Hi Arachnids, I thought you all might want to read about M$'s latest copy protection/privacy invasion plans for Windows 2K. Regards, Dale Mentzer ------- Forwarded Message Follows -- From Wired News, available online at: http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,34262,00.html Microsoft's Protective Policy by Christopher Jones 3:00 a.m. 11.Feb.2000 PST The release of Windows and Office 2000 mark Microsoft's strongest anti-piracy effort to date, but privacy advocates caution that new registration procedures may have been designed to do more than thwart counterfeiters. The new Windows and Office 2000 CDs, due out next week, have an edge-to-edge hologram and a new process requiring users to register their software. Read ongoing US v. Microsoft coverage Infostructure strengthens your backbone "The [etching] process is so complex and complicated that the slightest mistake ... could cause damage to the code. So that will make it really difficult and expensive for counterfeiters to do," said Jackie Carriker, group manager for worldwide anti-piracy marketing at Microsoft. A second layer of protection is the certificate of authenticity, or registration tag, which OEMs and system builders will be required to attach to the specific PC where Windows or Office is installed. When users boot up the Office 2000 software for the first time on a machine, the registration wizard will require them to contact Microsoft -- via the Internet, email, phone, fax, or snail mail -- and get the second half of a registration key that matches their software certificate. If this registration process isn't completed, the software will stop working after it's been launched 50 times. The registration key will only allow users to install the Windows software on one machine, and Office on two machines. There will be no such restrictions, however, for network managers and others who buy licenses which permit multiple installations. Privacy advocates suggest that Microsoft's new registration process may help prevent piracy, but may also help the company gain a tighter grip on markets they already dominate. Last March, privacy advocates cried foul over Microsoft's registration process, which they said the company could use to collect information about users' Web surfing habits without their knowledge. Carriker said that users will only be required to give their registration code and the country they reside in to activate the Office software, and any other information will be on a voluntary basis. Jason Catlett, president of consumer privacy group Junkbusters said that users should always be cautious about providing any personal information when they register software. "Where it's going is a lot more leverage for Microsoft and a lot less privacy. I basically deeply distrust Microsoft because of their record on privacy, and don't like the idea of them associating each license with a name and having a registration procedure to authenticate each time," Catlett said. "Their motivation is stopping software theft, and I donAEt deny that's a legitimate concern, but if they're grabbing personal information at the same time, that should be questioned and resisted." Software pirating primarily includes end users passing disks to friends, software being mischanneled, or redistributed against the terms of a license, and counterfeiting. The new protections built into the Microsoft disks are primarily meant to cut down on counterfeit copies. "We see the prevalence of organized crime syndicates engaged in counterfeiting," Carriker said, holding up a counterfeit copy of Microsoft Office, which has all the documentation included and looks virtually identical to a legitimate copy. "We had a case in the Seattle area where there was a couple who were copying 1,500 copies of Office a day in their apartment. So it goes from these organized crime syndicates to small-time operators," Carriker said. The Business Software Alliance estimates that companies lose $11 billion in annual revenue due to software piracy. In addition to the fly-by-night Web sites and email offers that deal in cut-rate, counterfeit software, there is an abundance of auction sites where fake goods are sold. The Software & Information Industry Association did a test study recently on Internet auction sites, and found that about 60 percent of the software distributed there was counterfeit. When Microsoft did a similar study, Carriker said, they found that 90 percent of the products were counterfeited. In 1999, Microsoft confiscated 4.3 million units of counterfeit software, Carriker said. Even with the new holograms and registration process, it appears that Microsoft will have its work cut out stopping illegal copies of Windows 2000 from circulating. "We saw [counterfeit copies of] Windows 2000 out quite a bit before it was released to manufacturing, selling for $1.50 to $400," Carriker said. "In January alone, we shut down 100 sites that were distributing Windows 2000." [This story has been modified from its original version to clarify a point on the Windows 2000 registration process. Users will not be required to contact Microsoft when they register the software -- that is only the case with the Office software.] Related Wired Links: Copy-Protected CDs Taken Back 3.Feb.2000 Microsoft Sues Online Pirates 8.Dec.1999 Is Microsoft Tracking Visitors? 12.Mar.1999 Sniffing Out MS Security Glitch 8.Mar.1999 Advocate Issues Windows Warning 4.Mar.1999 Copyright 1994-99 Wired Digital Inc. All rights reserved.
