Slashdot Mirror
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.
This great piece of history still rings true today:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists#/media/File:Bill_Gates_Letter_to_Hobbyists.jpg
Many here should read, learn, and abide...
Last time I installed OEM windows using the correct OEM discs (Windows 7), I was not prompted for registration codes of any kind. I installed multiple computers across two or three models from one manufacturer with the same DVD and on checking what keys were used for activation they were all unique. I don't know if the installer somehow determined a preset key based on a unique identifier associated with the computer itself, or if the OEM sysprep process on the disc determined that the computer was from that manufacturer and generated a somewhat random key based on the legitimacy of the platform, but they all worked fine.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
My employer up until sixteen months ago did exactly that. Volume licensing would have saved them some money - not a whole lot of money, but some. But, the IT department was totally incompetent. 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. And, volume licensing.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
No one thought to sanity-check the huge mirror that Perkin-Elmer designed for the single most expensive and ambitious astronomy project that the world had ever seen, even though two secondary instruments disagreed with the 'correct' measurements that the primary calibration tool reported. Consequently it cost a billion and a half dollars, several years, and required a daring in-orbit repair of components never meant to be space-serviced in order to get the instrument working properly.
In 2003, a NOAA weather satellite being manufactured fell off of its assembly tilting table because no one followed the directions to verify that the table's bolts were installed. The damage cost $135 million to correct.
Mars Climate Orbiter burned up in the Martian atmosphere because no one bothered to rectify that one team used fractional units and another team used SI units, so raw data in one unit was assumed to be in another unit, causing the problem that led to being steered incorrectly and hitting the planet.
I never underestimate the ability for people to overlook the most basic things. If massive high-profile projects can be screwed up this easily, then a few people working a relatively unimportant thing like this could easily overlook things.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Why would you think that?
I think the monoculture MS created in the late 80's to early 00's was a net gain for IT in general because the standardisation of Wintel as a PC platform allowed less nerdy types to get involved and help grow the pie. You can hate on all the bad things MS did, but the fact is having a standard platform during it's infancy was good for IT, just like how the Model T jump started the auto industry. We are now entering a post MS era so can lose the hate, and focus on Apple, Google, Facebook, Tesla etc, but the fact remains, any new industry has a critical growth phase, and the likes of MS and Cisco helped make that happen.
"GEM ... was pig awful, but better then Windows at the time."
GEM worked. It ran Ventura Publisher. I had investigated previous typesetting platforms; they cost $1.4 million.
The 1st version of Windows was just a toy, a dishonest suggestion that Microsoft should get respect, in my opinion. The second version of Windows had problems with fonts.
Far later, Windows 98 had an unstable file system.
MIcrosoft makes more money if its products have flaws.