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Thread: XP SP2 to be released, pirates excluded

  1. #11
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    nihil & the grunt:

    good point, guess i didn't take that into account. forgot that for one, a lot of people worldwide don't have access to the internet, and secondly, most that do, aren't t1/cable/dsl, but are dialup however, if you were to try to download pirated software from a dialup, though it may take many days per program, you could always use bit torrent. can resume downloads and such and there are a TON of sites out there that supply clean pirated torrents.

    anyways, back to the subject of availability, it's actually quite interesting for me (living in a college town) to hear about places where pirating is an actual business. still can't even imagine that! well, thanks for the insight!

    -D

  2. #12
    Senior Member therenegade's Avatar
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    lol,you get cd's for umm comes round to 2$ when you convert it..anyone want some?..you wish hehe

  3. #13
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    Hi,

    therenegade thanks for that, as a comparison, how much would you have to pay for a legitimate copy?

    Dustinov, I first encountered "piracy" about 25 years ago, and like yourself, was quite surprised it was only music cassettes in those days.

    To give you a better insight into the situation here; we have a Department of Trade that has a "Fair Trading Standards Office", they employ people who go around street markets and car boot sales (garage sales?) looking for pirate merchandise. Most common in this country being: watches, designer clothes, perfume, music CDs, DVDs, computer games, Videos and soccer supporters shirts etc. Basically, stuff that is grossly overpriced?

    As I said, I have not seen pirate software as yet (apart from games), I would have thought that the most likely would be M$ Office? which must go for at least $750. I think that the reason for this is that a new PC over here will ship with an M$ OS on it anyway, so there is no call for pirate OS stuff.

    People who have the skill to build their own machine would just get a copy from a friend.

    While this method will stop a lot of people it will not stop stop the real pirates. Its more aimed at the casual user thats used a mates copy who wouldn`t know where to start when it came to getting around something like that.
    I would disagree with that, on the grounds that it is like banknote counterfeiters, they have a limited range of serial numbers, repeated many times? M$ have identified the top 20 most common counterfeit serial numbers and are targetting those.

    The guy who borrows a mate's copy will go undetected. I know that in the UK I can just phone M$ and they will give me an activation key.............yes there is a cut-off number, but I have had three for my XP Pro without difficulty..........there is no way that M$ can tell that it was just me being a pillock and continuing to build that machine after I had loaded and registered XP (I should have waited the 30 days ) or that I have three instances of XP?

    I would make the point that there is a difference between illegal copying/installation and piracy?
    I consider piracy to be a relatively large scale commercial scam. I would bet that those 20 numbers account for at least 1000 installations each, probably 10,000+ would be more realistic?

    If Warez sites were a real problem, then I am sure that M$ and the authorities would pay them much more attention? I guess that the logic is that someone who goes to a Warez site isn't going to buy the product anyway, but someone who bought a pirate edition probably would?

    Just a few thoughts.

    A very interesting thread, particularly getting local feedback from all over the World...........I think that is one of the great side benefits of AO?

    Cheers

  4. #14
    Senior Member therenegade's Avatar
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    It'd depend on the product naturally,around 50$ would be a fair estimate..
    And how can M$ be so damned sure that the 20 they've identified are really the most popular?*envisions polls being made in which M$ employees do the rounds begging for serial no's*
    Also...*envisions pirates ensuring a greater spreading out of M$ serial numbers*

  5. #15
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    therenegade,

    Thanks for the reply, what would be the price of XP Pro in a store? or Win200 Pro? and Office XP Pro? I am sort of looking at the price differences/structures, as that is what has to exist to support a "secondary economy"?

    And how can M$ be so damned sure that the 20 they've identified are really the most popular?
    I am sure that there are US Government representatives in all possible source countries. M$ offices, M$ employees visit there?...........families & friends??

    So they go out on the streets and buy the pirate software, and return it to M$?

    As for the Warez sites, a bot could collect the information from them?

    Not rocket science?

    Cheers

  6. #16
    Senior Member therenegade's Avatar
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    The original prices would vary a bit nihil,but they'd be around 50$ MAX(I'll find out the exact prices and let you know)
    And as for the bots,thats what I meant,if the warez sites distributed the serial numbers more evenly(meaning get a whole lot of them on instead of just a few).It ought to throw the bot off,sure M$ would be able to get a list of the 20 serials but wouldnt it be a whole lot harder for M$ to prevent privacy and wouldnt the objective of the original post be defeated further?(I bet this is going to sound really vague lol).And I hope I dont need to add that the idea occured cos I do NOT support piracy and merely had some time to think this over?

  7. #17
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    xp sp 1a banned FCKGW. . . cd key, now sp2 is going to ban another 20, whoop de do, now I will just have to use the 22nd key on my list. Oh darn, I wonder how much money m$ wasted this time. . .

  8. #18
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    For what its worth, I put SP2 on a machine at worked and it totally f-ed the machine over royally. Outlook Express no longer worked and various programs that the company sells no longer worked. End result, format and start over.
    Sex is like \"Social Security\". You get a little each month, but it\'s not enough to live on.

  9. #19
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    xp sp 1a banned FCKGW. . . cd key, now sp2 is going to ban another 20, whoop de do, now I will just have to use the 22nd key on my list. Oh darn, I wonder how much money m$ wasted this time. . .
    I think that you are missing the point? Microsoft are interested in commercial, professional pirates....they sell stuff on the streets just like the stores....their customers don't have 2 keys, let alone 22?

    M$ know they cannot protect themselves against against someone who is technically competent, they don't have to................but just try selling 100,000 copies of their stuff on the streets of the good ole US of A and see how long you get.............

    I think that the issue here is eight figure numbers? not a few that got away......

  10. #20
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    The original prices would vary a bit nihil,but they'd be around 50$ MAX
    Ummm.... no. XP Pro costs around $180-$200 while XP Home costs about half as much. Pirated copies are available for anywhere from $1 to $10. I am of course, talking about Bombay but the cost of a legit copy would be the same throughout India.

    Cheers,
    cgkanchi
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