Open the flood Gates of rumors...

The BBQ Pit
1

It seems that there are more problems with XP than being up river without a paddle for us web developers. Apparently, any web published code you create with XP, microsoft reads through and automatically replaces any non-affiliates of ms with their own as you know. (What about us?) Although one of the anti-trust accusations decrees that m.e. had the ability to send ms info on the software used by your home pc, XP reads what you have on your hard drive and sends this info to ms(why?)…If you upgrade your hard drive, XP must be reinstalled and upgraded in some instances. There are no crack codes for XP, any piracy inactment will be placed within manufacturing constituates in foreign countrys. Basically Bill has made it almost impossible for anyone whom had hopes of developing new computer based interprises to succeed.

The man is now worth half trillion dollars god damnit! What has our population sucked in itself from this guy? I know from what little I have learned about ms at 24 years of age, I’m not impressed. I’m disappointed.

I’m a college student learning “the best” computer integrated system technology. So far what I have found is that ms cannot keep up with itself. My textbooks for this semester came a month late because we switched to office XP. Know what we got for text? We had to buy cheap print outs of what the text was suppose to be like. We have yet to recieve the whole text for office XP. Sure ms promised to to “give” away all corosponding text relating to office XP. But what the fuck? My graduating class and I can hardly read what we have from cheap print smug. Boo Hoo I know.

My neighbor is a manager at DELL. He is a devout christain with a gun. heeheehee. Although he and I don’t see eye to eye most of the time, his opinion is(rather silly)that ms is the beast. These are his words, “One world government, mark of the beast, could very well be the prophecy is being fulfilled.” Although I do not share his system of belief, I think we are fucked for now. What of ms becomming our only source of personal information, buisness practicality, system development, educational forgivness, God(sarcasium), and of course money?

In the mean time I will be writing code for servers that accept affiliates and flavors that do not fuck with my hard work, untill the horrible terror(Bill)decides to bite us again…All the while he sucks off the world for some more cash.

And as several friends of mine and I concur this, Gates will again claim he is only trying to help us…Perhaps Gates sould explain exactly how underdogging current and future companies has helped us.

2

:rolleyes:

You might want to check your information about Windows XP. Nothing in the product “automatically replaces any non-affiliates of ms with their own”.

I’d hate to do this, but…cite?

Uh, no he’s not. In other words, you’re bitching that Bill Gates is evil because he has a lot of money?

Can anyone else say “WAAAAAAAAH!”?

3

These are rumors I have heard, thus the subject. So I’m new at this. This is what happens when you drink and type…:stuck_out_tongue:
You missed my point in this thread. A friend of mine showed me this,
"Anyone for software piracy or would you simply prefer an invasion of privacy?

The evaluation versions of XP’s product activation (WPA) were showing much
less tolerance for hardware changes than Whack-a-Mole states. A few weeks
ago http://www.hardocp.com passed on a report which claimed that
re-activation was required for simply changing RAM sticks. That, however,
was from a pre-release version. Aside from that possible discrepancy, Whack
is pretty spot-on.
Even though the “unique” identifier number created by WPA is encrypted, the
information must be given to Microsoft, who of course can de-crypt the serial
numbers in order to get an extremely accurate picture of exactly what
hardware you are using in your computer.
There are a number of folks on the message boards at
http://www.arstechnica.com who believe that the Windows XP activation scheme
is touchy for a reason: re-activation will record when, how often, and to
what hardware their users are upgrading. The potential uses of this
information are best left for another forum.
The observation has also already been made in the IT community that WPA is
not an effective means of curbing piracy. Most operating system piracy
occurs in the workplace, and corporations are having none of the WPA
bullshit: their versions of XP do not contain WPA, and theft of XP in that
venue will continue largely unabated.
One can only conclude therefore that WPA is largely a test to gauge exactly
what public reaction to this unusual scheme will be. This test, successful
or not, will also yield MS a wealth of information about its individual users."

I discussed this article with several C.I.S. friends of mine. They seemed to have the same the concerns with MS as I.

4

For someone who seems so up on this topic, Beehive, I’m surprised you didn’t know there was already a hack for the WPA function floating around the net.

One such explanation and code for this hack I saw only minutes ago… and I wasn’t even looking for it.
If hacks are already floating around freely this early in the game, by the time I ever willingly install XP on my system (It’ll be a cold day in hell that day), I’d bet the WPA ‘feature’ in XP will be so watered down it will have been made ineffective, if not absent altogether.

