Microsoft To Court: Make Comcast Give Us Windows-Pirating Subscriber's Info (networkworld.com) 259
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft is using the IP address 'voluntarily' collected during its software activation process to sue a Comcast subscriber for pirating thousands of copies of Windows and Office. The Redmond giant wants the court to issue a subpoena which will force Comcast to hand over the pirating subscriber's info. If the infringing IP address belongs to another ISP which obtained it via Comcast, then Microsoft wants that ISP's info and the right to subpoena it as well. "Defendants activated and attempted to activate at least several thousand copies of Microsoft software, much of which was pirated and unlicensed," Microsoft's legal team wrote. The product keys "known to have been stolen" from Microsoft's supply chain were used to activate Windows 8, Windows 7, Office 2010, Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2008. The product keys, Microsoft said, were used "more times than is authorized by the applicable software license," used by "someone other than the authorized licensee," or were "activated outside the region for which they were intended." Whether or not the IP traces back to a Comcast subscriber or was assigned by Comcast to a different ISP, as the The Register pointed out, "It would be a significant gaffe on behalf of the alleged pirates if the IP address data pointed to their real identifies."
Uggggh (Score:5, Informative)
So... Microsoft is protecting its intellectual property by using information that everyone knows is transmitted when Windows is activated? Why is this news?
Re:Uggggh (Score:5, Funny)
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It is news since normally MS doesn't sue people, but this is a case of many thousands of activation's from 1 IP so.
Agreed. It is quite reasonable to track down a source from which thousands of copies were made. If it's a big IT shop that is doing unlicensed installs as part of a repair process without thinking it's a big deal maybe you let them settle for lawyer's fees, a big slap on the wrist, and a promise not to do it again--but if it's someone who made thousands of bootleg copies and sold them, more serious action is warranted.
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What I don't understand is why Microsoft let it activate thousands of times. I mean, isn't this exactly the kind of thing that the activation is supposed to prevent? If the keys were activated too often and/or used outside their issued area, shouldn't the activation have failed? If so, why bother prosecuting since it won't be usable and no harm has been done? If the activation didn't fail, and the keys really were stolen, how do they know and if they know, why didn't they just blacklist them?
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How many thousands of activations does MS process a day?
Who cares? The activation servers' whole job is to prevent unauthorized activation. Clearly they don't.
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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
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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.
Re:Uggggh (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Uggggh (Score:5, Interesting)
I see what you're saying, but we're talking about mass theft here. Not some little guy with a few illegitimate installations. Microsoft is a software business, you can't expect to pirate their wares and expect them to be okay with it.
I agree...a little low-level piracy is one thing but something on this scale is hard to turn a blind eye towards. If this doesn't warrant some sort of response then I don't know what would.
I'm certainly no fan of Microsoft to say the least, but I don't see this as some egregious or unreasonable behavior by them.
Re:Uggggh (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Uggggh (Score:4, Interesting)
My guess is it's some computer repair shop doing reinstalls of broken/virus riddled machines using a single (non-OEM) key. I doubt a single guy would reach thousands of machines, even over 5 years... Maybe a mom and pop shop. I think it would be hilarious if it tied back to a Best Buy or Microsoft Store.
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"The obvious solution is to invalidate the authentication keys so no longer work."
You must know jack shit about cracking Windows. Here, let me help you.
DAZ LOADER.
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I see what you're saying, but we're talking about mass theft here.
Good point, but on the other hand, isn't is using Windows punishment enough? We shouldn't go overboard.
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That's a pretty good point. It would also be an argument against going after people who pirate Bieber songs but they already have a pretty much guaranteed get-out-of-jail-free card. Innocent by reason of insanity.
What judge in his right mind would NOT think you have to be crazy to want to download a Bieber song ?
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They stole and activated someone else's volume licenses out of the supply chain. That's a bit more serious.
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I disagree. These companies have abused copyright too much and for too long, and because of that, I don't think they should have any copyright protection at all.
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This type of stuff shows its real DNA.
That it still will aggressively pursue an entity stealing multiple thousands of copies? Its not like they're after some little grandmother here.
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Or would that be a {king/queen}pin software pirate?
Now I'm confused, but it's starting to look like it's got Broadway potential...
Granny Queenpin, Software Pirate!
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Granny Queenpin, Software Pirate!
