Weighing Profits against Peril

Weighing Profits against Peril
Mark Rasch, 2004-05-24

Denying XP pirates the SP2 upgrade would hurt the Internet to protect Microsoft's bottom line.

Weighing Profits against Peril 2004-05-25
Anonymous (1 replies)

Don't allow patch of pirated XP - they pose no greater threat on the net today then they will tomorrow anny more than the millions of "legal" folks who don't bother to upgrade for months.

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Microsoft Shafting 2006-07-08
Anonymous

We have several computers here, 2 lap tops and the others are desk top machines which were all built to our spec and are not factory built machines.

All have an OEM copy of Windows XP (Home & Pro), and yet the Mircoshaft site tells me that ALL of our machines are NOT genuine windows products, thi...

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Weighing Profits against Peril 2004-05-25
Anonymous (2 replies)

Why don't microsoft simply create a SP2 which include a licence checker. If unlicenced MS software is detected it is simply disabled - and if that is the OS... too bad.

Or, let the licence checker report back to MS who is the owner of the unlicenced software?...

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Weighing Profits against Peril 2004-05-26
Yvan Boily

The risk here is not in deactivated unlicensed software, but rather deactivating legitimate installations.

I for one would be extremely put out if Microsoft decided that my computers were unlicensed and disabled even one or two computers on my network. Microsoft has enough trouble assembling pat...

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Weighing Profits against Peril 2004-05-26
Anonymous

Or maybe, just review their pricing politics, so everyone could buy the software... Many of the "pirates" cannot afford paying $100 or so for an OS (I am talking about parts of the world where $100 is more than a monthly salary). ...

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Weighing Profits against Peril 2004-05-25
Anonymous (1 replies)

Aren't there enough systems out there that this doesn't matter?...

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Weighing Profits against Peril 2004-05-26
Anonymous

I'm not so sure what this "head-in-the-sand" comment was to mean. It appears to be a bit naive. I'll ask for clarification, so I don't start a possible flame-war over a misunderstood comment. ...

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Weighing Profits against Peril 2004-05-25
Todd Knarr

In the case of the brake work due to a recall, a court would simply note that it was the dealship's/manufacturer's choice to do work in addition to the brake repair and that said choice didn't reduce their responsibility under the recall notice. I don't see why it should be different for MS. Patches...

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Security vs Criminals 2004-05-25
Anonymous (1 replies)

Legitimate users must always realize (just as licensed drivers must) that there are inherent dangers out there which need to be avoided. Nothing can ever be made idiot-proof, nor can it be made genius-proof. Laws (both traffic and copyright) exist to provide a REASONABLE amount of protection. Not 10...

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Security vs Criminals 2004-05-26
Anonymous

I take it you don't drive very much. Staying with the driving analogy, it doesn't matter if you do have insurance, you're still out time and potentially money (insurance deductables) if someone who is unlicensed causes an accident with you. If you lose your life, it really doesn't matter who was r...

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Weighing Profits against Peril 2004-05-25
Anonymous

Imposing a requirement on developers to accomodate pirates by creating two version of a service pack is burdensome on the vendor. If they know which copies are pirated, they would be within their rights to disable the product completely - thereby rendering it secure. ;-)

However, back in the re...

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Weighing Profits against Peril 2004-05-25
Anonymous (1 replies)

What about the thosands (millions) of unpatched and no longer supported win 95/98 machines?...

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Weighing Profits against Peril 2004-05-26
Anonymous

What about them?!?!? Remember your mother saying, "Two wrongs don't make a right." Just because other systems on the 'Net are "screwed up," doesn't mean we shouldn't take some care with a group of much more powerful and versatile systems that can be patched and prevent some heinous issues....

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Weighing Profits against Peril 2004-05-25
Andy

The real difference between this SP2 scenario and the other ones you posed is cost.

In the brakes or fire department examples there are "large" costs involved.

In the SP2 example, the only new cost to Microsoft is the cost of the bandwidth. While it is an actual cost, its pretty close to ze...

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Weighing Profits against Peril 2004-05-26
Anonymous

Oh come off it... what's the point???

It's so damn easy to circumvent their little list of released CD-Keys it aint funny, and they know it.

Save yourself the trouble and just let it be public to anyone who owns XP, be it pirated or legit.

Afterall, you're the ones saying you want a "better...

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Weighing Profits against Peril 2004-05-26
Yvan Boily (1 replies)

The first thing that came to my mind was the next generation of virus which would reset the registered activation code to one of the "20 most wanted" codes.

So long for Windows Update if updates are blocked for those 20 codes....

Just a thought......

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Weighing Profits against Peril 2004-06-02
Anonymous

I find that very ammusing.....sadly because it would be easily done, but then again it would be just as easy to fix....

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Weighing Profits against Peril 2004-05-26
Anonymous (1 replies)

Whether Microsoft's SP2 is pirate friendly or not, pirates will find a way to use it....

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Weighing Profits against Peril 2004-05-26
Anonymous

While you are probably correct, it's not the point. If you think about it, you really don't want to depend on that premise for a safe 'Net. ...

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Weighing Profits against Peril 2004-05-26
Anonymous

A "license checker," at least how you put it, would be ineffecient and ineffective.

How much headache would Microsoft have to go through if they wanted to track down those people by that method? There is no record of who owns what activation numbers. I know because I've never had to tell them...