But in the big scheme of things? XP and the WPA ‘features’ embedded in it sure sound bullshit to me too.

5

I’m not a fan of WPA, but putting some form of anti-piracy into their product is entirely legitimate (dongles, anyone?). I just don’t feel this is the best method, and if it doesn’t work well, I think MS will take it out eventually.

It in no way collects any personal information about you. That is, unless you identify yourself as your computer components. :smiley:

6

I’m not really uyp on the web development side, but wait and see the fun that can be had with Quality Of Service (QoS) in the Beta. Particularly if you have Cisco Routers on your network.

to quote Walter Subchek “You’re entering a World of Pain”.

Of course, this problem can be eliminated by disabling QoS before putting the machine on the network, so perhaps its a moot point.

7

I’ve never heard anyone complain about the Citrix licenscing process. Exactly the same process and noone is up in arms. Why shouldny MS take every step they can to ensure their product is used legitimatly?

8

Then again, I’ve never heard of Citrix. :smiley:

9

They should… within reason.

But this goes way too far. If Microsoft isn’t able to confirm or O.K. what’s on your system when it decides to call home, it can disable your entire system until you clear it up.

That’s big brother if you ask me. Unbeknownst to the user, Microsoft checks your system to see if things are up to par. If it isn’t, they cripple you.

That, to me, is going too far.

Now great, you may say, it should because copyright infringement is wrong, etc. etc… But I’d argue that it hurts the wrong people- the normal, law abiding, perfectly moral end user.

Hackers won’t be hurt. Like I mentioned above, they’ll find ways to defeat this system right out of the box.

I contend that the people being the most affected by this technology will be Joe Blow neighbor, Jane Clueless up the street- all normal people doing normal things. But Microsoft see’s it differently. Microsoft see’s them not conforming or going along with their rules for whatever reason. So they shut you down till you can prove to them your in the right.

It may not happen much, or at all, for all I know, but the thought that it could, for a reason as benign as copyright protection, is beyond what I’m willing to pay for and have running on my system.

Hackers and crackers will continue to find ways to defeat systems like this- it’s their motto. But by upping the ante in this game of cat and mouse (Or whatever fits the analogy) Microsoft has essentially told it’s run of the mill end user that they simply don’t care about their inconvenience so long as it might nail some possible person misusing MS products.

Fuck 'em.

10

I don’t think you know exactly how WPA works. XP doesn’t “call home” to verify the hardware configuration, Microsoft doesn’t check your system to see if things are up to par. The only time you send data to MS is when you activate your system. After that, the hardware configuration and such is stored in a file (I forget what the name of it is) on your machine, and if when you boot up your system and the hardware doesn’t match the criteria set by the activation, your system locks you out.

11

Actually, last I heard, if your system changes minimally, it will not lock you out or deactivate XP, and if there are major changes, then you will need to reactivate, but this does not automatically lock you out. Instead, it will deactivate your activation, but let you use the computer as usual, but periodically warn you to re-activate. Failure to do so after 30 days (the last I heard) will then lock you out.

That aside, I still think the XP activation is a questionable measure. It’ won’t cut down on piracy of the corporate edition, and pirates will be able to download a crack for their personal use. Thus the people it will stop will be those who try to copy thier neighbors’ XP. It will also hinder some people who upgrade often.

Even if XP registration worked perfectly, and all piracy was stopped, and all legitamte users never had a single problem with it, you still end up trusting MS to use your system configuration data only for their registration process and not for anything else. I think that takes it too far.

Corpotations keep trampling the rights of people in order to protect their Intellectual property, and while nothing too drastic has been done so far, it’s only a matter of time, but that’s a rant for another time.

12

I think I do know how WPA works, Monster104. I may not know the details, but I think I understand the basics.

My exact statement refers, in part, to this comment-

It’s not the only reference I have for my comment, but it was the easiest to find. If you want more, than I can pony them up for you.

But your right, they do tie the OS to the bios and it’s the bios that can lock you out too.

Outside of that, I stand by my earlier comments made above- “Too much BS for me!”

13

Damn. Sorry about that.

I see, rather belatedly, that my first comment was directed at a quote that didn’t make my edit. It was supposed to be in reply to your, “I don’t think you know exactly how WPA works”.