Perhaps she's doing it to fund her cancel treatments and her compulsion to provide the very best pirated software versions.
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Granny Queenpin, Software Pirate!
Perhaps she's doing it to fund her cancel treatments and her compulsion to provide the very best pirated software versions.
The finest copies of Lotus 1-2-3!
Re:Uggggh (Score:4, Informative)
Well for post Gates/Balmer Microsoft has been trying hard to clean up its hard 80's style business tactics and move towards a friendlier company.
This type of stuff shows its real DNA.
Yep it shows they are a business that acts reasonably! I gather that is what your trying to say? or are you suggesting it is unreasonable for them to chase someone stealing or counterfeiting millions of dollars worth of licenses?
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or are you suggesting it is unreasonable for them to chase someone stealing or counterfeiting millions of dollars worth of licenses?
Most reasonable companies turn theft over to officials and have them pursue it.
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If this were theft they may well, but it isn't. It's a contract violation, or copyright infringement at worst. That's firmly in civil law territory. They might be able to find a criminal act later - fraud perhaps, or criminal copyright infringement under the NET act - but not until they've identified the pirate.
With that many distinct activations, it's probably someone trying to pass off counterfeit software as legitimate. Even the pirate community hates scum like that.
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I bet my last buck its a scumbag PC shop, which all of us that are legit hope DIAF. BTW these type of scumbag shops? Often not only steal from big customers like MSFT they also steal from their customers not only by selling them fake software but even going so far as to steal expensive hardware from their PCs.
You have no idea how many times I opened up a PC that had previously been worked on by a local scumbag shop only to find the specs on the system did not match what was in there because they ripped off the customer. I've seen them steal graphics cards, RAM sticks, one scumbag even went so far as to take the customers (then) very expensive 500Gb HDD and replace it with an 80GB, they are absolute POS scumbags and I see no issue with MSFT (or any company) putting these low rent scumbag shops out of business.
The day my boss sent me to the scumbag shop to buy some RAM sticks only to find the feds there and the scumbag had skipped town? Was a VERY happy day, as I'm sure it'll be a happy day for the shops in that area when "Bob's PC World" is shut down.
I always build my own stuff unless I buy a tablet or portable. Can't trust anyone. Of course I am A+ IT guy who has experience, but man I had to learn the old fashioned way in m youth to do it yourself.
Eventually what is going to happen is as the price of pcs fall people will just buy a new one and stop doing business with you. Now is a great time to invest in business services and certifications and being cloud and ERP providers and partners if I owned a shop. When PC's were $3000 and went obsolete so fast
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I thought cruel and unusual punishment was banned in the Constitution
ok (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm with M$ about this. Use Ubuntu and Libreoffice if you don't have the dough.
Re:ok (Score:5, Insightful)
192.168.0.2 Is The Offending IP (Score:4, Interesting)
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You really think the MS security techs (or their registry system) is that lame? MS would almost certainly store the public IP which originated the registration request. It's not magic - it's part of the network connection.
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Your forum is probably operating behind some kind of reverse proxy.
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I have no idea. I do know that every post in the moderation queue lists an IP address and that every one I've seen has been non-routable.
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Are they all the same IP by any chance. There might be a web accelerator cache like Varnish or NGINX in front of the forum web server. Then the web server sees the cache server IP, not the remote connection IP, and puts that into the forum.
The cache server will have the original, routable IP in its logs, so that can still be traced.
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No, some of them are various IPs from the 192.168.X.Y range and a few of them are from 10.X.Y.Z. I'm not sure how the server gets them, or where from, but they're not all the same.
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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.
Probably not the owner of the IP who did it (Score:5, Insightful)
...well, unless they are a complete idiot.
I wouldn't do something like this from my own IP address. That would be quite daft. I would instead find an open Wifi, or use a VPN or some other network where it can't be traced to me.
This is just going to get the owner of the IP snared up in the court system for no good reason. Microsoft should just invalidate the keys that were stolen and move on.
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You'd be surprised, there are some fantastically stupid criminals out there. $5 says this person was doing installs at their residence and activating Windows and Office on these machines then selling or installing the machines at customer sites, charging for the OS and Office without paying Microsoft their share. Invalidating the licenses would probably be the best way to get back at this person as it would make their customers come back to them en masse.
