Archive for the ‘Legal’ Category

Well, after quite an exciting day of Windows 8 information leaking its way out to the Internet, it appears Microsoft is officially on the war path to finding who leaked the information in the first place. As noted on Twitter by Tom Warren of Neowin, the blog of Francisco Martin — one of the first to bring some of this Windows 8 information to light — has apparently been nixed by Microsoft (his blog resided on spaces.live.com). The earliest that these slides can be traced back is to the Website win7vista.com (thanks to @tom_warren for the link).

The documents were originally XPS files converted to PDFs with the goal of removing any incriminating watermarks. Well, win7vista.com made a mistake. As “DanielRemains” — the individual who posted the leaked content — notes, “I spent many hours working on these on removing watermarks etc.” Unfortunately, he seemed to miss a slide and it has undoubtedly brought some unwanted attention to one Derek Goode from HP. Here’s the slide which shows his email address (Update: email address removed from slide by request):

Whether or not Derek Goode is the individual who leaked the slides directly, if it was a colleague who did it behind his back, or some other scenario, Microsoft is clearly on the prowl. win7vista.com wanted all the credit, so I hope they’re ready for what’s about to ensue. Don’t be surprised if many of these posts around the Internet involving this Windows 8 documentation suddenly disappear.

-Stephen Chapman
http://msftkitchen.com

This post is my gratuitous offer to Microsoft to help them track down websites of piracy advocates who store and/or share activation cracks and similar nuisances. This all started as an experiment to see how many ways I could find a particular file and I’ve come to the conclusion that Microsoft probably either isn’t implementing half the methods I’ve devised or they don’t have the time/interest or a person/team in-house or outsourced dedicated to formulating solutions like this. I’ve cherry-picked two methods to delve into, then listed some action items to follow through with in taking said methods into consideration.

I would use Bing for these examples, but I’m still waiting for an all-encompassing guide for using advanced syntax usage in Bing. Usually, when I try to replicate my Google methods in Bing (yes, I make sure I’m using Bing’s syntax where applicable), the results are dismal. Anyway, I’d like to think someone at Microsoft will see this for what it is and bring me in to really get creative with this stuff, because there’s a whooooooole lot more where this came from! But I won’t hold my breath, because in the words of one Tony Lucca, “if I held my breath, you’d be the death of me.” lol.

Method 1: Use the following query in Google (I’ve even hyper-linked it for your pleasure):

 

intitle:index.of removewat21 | removewat22 | removewat*

 

Results: A large number of personal websites where they have the RemoveWAT file stored and directly accessible for anyone to immediately download.

Method 2: Go to Google. Click “more” and then click “Blogs.” Now, perform a search using the following query and then, on the left-hand side, click, “Sorted by date” (yes, I’ve hyper-linked this one as well already using the aforementioned steps):

 

removewat21 | removewat22 | removewat*

 

Results: An ever-expanding list of blogs linking to the file(s) you’re interested in getting off the internet. Most of them link to file sharing services, but that’s a major score as well.

Action Items: Bearing in mind the methods above, the next thing is to gather a list of as many variables of the RemoveWAT file name as you can, such as scene release names, shortened versions, etc. and interchange them throughout the queries. Rinse and repeat the process with other activation crack technologies and voila. From there, of course, gather contact information from somewhere on the site, perform a whois search, etc. to contact the individual(s) to remove the file or simply send a DMCA take-down request to the host or whatever legal actions Microsoft has to adhere to.

Also, you can get more extensive with the research portion and use Yahoo Site Explorer or SEOmoz’s Open Site Explorer to search for inbound links to the links harvested via method 1. The results are a mixed bag where that’s concerned, but I’ve found that Google typically yields those results after spidering the site from a completely separate entry point, so whether or not the person posted the file in a public forum or simply posted something completely irrelevant and Google happened to spider its way to the particular file is up in the air until additional research is performed.

Oh, and while you’re at it, you might as well try to make this process as automated, productive and facile as possible by setting up some Google Alerts (or something similar) for all the terms/queries you come up with and keep an eye on when new sites are indexed with those file names. What a great way of finding and getting rid of those files from (probably) a completely untapped avenue.

There! I’ve officially put my personal information-finding and off-page SEO research methods to good use for Microsoft’s anti-piracy endeavors. =) But bear in mind, the aforementioned methods and action items are just the tip of the iceberg. If I so chose, I could use just about any Microsoft product for free without ever touching a P2P application or utilizing a crack — all thanks to Google and absolutely careless individuals out there. There’s a lot out there; you just have to know how to find it.

Happy hunting, Microsoft.

-Stephen Chapman

http://www.msftkitchen.com

Back in 2005, Microsoft mentioned in a Thinkweek article the idea of an ad-driven Windows. Ina Fried summarized quite well what was discussed in that article in a section titled “Plan Extends to Windows.” Seemingly only an idea back then, new evidence shows that Microsoft has done more than simply *think* about placing ads in Windows.

