The Author – Bart Busschots
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Aug
25
Genuine Disadvantage
Filed Under Computers & Tech on August 25, 2007 at 11:12 pm
I have never been a fan of any system that makes life MORE difficult for people who pay for software than for those who pirate it. I also detest any company that treats all it’s clients like criminals. This is why I have issues with those music and movie studios who force DRM on people, and also with MicroSoft and their insultingly named “Genuine Advantage” program. To treat people like criminals because they were good enough to pay for your software is insulting enough. But then having the gall to call the spyware they force upon their customers to continually verify their non-criminality “Genuine Advantage” is just adding insult to injury. It was the invention of Genuine Advantage that proved to be the final straw that drove me away from Windows to Linux and then to OS X. Today, I feel I can rightfully say “I told you so”. Genuine Advantage is now BROKEN. It’s not 100% down but loads of people are having their valid Windows installs marked as pirated and cripled because of a major problem with the Genuine Advantage servers. At the moment the best estimate for a time to repair is next Tuesday! Many people who were good enough to actually pay for Microsoft’s mediocre OS are now being denied service by MicroSoft. Way to reward your loyal customers Bill!
[tags]MicroSoft, Windows, Genuine Advantage[/tags]
OK, enough gloating, time to get serious. If you run Windows you need to be very careful for the next few days until the geniuses in Redmond fix this colossal cock-up. Don’t do ANYTHING that will make your machine phone home to Redmond because it will fail and invalidate your copy of Windows! Don’t apply any updates and don’t activate any software you just bought. You are legally allowed to use Windows for 30 days between validations, you now just have to hope that you’re not getting near the end of those 30 days! If you are your copy of Windows will mark itself as an illegal copy regardless of how much of your hard earned cash you gave to MicroSoft when it tries to phone home and fails. If this should happen to you DON’T REBOOT, that will disable features in your MS Software. This is particularly important to Vista users who’s machines will be crippled by being rebooted while marked as illegal.
You can read more about this mess in this article on Ars Technica and this blog post at PC World. In the mean time, I’d love to hear from any Windows user who feels that they are getting any sort of genuine advantage because they were moral and chose to pay for their copy of Windows. Doesn’t it make you feel good to know that you are so un-trusted by MS that they are happy to totally jeopardise the functionality of the OS you were good enough to pay for!
Oh … just one more thing … and if you do get messed up by this you might want to download a live CD from Ubuntu to tide you over. And next time you buy a new computer you might want to give serious consideration to buying a Mac, Apple don’t defecate on their loyal customers from on high like this.
First let me tell you I am a fan of your podfeet reviews and enjoy your sense of humor and Irish voice in the “Blogsphereâ€.
I am not defending Microsoft or others with similar copy protection schemes but I would like to add my two cents (and with the fall of our currency this colloquialism should appropriately qualify my comments).
As a hardware designer and software developer I have been on both sides of the fence. I have two small companies that have, for the last 25 plus years, been developing hardware and software for the physiological monitoring markets.
Our markets have traditionally been small and our products priced accordingly. We were never in the $29.95 a copy market place and had to generate enough income to support our customers and to meet the many stresses placed on companies like ours by government agencies and the insane US tort system. Any lost sale to piracy would have been a substantial loss in revenue.
In some cases our software supported devices developed by other companies as well as our own and we were in competition with their software and other third party software developers. We have always prided ourselves on supporting our customers and distributors. This commitment to support and a superior software solution allowed us to thrive in a very competitive niche market.
From the beginning I realized we could only survive if we protected our assets and I developed several copy protections schemes most of which were dependent on hardware dongles spliced between the device and the RS-232 port of the PC. There was no need for software protection when shipped with devices we developed because that hardware was always bundled with our software. This of course is the case with Apple.
Unlike Windows, which can be installed on any Windows compliant computer, OS X is only available on computers manufactured by Apple. The Apple hardware is in fact their software protection. I have to wonder how Apple would handle things if it ever released its OS to third party hardware manufactures. I believe they tried this once and pulled the license from the manufacturer early in the game.
Our copy protection dongle rarely caused any of our customers any grief. And over the years I received many reports from our distributors as well as calls to our own office from people wanting to know why our software, “ so kindly given to them by a friendâ€, could not be used with their devices supported by our software but not developed by us. The revenue generated by legitimate sales allowed us to continue to support our software long after the manufactures of the other devices dropped them like hot potatoes.
As I said, I am not supporting or advocating the Machiavellian schemes of Microsoft or the recording industry but have some appreciation of the costs of piracy. Both Apple and Linux distros are in a unique position. With Apple, the hardware is the software “dongle†and with Linux most profess a non-commercial philanthropic intent.
Cheers
Sam
Hi Sam,
Thanks for your comment! I have to say I would prefer it if MS used some form of USB dongle to validate their software. I can empathise with people who loose money due to piracy, but the way I see it is that the only way to truly beat piracy is when ordinary people come on side with the MPAA, RIAA, MicroSoft and indeed all artists and software developers and come to feel the same way about piracy as they do about car theft or band robbery. However, by treating paying customers as criminals the opposite is happening. People are coming to loath the MPAA, RIAA, MicroSoft etc.. They are being seen as the bad guys, and not the pirates. In deed, often the pirates are being seen as heroes fighting for the ordinary person against the worst evils of corporate America. And each and every time a paying customer is inconvenienced or hindered because they were good enough to actually buy the movie, song, or software the balance slips even further in favour of the pirates.
It takes courage to trust the ordinary man in the street. It’s much easier just to treat them all like crooks and hence feel protected, but I don’t think that’s the way to go. Mind you, I don’t have a magic bullet that will make everything better and of all the copy protection methods I’ve yet come across I like your dongle the best. Simple, un-obtrusive and not a hindrance to your paying customers.
Thanks for reading and for taking the time to write such a well thought out comment.
Bart.
[…] Genuine Disadvantage […]
“In the mean time, I’d love to hear from any Windows user who feels that they are getting any sort of genuine advantage because they were moral and chose to pay for their copy of Windows.”
I’ve never had any trouble with Genuine Advantage, never gained any particular benefit from it either. It runs as a plugin for IE and/or Firefox, takes a few seconds in the background to do whatever it does, and that’s about it. No major issues or impact on my life, either pro or con.
I would point out that Microsoft have been using the system for many years, and this failure appears to have been out of the ordinary was fixed within hours. Shit happens. Doesn’t quite seem to warrant hysteria to this degree, but hey, what do I know about operating systems? I use Windows, I must be some kind of uninformed eijit.