No it’s not ‘Patch Tuesday’, KB 940510 has been released out of cycle.
This update enables Windows Vista to detect activation exploits that bypass product activation and that interfere with usual Windows operation. An exploit is a form of software that replaces or modifies authentic Windows components. When exploits are present on a system, it indicates that a software or hardware vendor may have tampered with genuine Windows to enable the sale of counterfeit software. Therefore, the security and the privacy of the computer are put at risk. After this update is installed, you will know if exploits are present on the system.
Article ID: KB 940510
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m running one of those pre-activated OEM Vista Ultimate copies, and despite knowing what the update is suppose to do, I installed it anyway out of curiosity (I normally have Vista just check for updates, not automatically install them).
Didn’t do a damn thing. According to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940510, it should have complained, but since this copy is indistinguishable from legit OEM copies that are preinstalled, the update can’t tell the difference. Really Microsoft, just accept piracy and focus your attention to improving WIndows rather than wasting resources on such useless measures.
Piracy costs everyone.
I totally agree with anon…microsoft comes out with rushed products that have so many bugs and vulnerability and instead of putting their efforts into solving them and making them more compatible with other software, they are coming out with such useless update.Seriously, the pirates are going to find a way to crack that anyway.
That seems too general in its persuasion.
I doubt anyone would disagree that there are things that need to be fixed, but that’s why SP1 is on its way.
Does anyone participate in Microsoft Groups, customer feedback, beta testing etc. Just wondering.
I am not getting the philospy that because a product might need improvement that it’s fine and dandy to go ahead and steal it.
Generally people don’t walk into supermarkets and say that orange needs improvement, so I am just going to eat it now without paying for it.
the supermarkets and orange just doesnt seemed like a good analogy for me.
a software is just not the same as an orange.
It isn’t about what the item may be, it’s about the method of obtaining it.
(not a pirate)
@certifiedbug: The methods of obtaining the things are also fundamentally different.
The poster “wonder,” above, is correct.
There are significant moral, economic, and legal differences between stealing someone’s orange and “stealing” someone’s intellectual property. More to the point, though, the concept that copyright infringement is equivalent to “stealing” intellectual property is nonsense. Let me illustrate:
Stealing:
Person B steals some economically exploitable data from person A rather than pay for it. Person A no longer has it. Person B then sells or gives copies of the data to persons C through J.
Copyright infringement:
Person B obtains some economically exploitable data from person A, and sells or gives it to persons C through J without person A’s consent. The rest of the alphabet buys it from A.
In the first scenario, person A has lost the full value of the property stolen. In the second, person A has only lost a portion of it.
The specific percentage of the data’s value that A has lost is called an “opportunity cost.” The more money A would have made from the lost sales to persons B through J, the higher the opportunity cost. If B had not sold or given the data to anyone else, this opportunity cost would have been essentially nothing–clearly B, being a criminal, was not interested in paying for the data. Moreover, if persons C through J were never potential customers of A (whether by choice or by circumstance) then the opportunity cost to A would again be zero.
The current situation with regards to internet piracy is that a large proportion of the infringers are not potential customers of the copyright holders. A *vast majority* of them are not even person B’s–that is, distributors–and because of that the majority of actions taken against piracy are targeted at the end-user level and thus affect the entire alphabet *except* A and B.
Which is irritating. At least, to me.
Ethan, stealing is stealing, whether it be an orange from a truck farmer who depends on selling his produce to make a living or a software vendor who has invested multi-millions of dollars in research & development and, in many cases, patent protection for their software. Make no mistake, software is Intellectual Property and IP issues are very complex so let’s start there with a very general overview.
Copyright laws protect authors “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, etc. What I am writing here is protected by copyright laws as my original work of authorship (except for the quote above which was from the U.S. Copyright office at http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wci )
In the sense that software programs are written (literary works), they are covered by copyright laws. For further information, refer to what is covered under the Berne Convention: http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html
However, although controversial, software is also patentable at least in the U.S. and EPO when it meets the novelty and other inventive steps as a method. When you consider the multiple facets of an operating system, rest assured that many such facets are indeed based on methodology and covered by patents as well as copyright and copyright is indeed Intellectual Property.
Now, with regard to your “first scenario” described above, even if people C-J do not use the pirated software, if only three of them give it to others who do use it and from there it is distributed by each of them, within two weeks, the software will be in the hands of 4.7 million people. That is indeed loss income.
The “end user” is responsible for purchasing a valid license to the software and that is all there is to it. So deal with it or use another vendor’s product or open source. Further, when discussing WGA in connection with Windows XP, I tend to agree it was an inappropriate addition to that software so close to its end of live, most particularly as it was not included in the software when the license was originally purchased and was an “add-on”. However, that can NOT be said about Windows Vista. It was well publicized up front that verification of authentication would be required or reduced functionality would result.