MS has declared that the WPA in XP was never designed to stop big time crackers from making multiple copies of XP but rather to thwart the little guys who may want to lend out their copy of XP to friends. Fred Langa covers more here: http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2001/2001-11-12.htm
<snip> At first, Microsoft said WPA was intended to crack down on serious pirates, but this was clearly a smokescreen: Pirates have never been stopped by copy-protection schemes in the past. And in fact, they haven't been stopped by WPA: Within hours of the operating system's glitzy launch on Oct. 25, malicious coders in Asia began distributing a software program over the Internet that allows users to bypass Microsoft's Product Activation technology... (More: http://computerworld.com/nlt/1%2C3590%2CNAV47_STO65278_NLTOS%2C00.html ) The hack--- widely available on "w*rez" and cracker sites--- tricks the OS into always thinking it's day one of the activation process, leaving you with 60 more days to register/activate. Because the activation countdown timer never decrements, the software never reverts to reduced functionality mode. Since XP came out, Microsoft has modified its stance: It now admits that WPA was never intended to stop professional software cloners--- the guys who make millions by churning out mass-produced illegal copies of Microsoft software. Instead, WPA was to prevent casual users from making extra copies of our software on our laptops and PCs. In other words, Microsoft admits it wasn't going after the major criminals, but instead was targeting the little guys all along. Does this seem like a good plan to you? The more I look at Passport and WPA, the less there is to like about them. And consider: There's even something called "Managed Passports," in which Microsoft intentionally and by design allows someone to create a Passport in your name, but over which you have no real control. Yikes! </snip> I'll stick to win2k, it's runs faster and boots faster for me than XP did. Peter Kaulback "Confusion is mightier than the sword." -- Abbie Hoffman ============= PCWorks Mailing List ================= Don't see your post? Check our posting guidelines & make sure you've followed proper posting procedures, http://pcworkers.com/rules.htm Contact list owner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Unsubscribing and other changes: http://pcworkers.com =====================================================