Comcast business ip (Score:2)
Was already reported on TF https://torrentfreak.com/micro... [torrentfreak.com] last month.
Say what? (Score:2)
Microsoft suddenly cares about piracy of it's OS? That's new.
No (Score:5, Insightful)
While MS should go after piracy on this scale, they should be denied their request, because:
product keys "known to have been stolen" from Microsoft's supply chain were used to activate Windows 8, Windows 7, Office 2010, Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2008.
If they were known to be stolen, then MS has a duty to limit losses. They can blacklist the keys and prevent further activation. If they were "known to have been stolen" then MS should have limited their losses as soon as they found out.
The product keys, Microsoft said, were used "more times than is authorized by the applicable software license,"
Again, MS has the ability to enforce this. Activation is their job, and if they allow a key to be activated thousands of times that's their fault. I commend them for being lenient - I've certainly relied on being able to activate a single key several times when building / upgrading PCs. But allowing thousands of fraudulent activations is a joke. More than a few a year should trigger alarm bells at Redmond.
used by "someone other than the authorized licensee," or were "activated outside the region for which they were intended."
MS can't prove either of these. Even if they know the authorized licensee, they don't know who is using the keys thousands of times. They can't know who it isn't without knowing who it is. If they knew who it is, they wouldn't need to subpoena for info. The same thing goes for the region.
It's also not the court's job to enforce the minutia of the license terms such as region, number of activations, transference, etc., especially when MS is so lackadaisical as to allow the keys to be stolen and for unauthorized activations to go on for so long.
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Suppose you work for the IT department of a Fortune 500 company, or a computer repair shop, or a university. You may activate thousands of Windows licenses per year. They could even be the same license key: Windows Embedded, for example, uses the same license key for each device. So Microsoft's automated system might not know if the activations are fraudulent. But if the IP address points to some individual's home, then there is a good chance they are fraudulent. Microsoft can't be sure without that in
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Not all of them but at least they would know which entity holds a particular key and they could (and do) limit it to a particular IP range.
If they know this key has been stolen, they could just prevent it from activating anything, problem solved, no more activations for you, no expensive lawsuit clogging up the courts.
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Windows Embedded, for example, uses the same license key for each device. So Microsoft's automated system might not know if the activations are fraudulent
That's only true if Microsoft is so grossly incompetent that they don't know what the activation codes are for, even though they generated them. No court will be impressed by gross incompetence.
Now, after looking at the records, Microsoft has evidence of a crime.
I'm not sure they do. If they're so incompetent that they can't check for thousands of duplicate activations in realtime, which is what the service is supposed to do, then I don't trust them to actually be getting any of the information correct.
Re:No (Score:4, Informative)
It's copyright infringement whether the copy was activated or not - the copyright act prohibits unauthorized reproduction [cornell.edu], not unauthorized activation. The copyright is also registered. That means that they are entitled to statutory damages [cornell.edu] whether they could have acted to further limit their losses or not.
They have three years [cornell.edu] to file a claim.
They don't have to prove either of those at this time -- they simply have to show that what they are requesting is relevant [cornell.edu] to those facts. The identify of the subscriber is certainly relevant to determing whether that person is an authorized licensee and is licensed to use those keys within that region.
It's precisely the court's job to enforce the minutia of the license terms [wikia.com], because the license terms are a condition of the license (e.g., "we grant you the right to install and run that one copy on one computer (the licensed computer), for use by one person at a time, but only if you comply with all the terms of this agreement." Without the license it's copyright infringement. The rules don't change simply because it's Microsoft enforcing a windows license and not an open source advocate enforcing the GPL.
Have fun with your theories of how this should work, but no Federal district court (or appellate court) is going to buy them because their job is to interpret and enforce the statute, not ad hoc theories of mitigation, laches, and evidence that you learned from poorly scripted TV dramas.
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"It's also not the court's job to enforce the minutia of the license terms"
Having the court enforce terms is the *entire point* of contract law.
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You sound so adamant about this, but the law simply does not work that way. Just because their security isn't foolproof does not mean that it becomes legal to engage in mass piracy. You are wrong to say that it is not the court's job to enforce the license terms. It is exactly their job. Who else is going to do it?
