While it's true that many copies of pirated software are of low quality and sell for very little, equivalent of a few dollars, the software produced by this group was of very high quality and was intended to fool everyone including the resellers and customers. This product typically sells for the price of genuine product or just a few dollars under both to maximize the profit and because it tends to reduce suspicion that it's fake. There's an image on my blog of an acutal counterfeit DVD from the case that was announced. http://blogs.msdn.com/wga/ [msdn.com]
Also, the counterfeits produced by this group were intended for sale in the US as well as in Europe, the Middle East, other countries in Asia, Australia and Canada.
While it's true that many copies of pirated software are of low quality and sell for very little, equivalent of a few dollars, the software produced by this group was of very high quality and was intended to fool everyone including the resellers and customers. This product typically sells for the price of genuine product or just a few dollars under both to maximize the profit and because it tends to reduce suspicion that it's fake. There's an image on my blog of an acutal counterfeit DVD from the case that was announced. http://blogs.msdn.com/wga/
iperkings, sounds wrong to me that you haven't received your upgrade. If you come to my blog and contact me through the email link in the upper left nav I might be able to help you get your express upgrade kit. At least I'll see what I can do.
Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/wga
I work on the WGA team and I wanted to take a moment to answer a couple of these questions. Btw, I think these are great questions.
1. How many installs are erroneously flagged as genuine?
> We don't have specific numbers on that but the system has been designed to give the benefit of the doubt in many cases. We are also in the process of designing a 'yellow light' scenario where instead of simply giving the benefit of the doubt we will be able to offer specific information to the user about whatever didn't seem right with the system. We can then offer tools to help them to figure out whether their copy is properly licensed and genuine and fix the cases where the system appears non-genuine when it really is genuine.
2. How many installs are erroneously flagged as not genuine?
> Not very many, there's an article now on Information Week that indicates the number is in the millions. This number was calculated by taking a previously disclosed 'half of one percent' estimate of false positives against into the total number of validations (512 million). Calculating the false positive isn't quite that easy, the rate of false positives climbs and falls when issues are discovered then fixed. Given that the false positive scenarios are time bound in this way it's not right to just use that number as a lifetime average.
3. How many installs are not seen by WGA?
> As has been pointed out in numerous places probably many of those that are aware that their copy isn't licensed or genuine won't visit one of our sites that require validation or attempt to install an application (IE7, WMP11 etc.) that have validation built into their setup. How many systems don't we see? Hard to say but it's a point worth making.
4. How many of those are genuine/not genuine?
> Again, I don't know but it's still a good question.
Slashdot Mirror
While it's true that many copies of pirated software are of low quality and sell for very little, equivalent of a few dollars, the software produced by this group was of very high quality and was intended to fool everyone including the resellers and customers. This product typically sells for the price of genuine product or just a few dollars under both to maximize the profit and because it tends to reduce suspicion that it's fake. There's an image on my blog of an acutal counterfeit DVD from the case that was announced. http://blogs.msdn.com/wga/ [msdn.com] Also, the counterfeits produced by this group were intended for sale in the US as well as in Europe, the Middle East, other countries in Asia, Australia and Canada.
While it's true that many copies of pirated software are of low quality and sell for very little, equivalent of a few dollars, the software produced by this group was of very high quality and was intended to fool everyone including the resellers and customers. This product typically sells for the price of genuine product or just a few dollars under both to maximize the profit and because it tends to reduce suspicion that it's fake. There's an image on my blog of an acutal counterfeit DVD from the case that was announced. http://blogs.msdn.com/wga/
iperkings, sounds wrong to me that you haven't received your upgrade. If you come to my blog and contact me through the email link in the upper left nav I might be able to help you get your express upgrade kit. At least I'll see what I can do. Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/wga
1. How many installs are erroneously flagged as genuine?
> We don't have specific numbers on that but the system has been designed to give the benefit of the doubt in many cases. We are also in the process of designing a 'yellow light' scenario where instead of simply giving the benefit of the doubt we will be able to offer specific information to the user about whatever didn't seem right with the system. We can then offer tools to help them to figure out whether their copy is properly licensed and genuine and fix the cases where the system appears non-genuine when it really is genuine.
2. How many installs are erroneously flagged as not genuine?
> Not very many, there's an article now on Information Week that indicates the number is in the millions. This number was calculated by taking a previously disclosed 'half of one percent' estimate of false positives against into the total number of validations (512 million). Calculating the false positive isn't quite that easy, the rate of false positives climbs and falls when issues are discovered then fixed. Given that the false positive scenarios are time bound in this way it's not right to just use that number as a lifetime average.
3. How many installs are not seen by WGA?
> As has been pointed out in numerous places probably many of those that are aware that their copy isn't licensed or genuine won't visit one of our sites that require validation or attempt to install an application (IE7, WMP11 etc.) that have validation built into their setup. How many systems don't we see? Hard to say but it's a point worth making.
4. How many of those are genuine/not genuine?
> Again, I don't know but it's still a good question.
For more on this issue and others related to WGA visit my blog. http://blogs.msdn.com/wga/