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Single Verizon IP Address Used For Hundreds of Windows 7 Activations

Posted by samzenpus on from the you-might-want-to-tone-it-down-a-little dept.

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.

17 of 323 comments (clear)

  1. From Micro-Soft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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...

    1. Re:From Micro-Soft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Its funny when you put that letter in the context of history:
      - Bill Gates used Paul Allen to steal computer time from other university staff
      - They used that stolen time, paid for by tax payers and donations to the university, to make their commercial software
      - Bill Gates received a personal loan from the richest person in Seattle (his father)
      - Bill Gates was driving a porche when he started uni - back then Porches were rare as hen's teeth

      If anything, that letter just points out how much Gates thought he was entitled to - an entitled sociopath who has made everyone think hes the Mahatma Gandhi of IT.

  2. Proxy? by TWX · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    1. Re: Proxy? by Runaway1956 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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
    2. Re:Proxy? by TWX · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.
    3. Re:Proxy? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Funny

      since 2001, which was at least 14 years ago.

      I hate it when people show off their mad math skills.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  3. Confused by squiggleslash · · Score: 4, Informative

    I understand "one key, many IP addresses" as being suggestive of licence violations, but why would "many keys, one IP address" be?

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    1. Re:Confused by n3r0.m4dski11z · · Score: 5, Informative

      "Microsoft says that the defendant(s) have activated hundreds of copies of Windows 7 using product keys that have been âoestolenâ from the companyâ(TM)s supply chain or have never been issued with a valid license"

      It means whomever is there has a legit key generator for windows. Or a computer store who buys stolen keys to keep costs down.

      Regardless, I am sure google knows exactly who they are. You aren't really anonymous on the internet. All it would take would be a few curious admins at google or facebook to check their logs for the ip.Hell i bet reddit or someone has already figured out who it is.

      --
      -
  4. small business? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

  5. Voluntary IP address submission? by waynemcdougall · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Recycle PCs and build a wireless community network www.hillsborough.org.nz
  6. Re:Single shop most likely by TWX · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
  7. Re:Single shop most likely by afidel · · Score: 4, Informative

    I don't know if the installer somehow determined a preset key based on a unique identifier associated with the computer itself
    It did, for large volume OEM's Microsoft has them burn the key into the BIOS which is why most don't come with the hologram sticker anymore, there's no need for it on Vista+ systems. The only problem it can sometimes cause is if you're doing a cross version and cross type install without an existing OS on the box (ie it came with 7 home and you're doing an upgrade install of 8.1 Enterprise)

    --
    There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  8. Re:Single shop most likely by rudy_wayne · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  9. Re:Single shop most likely by arth1 · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's likely a dynamic IP

    % nslookup -type=PTR 20.202.111.74.in-addr.arpa. ::
    Server: ::
    Address: ::#53

    Non-authoritative answer:
    20.202.111.74.in-addr.arpa name = static-74-111-202-20.lsanca.fios.verizon.net.

  10. Re:At the same time by dryeo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
  11. Re:Single shop most likely by richy+freeway · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's very very easy to do. Just use the "evaluation" serial (actually provided by Microsoft), which for Pro is XHQ8N-C3MCJ-RQXB6-WCHYG-C9WKB

    Then using PKeyui, extract the correct serial from the BIOS/UEFI and activate with that.

  12. The 1st version of Windows was a toy, by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "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.