I know it’s a nit-pick thing, but it was bugging me.

14

I HIGHLY recommend reading This Page. It gives very technical information about WPA.

To quote the very end statement:

15

I have some problems with that site, Monster.

To begin with, the thing is beyond technical. It’d be nice if you could at least give me a summary reason why this paper supports your point of view. Because from what I read over there, I don’t see where it does.

Personally, I think you linked to that site as a means to try and get me to roll over due to its technicality.

In a way, it almost worked. I hate to admidt it, but I initally loaded that site and thought to myself, “Ah man, look at this shit”. But instead of dismissing it, like I think you wanted me to do, I kept reading it. I even explored the main site. There I found the writers of this article essentially state what I said earlier: Not only does XP phone home to Microsoft, but it can cripple your system if it doesn’t like what it see’s.

From the site you linked to-

The site you link to says that XP system transmit data back to Microsoft computers. About all they say on that matter is that they don’t feel it’s sensitive.

Whoop de fucking doo.

I don’t want my computer sending any information about me or my computers specs to anyone, regardless of whether some site says I shouldn’t worry about it’s content. Anything less is saying you really don’t care what level of observation you’re willing to give these guys. “Come in officer. I know you don’t have a warrant, but I don’t care. Look around.”

Secondly, according to that site, is the line, “if you either completely re-install Windows XP or modify your hardware beyond what is tolerated by product activation, you have to re-activate Windows XP”. Microsoft is free to shut down your system if it’s, “beyond what is tolerated”. That sounds to me that if you diss Microsoft, they’ll shit all over your system.

What I’d like to know is what you’re getting at- Do you find that level of intrusiveness beneficial? Why?

Furthermore, or maybe to nit-pick, Was I was right in saying XP phones home? To me, that seemed like your initial irritation with my earlier post.

16

That is so not what was said. You claimed that Microsoft continually monitors the contents of your computer - the Big Brother thing you mentioned - while the site said that it was a one-time deal. That’s why it’s called “activation”… it’s akin to entering a CD key. Basically, WPA is “required registration”, not “continued surveillance”.

Bullshit. Absolute bullshit, and paranoia, if you ask me. Microsoft lists - in its user agreement - what the criteria for re-registration are. As is their right. If you don’t violate the criteria, you don’t have to re-register. It’s not the sort of thing that is subject to Evil Overlord Bill’s whim.

17

Citrix is remote access software. Simplistically speaking, from a remote PC you can connect to a network.

As the world gets more technically advanced, your personal “liberties” are going to be infringed. I mean, when the US was founded you didn’t have a social security card, perhaps not a birth certificate, and no form of picture ID. We accept this now. Just like most people accept that there will be a credit record.

At the end of the day, I think it’s a lot less about big brother and a lot more about people not wanting to pay for software.

18

The site mentioned above also goes on to say they have no research, nor any data, on what happens after the intial installation of XP. They didn’t look at it, so how would they know?

They don’t, and they admidt to as much.

It phones home, Spoof, and whether it phones home once every five months, or two months, or every week, it’s still too many times for me.

Once I buy it, posses it, or otherwise agree to their terms, I want to be left alone. I don’t want that party coming back and checking my system to verify whether or not I’m following their strict set of standards.

I also don’t want to give someone else the ability to shut down my system (An ever growing and expensive system to boot) because they happen to have a problem with me checking in with them.

Fuck you XP and your kin. I’ll have on my system what I want, when I want, and how I want, without having to check-in with the manufacturer of my O.S. to see if you approve of it!

I wish I could follow you on this point, spoof, but I don’t.

Do you mind restating that? I’m paranoid why? It’s their right to do what? Evil Kneivel what?

19

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by CnoteChris *
**

Can you say contradiction?

20

It’s not a contradiction, China Guy. I think it’s quite obvious in fact.

I agree to the terms of the software and hardware I’m currently using on my system. I abide by them because I agree with them and understand the contract. I agree with them because I read and understand that agreement.

The agreement that comes with XP, on the other hand, or any of it’s kin, I’ll refuse to sign because I want nothing to do with the level of compliance. Checking on me because you assume I’m dishonest, and will cripple my system without form of due process, is not an agreement I’m actively willing to sign.

It’s basically what I said above, only repeated, “It’ll be a cold day in hell when I have this software on my system.”

Find the contradiction there, China Guy.