Is MS Getting Ready To Prosecute XP Pirates?

[cisco guy]

down towards the bottom of the comments, they talk about the new XP updates "activation" request (optional now) sending packets to a .gov web address.

you know, that "we'll let all people with XP legal or not download SP2" rang a little hollow at the time. I mean its sooooooo un MS-like. If true, maybe this is the other shoe dropping.
But too early to say.

www.neowin.net/comments.php?id=24211&category=main

 

[GreNME]

Rumors and conjecture about what it really is. All it looks like to me is that it checks to see if the version of XP has been activated, and doesn't actually stop anyone from downloading. Get over the paranoia.

As for the "sending packets to a .gov web address" thing, I would take the comment with a grain of salt. Kind of like the grain of salt used when hearing about the "OMG XP STEAL UR CC#!!!1!one" crap when activation first showed up.

Just in case you're wondering about activation, it isn't saving any personal data, no secrets are being revealed, and it's not something that goes through some complex 50-point checking process when someone activates. It is a set of algorhythms that check against something on Microsoft's end to make sure a proper key has been used. There is no conspiracy going on here.

 

[Moto Guzzi]

I have ligit copy, but found as of lately, after some SP2 hotfixes[I dont have SP2 yet], that MS jump on internet as soon as I log on, with automatic updating disabled. I see this in my Norton logfile.

 

[cisco guy]

Rumors and conjecture about what it really is. All it looks like to me is that it checks to see if the version of XP has been activated, and doesn't actually stop anyone from downloading. Get over the paranoia.

Why do you jump on me with all your angry blather.
If you beat up on everyone, there will be no posters here, except you 6 or 7 nasty boys.
I'm not paranoid, neowin is a major MS oriented forum.
They are paranoid.
I just posted the link as a topic.
I said "just have to wait and see"
I dont give a flying crap what MS does.
MS business practices make Enron look like choir boys.
I dont go to their site for anything.

If they get too nasty, I'll just learn to use Linux.

 

[puck]

There are enough paranoid people out there that monitor every internet connection on their machines that someone would of posted a full diessection of what is sent to a .gov address if this was true.

 

[oldpablo]

Why do you jump on me with all your angry blather.
If you beat up on everyone, there will be no posters here, except you 6 or 7 nasty boys.
I'm not paranoid, neowin is a major MS oriented forum.
They are paranoid.
I just posted the link as a topic.
I said "just have to wait and see"
I dont give a flying crap what MS does.
MS business practices make Enron look like choir boys.
I dont go to their site for anything.

If they get too nasty, I'll just learn to use Linux.

Your haiku is a little long...

 

[SuperSubZero]

They allow pirates to install SP2 because it is the lesser of two evils. Unpatched systems, pirated or not, can spread worms and viruses and whatever else. It's in MS's best interest for pirates to ALSO not be unknowingly spreading and catching these problems.

It's the same reason cities will give clean needles to heroin addicts. If you can't keep them from being addicted to heroin, you can at least keep them from catching diseases from shared needles. Diseases are one more thing for the city to worry about.

 

[GreNME]

Why do you jump on me with all your angry blather.
If you beat up on everyone, there will be no posters here, except you 6 or 7 nasty boys.
I'm not paranoid, neowin is a major MS oriented forum.
They are paranoid.
I just posted the link as a topic.
I said "just have to wait and see"
I dont give a flying crap what MS does.
MS business practices make Enron look like choir boys.
I dont go to their site for anything.

If they get too nasty, I'll just learn to use Linux.

I don't care about
Neowin as Microsoft
pro or con, buddy.

All I care about
is whether facts are present
and here they are not.

Rumors are posted
no matter what the forum
every single day.

Many pro-Apple
websites and forums out there
do this all the time.

Until there is proof
rumors spread on a forum
will not convince me.

There are enough paranoid people out there that monitor every internet connection on their machines that someone would of posted a full diessection of what is sent to a .gov address if this was true.

Not only that, but it would have been tracked down very quickly. Those of us with clients running SP2 in very carefully tracked environments would not have missed this. You cannot hide this from verbose firewall logs.

 

[Moto Guzzi]

Lets face it, Microsoft knows most about you, with all those hundreds of logs on the PC...Too late to delete them.....

 

[dargon]

Heh, given the propensity for people to pirate microsoft software, if they did decide to go after each and every one of them, their legal dept would be tied up for years and Bill would probably have to purchase a few more law firms for the normal everyday legal stuff that businesses deal with

 

[Nazo]

Not to mention the fact that they will typically loose more than they gain by going after everyone.

Anyway, I must agree that it was highly suspicious however. I'm NOT a paranoid person, but this is not like MS to actually allow illegit keys. I suspect something is up, but, they won't make it as obvious as that if there really is. If they did something so obvious then it would have already been over all the news sites (probably even slashdot worthy) and it would already be cracked to no longer do that -- which would also be all over the internet. d-: If I seem untrusting, then you haven't been using computers very long and you need to look at some MS history.

As for why it's connecting to a .gov site, firstly, MS is not a government company. I suspect that what these people are actually seeing is something more like the time synchronization service. Which used to default to ms's website, but, they might have changed it to default to the government site by default to save themselves some bandwidth. Did anyone bother to check WHAT .gov site was being accessed?