than not" that an IP address associated with activations is one through which pirated software is being activated.

Comments

Proxy?

[TWX]

Makes me wonder if this is a proxy, a Tor exit node, or some other form of gateway through which hundreds or thousands of PCs get some kind of Internet connection through.

On the other hand, my work has 30,000+ computers that communicate through no more than ten public IP addresses, so if we weren't using a corporate solution for Windows activations then we might pop up in much the same way.

Re: Proxy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that we've been bought out by a larger company, the IT department is far less incompetent, and we actually have machines that work, OS's that do what they are supposed to do, and something that passes for security.

OMG, you mean there's a counter example? Every time I've seen a company get bought up the new IT department is less useful than the previous one.

small business?

[Anonymous Coward]

Could it be a small computer business shop that did windows activation on the behalf of their customers?

Voluntary IP address submission?

[waynemcdougall]

IP address is part of the

product key activation data voluntarily provided by users

Ahhh. This must be some strange new usage of voluntarily, of which I was previously unaware.

Re:Single shop most likely

[rudy_wayne]

It's either a small shop or an amateur wannabe pirate. Either way, if your computers are hitting Microsoft's activation servers, you're a clueless dope who's doing it wrong. People figured out how to avoid that crap years ago.

At the same time

[justthinkit]

At the same time it is also true that Microsoft is famously tolerant and encouraging of software professionals. Offering software at cost (like offering me Office 2000 for a hundred bucks, way back when), providing dev tools and beta products for free or close to it, and tolerating staggering levels of out-and-out piracy...in the interest of having their products used by a truly large sample size.

If it wasn't for Microsoft, we would still be on mainframes and mini-computers. Paying jacked up prices. For crap, frankly.

The only part of the Microsoft game I don't care for is trying to ship old wine in new bottles (i.e. every version of MSOffice since 2000) and especially the force-marching of us to a worse product (the downward progression away from XP). With XP, Microsoft could have created a decent 64-bit version. They could have given us (essentially) unlimited RAM usage on 64-bit XP. And they could have left it to us to decide when to move on to a product...IFF we thought that product was better. But then they would have had to make a real effort at making future Windows products truly better.

Re:At the same time

[dryeo]

If it wasn't for Microsoft, we would still be on mainframes and mini-computers. Paying jacked up prices. For crap, frankly

Why would you think that? There were lots of decent personal computers in the early '80's, most with operating systems at least as good as MS DOS, including graphical ones like GEM that were better then the early crap that was Windows. Even on the PC there were better versions of DOS then MS DOS which were killed by anti-competitive behaviour.
You are right about MS understanding the benefits of getting programmers and consumers hooked though, encouraging people to copy their software at cost (the price of a floppy usually) but they were very anti-competitive for the longest time and probably did more to hold computing back as any company.

Re:At the same time

[sjames]

Without Gates, Tiny BASIC would have ruled the day on micros instead. The rest would have unfolded in a similar way except people wouldn't have mental scars from dealing with Plug-n-Pray. IF anything, MS held the industry back.

Re:At the same time

[Jack Griffin]

What really made the difference was radar plus Dowding's organisational system. Oh, and home advantage.

I've read a little about the war. IMO there were 1000 different things that could've easily changed the result (Chamberlain, Churchill, El Alamein, Tobruk, Enigma, Operation Valkyrie, Manhattan Project, Battle of Britain, Stalingrad... hundreds of others) Attributing something so massive and complex to one or two things seems a little simplistic.

Re:At the same time

[morgauxo]

It doesn't matter where they are now. The point is there were alternatives. Without Microsoft one or more of those alternatives would have had Microsoft's user base. Of course.. that would have probably resulted in more money going into that alternative.. which would have meant more development.. taking it to a further level than it was originally developed.

So.. no, we would not all be on mainframes without Microsoft.