And I for one am grateful that they are more lenient on activations as it means that it is less likely to have a false positive prevent an installation. It does mean that they will let the casu
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If they were known to be stolen, then MS has a duty to limit losses. They can blacklist the keys and prevent further activation. If they were "known to have been stolen" then MS should have limited their losses as soon as they found out.
There is nothing in the article to indicate that they knew the keys were stolen before the keys were abused. It could well be that this knowledge came after, as a result of noticing the pattern of fraudulent activations, and investigating.
Think I saw this before (Score:2)
Wasn't this because of a handful of addresses being responsible for the majority of the activations? As in pirating on a business scale and not the average guy who installed pirated windows a few times.
Why is Microsoft going to court? (Score:2)
They found the IP address of someone who is using the activation keys that are known to have been stolen. Why didn't they turn this information over to the police and let them go after the person? That is supposed to be their job, not Microsofts. At the very least the person would be someone of interest in the theft of the activation keys and I'm sure the police would like to look at the possible large scale piracy of software going on.
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The alleged theft falls under criminal law.
Zoning (Score:2)
"activated outside the region for which they were intended."
Most of the complaint sounds reasonably reasonable but this one really irks me.
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When a company is located in some area and most activations come from all over the place, you know there is something fishy.
Google can block your account if it is accessed from unusual places, credit card companies do this too. If your request is legitimate it is just a matter of making a phone call or answering a few questions to unlock the situation. So why can't Microsoft do it too?
M$ is going to be disappointed.. (Score:4, Interesting)
When they find out that Comcast static IP address(Houston, Tx) is a VPN node setup by some hacker, and the owner had no idea.
Or, it could be worse, and find out it's a Comcast public wifi IP addr that's been activating all those licenses.
.
Azure (Score:2)
a publicity strategy (Score:3)
Companies on the way up embrace the PR related to minor theft- it shows how popular the product is. Game of Thrones, the TV series, was not at all concerned with the massive pirating of their series; it was good publicity (PR) and they made more money than they could count.
Companies on the way down have a different perspective. It is theft, after all, and it can hurt. The PR that works for them is a very public warning that theft will not be tolerated. Spread the word and some users will go straight, others will reconsider or at least take better precautions when pirating.
Microsoft has been very lenient for a very long time. Their day may be winding down and it is wise to protect any remaining property of value while they look for a breakthrough miracle product.
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Not at all. Microsoft has always chased down commercial level piracy. I find it incredible that people are upset about this. This is business as usual for them.
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I think they realize that a lot of people who want to watch GoT either can't get it in their location or can't afford it. For someone in the UK who wanted to see it on first broadcast they would have to pay £250 (basic Sky package £20/month, minimum 12 months, setup fees), which is about $350 or "insane".
They have an on-demand service, they know Netflix exists and would happily do distribution for them... They just did the maths and decided that it was better to accept massive piracy
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Bet few knew this... (Score:5, Informative)
Something many aren't aware of is if you change or upgrade your system you are subtracting numbers from a total allowed before your OS is no longer activated or legal and must be reactivated or re-purchased.
I use to know them for NT but it's been awhile. A CPU change I know counts as 2 points, a trick was to claim you had a NIC card as it added 2 points to the total.
“Significant” hardware changes can also trigger the Windows activation process again. For example, if you swap out multiple components on your PC at the same time, you may have to go through the activation process. Microsoft hasn’t explained exactly which hardware changes will trigger this.
http://www.howtogeek.com/18284... [howtogeek.com]
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We all knew this but no one cared. Despite the fact that everyone thought the world was going to end when MS introduced the policy it ended up as a minor inconvenience at worst with MS support happy to activate licences on major hardware changes.
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I call bullshit. Windows NT doesn't have product activation. That was added in Windows XP, released in 2001.
Actually in a way there were two, NT or 5.1 was a demo that would only last 120 days.
There was hack for it that kept it from expiring, and one changing it to a workstation as well.
From the file:
This is the crack that allows the NT 4.0 Server / IIS 120 day demo CDs available
from www.microsoft.com/iis/ to be installed as Workstation rather than Server.
It also defeats the 120 day time-bomb.
This is the crack to disable the 120 day time-bomb in the NT 4.0 Server / IIS
120 day demo CD set being given away for free
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I call bullshit. Windows NT doesn't have product activation. That was added in Windows XP, released in 2001.