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Weighing Profits against Peril 2004-05-26
Anonymous (2 replies)

Your arguments are comparing apples and oranges. Software is not a car or fire and has never killed anyone. If everyone who has a legal copy of XP patched their systems, then only those who violated the law and have an illegal copy would be affected by the latest worm or virus. They would be suff...

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Weighing Profits against Peril 2004-05-31
Ratboy

A few points -

Software *has* killed people.

Unpatched XP systems affect EVERYONE. not just the "pirates". Even affects me! Gads, I *still* get code-red and nimda knocking, even after all this time. And I don't have Windows.

Accountable? No, not really. Someone who doesn't bother patching, ...

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Weighing Profits against Peril 2004-06-02
Anonymous

Maybe, but what if that worm that all the pirates had was set to DOS windows.com....or even better was set to DOS one of the many T3's going into microsofts office. Then it would be hurting themselves....

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Weighing Profits against Peril 2004-05-26
Scott Mace

Years ago I took a tour of old-town Philadelphia. Various row houses were adorned by the logo of an insurance company. The story was told by a tour guide that Ben Franklin owned this insurance company, and also a local private fire department. If the row house was on fire, the tour guide said, Ben's...

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I got an even better idea: Wipe the drives: 2004-05-26
Penguinisto (3 replies)

Rig it so that if the OS used one of the top 1000 pirated keys/registry hacks off of Kazaa, (or emule, or whatever), the patch pretends it loads just fine, then automatically reboots the box and gives the system hard drive a good solid low-level formatting, wiping that entire partition (and while th...

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I got an even better idea: Wipe the drives: 2004-05-28
Anonymous (1 replies)

1. What's the probability that the buggy patch will kick 1% of the population out of their beloved cute desktopo?
2. What's the probability that big grey-market, resold OEM etc. numbers will be miscalculated as pirated?
3. And, for the pinguin or apples affictionados: OS as secure as its user caug...

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I got an even better idea: Wipe the drives: 2004-06-01
Penguinisto

"1. What's the probability that the buggy patch will kick 1% of the population out of their beloved cute desktopo?"

That would happen anyway, no? Any sizeable IT department would at least take the same precautions and run it on test machines first, one would hope...

Home users wouldn't face t...

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I got an even better idea: Wipe the drives: 2004-05-28
Anonymous (1 replies)

I think I can speak for most everyone who reads this site when I say that you are an idiot. Your idea is stupid, malicious, and easily manipulated into having devastating consequences. It also hinges upon the assumption of Microsoft's competence. Windows is already good enough at munging data during...

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I got an even better idea: Wipe the drives: 2004-06-01
Penguinisto

"Your idea is stupid, malicious, and easily manipulated into having devastating consequences."

I believe I can speak for the actual adult portion of the population when I say that you're a 13-year old hiding behind "Anonymous", who is scared of getting caught with a ripped copy of 'doze ;)

It...

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I got an even better idea: Wipe the drives: 2004-05-28
Anonymous (1 replies)

You forgot the one important part: Make it a time-bomb that kills the machine (and make sure the NTP syncher is on). If the damage is done immediately, then it won't take long after the first person gets bit before everyone is wary of the patch, and many people who may even have legitimate keys ar...

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I got an even better idea: Wipe the drives: 2004-06-01
Penguinisto

"It would simply be too easy to villainize microsoft at that point though. Headlines like "tens of thousands of microsoft customers lose all important data" will make EVERYONE think twice about using their software, not just the pirates. "

True... but all MSFT would have to do is point out that i...

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Weighing Profits against Peril Viral attackVIA invalid serial propigation 2004-05-28
Devious (1 replies)

I believe thier is considerable risk in Viral propigation of the invalid 20 serial numbers.
This would effectively be a nightmare where by a Virus does permanent patching imparement by replacing the valid code on an infected machine with one of the twenty invalids.
Eeeek. Doesn't anyone at microso...

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Weighing Profits against Peril Viral attackVIA invalid serial propigation 2004-06-01
Penguinisto

Err, such a virus would effectively break the machine anyway, since most of the microkernel requires the computer SSID generated by that serial key to be valid. In order to actually work, the "virus" would effectively have to "reinstall" the OS in a fashion, something that would get noticed almost i...

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Weighing Profits against Peril 2004-05-28
Anonymous

"Either the vast majority of pirates are using the 20 most popular serial numbers, or they aren't."

Is this a joke? Hello? I think qualifying the numbers as 'the 20 most popular' would mean that they are uh POPULAR.

It's also worth mentioning that the process for activating/updating a pirate...

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Weighing Profits against Peril 2004-06-01
Anonymous

I think that both of you even considering this 'wipage' idea are
1- Microsoft faboi
2- Idiots
3- Clueless...

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No one has yet hacked my DVD player... 2004-06-01
Anonymous

Nor have I ever gotten a virus on my car radio, my microwave, my television, I have never been affected by malware on anything besides my computer. Even my cellphone (which has internet access) appears to be hack-proof (so far).

Systems CAN be developed which are for all intents and purposes are ...

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Double Edged Sword 2004-06-02
Angus

This is a very interesting topic. Consider the automobile analogy(which is very good IMHO).

I steal a car, and get into an accident. The owner's insurance is still liable. I'm sure if the car killed someone or die due to the recall feature else, the manufacturer would be liable. It would make ...

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