I also have never gone through the registration process. But registration doesn't have anything to do with activation except that it comes after the activation process in the work flow.
Mind you, since the license isn't being sold, only the copy, the value of what this person is selling is zero
Not true. There is the labor involved in developing the entire system, the cost of the CDN, the cost of the media the bits are resting on and the entire maintenance (update) apparatus, to name a few real world costs associated with software.
They didn't have to but they did. I actually wouldn't have it any other way. Better to go after abusers after the fact than to risk not activating 1 user of legitimately purchased software.
I personally believe that this has always been MS's calculus. They would rather err on the side of caution and just activate.
Who cares? The activation servers' whole job is to prevent unauthorized activation. Clearly they don't.
Actually, no, the job of the activation servers is to activate software.
MS has always erred on the liberal side. As in, if in doubt, just activate it.
Anyone who has installed as much MS software as I have knows this is true. If the web activation fails, you simply call and 9 times out of 10 the product will activate. 1 in 10 times you will get routed to a customer service person and then they will activate it.
I think one of the reasons that piracy of MS software is so prevalent is precisely because of their liberal activation policies.
Or they infiltrate a hearing aide company and steal all the ear canal molds which all have a nice little label with the patient's full name and probably some other identifying information. Profit!
The problem is not the unique identifier use of the SSN.
The problem is that it is mistakenly used for authentication in some systems.
The number should only be used to correlate you to a record (like and e-mail address). To utilize the data in that record a second factor needs to be used for authentication (password, government issued ID, etc).
I rarely use Google anymore. In my view, their dominance in this area is purely inertia at this point.
I started using Bing as my primary search engine about a year ago due to the rewards program (free stuff!). I was really surprised that not only is the relevance equal to or even better than Google in most cases (for me), but that Bing has lots of nifty little gadgets in their search results that I never saw in Google. Stuff like "my ip" or inline converters (hex to decimal, base64 encode/decode, language translations, etc).
There have been a few times where I just wasn't getting the results I wanted with Bing and tried the queries on Google and every time I got the same results in both engines.
Slashdot Mirror
I also have never gone through the registration process. But registration doesn't have anything to do with activation except that it comes after the activation process in the work flow.
Try going to ipchicken.com and it will show you your public address
Or just type "my ip" into the Bing search box. Google may have this feature too.
Your forum is probably operating behind some kind of reverse proxy.
Mind you, since the license isn't being sold, only the copy, the value of what this person is selling is zero
Not true. There is the labor involved in developing the entire system, the cost of the CDN, the cost of the media the bits are resting on and the entire maintenance (update) apparatus, to name a few real world costs associated with software.
They didn't have to but they did. I actually wouldn't have it any other way. Better to go after abusers after the fact than to risk not activating 1 user of legitimately purchased software.
I personally believe that this has always been MS's calculus. They would rather err on the side of caution and just activate.
Who cares? The activation servers' whole job is to prevent unauthorized activation. Clearly they don't.
Actually, no, the job of the activation servers is to activate software.
MS has always erred on the liberal side. As in, if in doubt, just activate it.
Anyone who has installed as much MS software as I have knows this is true. If the web activation fails, you simply call and 9 times out of 10 the product will activate. 1 in 10 times you will get routed to a customer service person and then they will activate it.
I think one of the reasons that piracy of MS software is so prevalent is precisely because of their liberal activation policies.
Clearly, if you are working in any field other than medical or environmental science, you are wasting time and money. /eyeroll
Or they infiltrate a hearing aide company and steal all the ear canal molds which all have a nice little label with the patient's full name and probably some other identifying information. Profit!
I was kind of thinking the same thing.
I am glad that he did what he did. I would go so far as to say he is a hero.
However, he does seem to love the limelight a bit too much.
Yeah exactly.
Right here on /. NoScript blocks 7 domains out of 9 and the site looks and loads fine.
Perhaps it is the system that is broken?
It certainly does seem inevitable that once a company gets to a certain size its practices move from human interest to business interest.
Business interest is not necessarily compatible with human interest.
Keep running fglrx until the open source drivers are up-to-snuff.
As long as there is a road map, we should be good.
If they had dropped fglrx and didn't have a plan to replace it then there is a problem.
Home Depot is more for small general contractors than anyone else.
I doubt that even 1/4 of their business is from individual home user sales.
Yeah, as a matter of fact, there is probably a Lowes or Mendards right across the street...
In the case of the SSN, there are some restrictions
The problem is not the unique identifier use of the SSN.
The problem is that it is mistakenly used for authentication in some systems.
The number should only be used to correlate you to a record (like and e-mail address). To utilize the data in that record a second factor needs to be used for authentication (password, government issued ID, etc).
About a year ago after the Target breach I went through the effort of locking my credit report at the 3 major agencies.
Now, in theory, I don't have to worry about someone opening new lines of credit in my name.
It cost me a total of about $30 (10/agency).
It may be heavily taxed but it is still subsidized sometimes.
Think strategic oil reserve...
I did IT consulting for SOHO to small business customers for years.
I have set up many credit card machines and somewhere along the line these tests became required.
It really is a total scam. They just run a glorified nmap scan of your network and try to find all of the things that are open.
In my experience, every open port, no matter what, was flagged and assigned some kind of positive point value... Get enough points and you "fail".
My general practice was to turn off any external facing services, queue up the test, wait for it to complete then turn on the services again.
Tax payer money shouldn't be wasted on rounded corners anyway.
Government computers are supposed to be utilitarian and beige.
Seriously?
Google is not the only search engine and it is not even the best any more.
Yeah because Google is the only search engine....
I rarely use Google anymore. In my view, their dominance in this area is purely inertia at this point.
I started using Bing as my primary search engine about a year ago due to the rewards program (free stuff!). I was really surprised that not only is the relevance equal to or even better than Google in most cases (for me), but that Bing has lots of nifty little gadgets in their search results that I never saw in Google. Stuff like "my ip" or inline converters (hex to decimal, base64 encode/decode, language translations, etc).
There have been a few times where I just wasn't getting the results I wanted with Bing and tried the queries on Google and every time I got the same results in both engines.
Never use software from China.
I can pretty much guarantee that you use Chinese software every day of your life either directly or indirectly.
So you are telling me that people shooting video in Maryland get the consent from every person that enters the shot or is within hearing distance?
I am sure that the scope of the law is much more narrow and probably doesn't apply in this instance. IANAL though.
Not to mention... you know... driving the bus...