As knowing the points for NT your right I couldn't of, it's been awhile must of been W2k, I even spent time looking for those points as a NT note.
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You're talking about a two decade old OS. It was released in 1993 - a period when the vast majority of people didn't have Internet access, and those that did were either through work or dial-up modems.
I was in college and looking at putting up a mail server, Microsoft Exchange Server was worth looking at, it was 80mb and I was on a dial up, so I told them to send it to me as they offered, then downloaded it anyway.
2 weeks later I get a UPS hot rush it was a 4 CD set from Microsoft, it contained NT4 server, NT4 service pack 2, Outlook, and Microsoft Exchange Server.
I still have that 4 disk set.
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FWIW- I worked with a small business server (I didn't choose the OS, I inherited.) around 2008. It got deactivated due to hardware change (HD failure, we upgraded RAM while at it before reinstalling new drive and restoring backup). SBS wouldn't activate. I called MS per phone number listed clearly on screen, they asked a few basic pieces of info to ascertain the original license and I assume find the reason for decline in their records. I told them the situation and basic, not precise, details of HW chan
I have seen how Microsoft troubleshoots a problem. (Score:2)
This was probably just one guy, with one set of product keys, that had to keep reloading the software to try to fix a problem.
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Thousands of times?
Re:Why is this news? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering the circumstances, it could very well be a zombie PC in a larger botnet being identified.
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Considering the circumstances, it could very well be a zombie PC in a larger botnet being identified.
If a bank robber used a blue Ford as a getaway car, that doesn't mean that the bank can subpoena the ownership records for every blue Ford so they can stop by their houses and see if that was the car that happened to be used in the robbery.
IP addresses are about as good as a car's paint color in identifying a malicious user.
Re:Why is this news? (Score:5, Informative)
If a bank robber used a blue Ford as a getaway car, that doesn't mean that the bank can subpoena the ownership records for every blue Ford so they can stop by their houses and see if that was the car that happened to be used in the robbery.
The bank can't do that, but the police said who investigate robberies can get the list for of blue Fords and compare the owner's names to known criminals. And to be a proper car analogy, they would be after a blue Ford with the license plate ABC123. If it turned out that the car was stolen for the bank job then that would be the same as a botnet that was using that IP address.
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If a bank robber used a blue Ford as a getaway car, that doesn't mean that the bank can subpoena the ownership records for every blue Ford so they can stop by their houses and see if that was the car that happened to be used in the robbery.
The bank can't do that, but the police said who investigate robberies can get the list for of blue Fords and compare the owner's names to known criminals. And to be a proper car analogy, they would be after a blue Ford with the license plate ABC123. If it turned out that the car was stolen for the bank job then that would be the same as a botnet that was using that IP address.
But it's not the police that's trying to get the name of Comcast subscribers, it's Microsoft.
Re:Why is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)
But it's not the police that's trying to get the name of Comcast subscribers, it's Microsoft
That's because copyright infringement is not really a police matter, so it is quIte right for Microsoft to pursue this matter in court. The difference with the police doing it is that they can lookup the registration records without having to get a court order. Microsoft do not have that ability to simply examine the IP records for themselves so they have to go to court to compell Comcast to divulge the information (although the police would have to do that too since they don't have access to Comcast's private information).
Comcast were right in requiring Microsoft to get a court order to get the Customer details, and Microsoft were quite right for asking for them. If they aren't entitled to the details the the court will say no, but that won't be for the bogus reasons that have been stated here on Slashdot. Rather, it would be refused if they failed to show cause as required by the law.
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That's because copyright infringement is not really a police matter
Tell that to the guys who busted into Kim Dotcom's mansion in New Zealand with helicopters and automatic weapons. Or to the cops who arrested a founder of TPB in Cambodia. Apparently it's only a police matter sometimes. Other times it's not.
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You can't go claiming it's like the police investigating criminal cases when you want MS to have police powers, then when it;s pointed out that it has to be the POLICE doing that, not a company or individual, go "But it's not a criminal case!".
The police line was about the bank robbery analogy. The claim was that you wouldn't have a bank being able to get the records for all blue Fords if one was used in a robbery, when that is actually incorrect (although it is the police that would do that). Microsoft do not have police powers. You don't need police powers to instigate a civil court case, which is what this is.
If it's not a criminal case, they can't go fucking fishing.
You are right, they can't go fishing. If that is what Microsoft is doing then the court would reject the request. However, it is not fis
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And the botnet points to China. Oops, dead end.
It's likely not to be a botnet at that address, as they would be able to use a larger number of addresses to spread the activations. There have been instances in the past of small computer stores installing pirated copies of Windows and Office on computers which were also discovered by the activity at one IP address. That's what I predict will be the result of this too.
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If someone stole a manuscript from Disney and got away in a blue Ford with a license plate of XXX-123 and then pirated the manuscript, it certainly would be within the court's power to allow Disney to subpoena the owner of that particular Ford to ask who was in control of the car at the moment of the theft. It might have been the owner's son, or neighbor, or it might have been stolen. But it's a legitimate request to ask the question.
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As proven before, IP addresses are a really poor way to identify someone. Considering the circumstances, it could very well be a zombie PC in a larger botnet being identified.
could well be, given the clear illegal activiities the best way to find that out is through the court with subpeana's so they can check it which seems to be what they are doing. When such a massive clear violation has occurred they have to at least follow the process and check, would not be the first time a criminal has been a moron and shit in their own nest.
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Being most PC come with a Windows license and with a stupid restore ability, and it's defaults are full of junk. A lot of people may just want a clean OEM install. Not the Lenovo or Dell install.
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That may be true but I'm not sure that I'm seeing what point it is that you're trying to make?
Are you saying that all these people didn't want OEM installs so took it to this one place, used this one particular IP address, and then activated Home, Professional, Server, Office, Enterprise, etc versions on this one particular IP address? I didn't know there was an OEM Server edition or OEM Office and they all had the same activation code.
Someone, probably, was activating licenses from Technet or MSDN and, fro
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Wasn't that the reason for inventing product activation in the first place?
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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.
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"Are you saying that all these people didn't want OEM installs so took it to this one place, used this one particular IP address, and then activated Home, Professional, Server, Office, Enterprise, etc versions on this one particular IP address?"
That's quite often how it works, yes. If you actually had any idea about real life, you'd know this and not needed to have asked this question.
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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.
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By extension. If you have a lock on your door, that I can break, you are fine with me taking all your shit?
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If I had a backup copy of my entire house, I really wouldn't care so much about the "theft" aspect of a burglary. Of course you make the common mistake of confusing scarce things with non scarce ones.
"Ship, make me another copy of all my shit"
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Technically, it's a combination of hardware IDs on your computer. ID of the install HD, ID of the CPU, ID of the motherboard chips, ID of the video card, ID of the NIC... The strictness of the check depends on the type of license, but replacing things one at a time is generally safe. If you have an OEM license, you generally have to replace things with very similar parts; e.g. if your MB dies, you need to replace it with the same style MB.
Re: Install count limit? (Score:4, Insightful)
Jesus, did IQs drop sharply round here or something?
God is dead, and you must be new here. There have always been idiots clicking submit.
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Death on flaxen wings..
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While that's true I do think I recall RedHat turning around and counter-suing SCO way back when and I think Canonical has filed at least one trademark suit? Of course, they both kind of had to. But let's be realistic here...
Regardless of our moral views on copyright, regardless of how you and I might think, you've got to be pretty damned stupid (if legit) to activate a ton of unpaid for copies of Windows -- even Enterprise? (What are they, crazy?), Office, and whatever else form the same IP address and not
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They should have put up a VM in China and pushed the data through there via a hardware firewall w/VPN capacity. MS wouldn't have done a damned thing.
Maybe these are installs in China and the activation is being proxied through a zombie PC? :)
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Every now and then you have to reinstall MS Windows BECAUSE IT SUCKS. It gets bloated, infected, bugs out, whatever, and then you need a fresh damn re-install. Are you going to go after those people too?
After losing a laptop to UEFI, I dug deeply into the Windows 7 TOS, not an easy task as there are so many different ones.
I purchased a Windows 7 Pro CD for my custom built system, I can re/install it on the same computer as many times as I want, the trick is not to upgrade it too much or it's considered a different system; see my post below "Bet few knew this..."
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correct, and is defined in the law as such. any lawyer who uses the term for software copyright violation is a hack and should not be taken seriously.
To those who would claim there is another definition in law, yes there is also "air piracy" which is taking over an aircraft.