While recently doing a bit of research, I ran across a Microsoft employee’s mention (screen shot below) of an incubation project they were involved with sometime between 2005-2008. Code named “Madison” (not to be confused with the SQL 2010 code name), it appears an actual prototype has been created for advertising in Windows. Prior to writing this article, I mentioned my findings to Mary Jo Foley from ZDNet and she quickly made an observation I hadn’t thought of — the code name “Madison” obviously stemming from “Madison Ave.” in Manhattan. To quote Wikipedia, “[s]ince the 1920s, the street’s name has been synonymous with the American advertising industry.”

(Yes, that says “madision” but that’s almost certainly a grammatical error)

The implications of this prototype are staggering, but not necessarily all bad.

On one hand, this could be a way for Microsoft to offer Windows on-the-cheap for many individuals — namely, those who either can’t afford Windows or don’t want to pay for Windows in the first place (i.e. pirates, yarrr!). In theory, you could use a “Windows Ads Edition” or something where you’ve basically opted for ads to stream to you in exchange for your usage of Windows. Another possible scenario is for this prototype technology to perhaps replace (or maybe become a component of) Starter Edition. After all, with Microsoft’s recent job post looking to fill a position on the “Windows SKU team,” it’s pretty clear that Microsoft is planning Windows 8 SKUs — thus implying a SKU-secured future for Windows — so why not the possibility of a “Windows Ads Edition?” I don’t think too many people would use such a thing by choice, and for those who did choose to, Microsoft’s marketing would have to be crystal clear to spell out why you wouldn’t simply be using an ad-ridden version of Windows.

Also, when bringing ads into the equation, I can’t imagine they would riddle every SKU with ads, but how could Microsoft really expect to make a significant ROI based on a model where ads are being shown to people who are looking to circumvent – or simply cannot afford the cost of – Windows in the first place? With that in mind, perhaps it would have nothing to do with SKUs at all. Perhaps it would consist of a technology designed to run under certain variables in *any* SKU of Windows where the obvious candidates would lie amongst all unactivated, non-genuine, and pirated copies. The thought of that gets shaky when considering all the headaches Microsoft would face from those screaming “invasion of privacy” or “anti-trust measures!” They would have to be clever about monitoring ad traffic, of which there’s absolutely no way Microsoft could successfully convince businesses to fork over cash for ad views without being able to show some semblance of accurate numbers… unless it’s a PPC thing, and then Microsoft has to face dealing with potential click fraud amongst the other obvious deterrents, such as ad blocking software, host file modification to block ad servers, or even full-blow file modification/replacement to remove the ad-driven functionality in its totality.

Naturally, this all just boils down to Microsoft looking to cash in on a BIG money-making industry with the most visible product they have. The most popular application in the entire world. Potentially, every Windows user would be a lead just waiting to turn a profit for whoever pays to advertise in Windows. And if Microsoft went the route of making this a technology that wasn’t limited to any particular version of Windows, they could even scale it back to XP via a simple update (but I see XP being obsolete by the time ads ever make it into Windows).

Thinking even grander, imagine if Microsoft created an ad platform in Windows that was so successfully facile to the end user that the price of ALL versions of Windows was little to nothing at all. Now, that may sound ridiculous, but that’s the kind of forward-thinking that — if they could pull it off — would bring them many more users and drastically drop certain costs of developing Windows, such as the cost of anti-piracy measures. If they could figure out a way to make ads extremely relevant, non-evasive, yet have them yield high click-through rates — in a perfect world — that would be a version of Windows accessible to nearly everyone.

But I’m a realist. I don’t think such a scenario would ever come to fruition. Honestly, between unhappy users who want nothing to do with ads and potential legal woes that would inevitably face Microsoft, I see the headaches mounting for actually implementing ads in Windows. What do you think? Do you think Microsoft will ever bring such an effort to Windows? How would you feel about actually using an ad-implemented Windows? I don’t think I would mind too much, but the implementation of them would have to be nothing short of genius.

-Stephen Chapman

http://msftkitchen.com

Since content theft is a reoccuring issue with the things I post, I have accordingly posted new legal terms effective immediately. They can be found, in their entirety, in a designated spot at the bottom of the sidebar on the left, and, in part, in the footer of my website. For good measure, here are the terms as posted:

Effective October 08, 2009, all original works derivative of this website, Microsoft (or MSFT) Kitchen, (www.msftkitchen.com and www.microsoftkitchen.com) and works derivative of UX Evangelist (www.uxevangelist.net and uxevangelist.blogspot.com) are protected under the following Creative Commons License. Disregard of these stipulations will be pursued to the fullest extent possible under the terms provided.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
(View Legal Code)

Any usage of the terms Microsoft, MSFT, and any products or images derivative thereof, are trademarked by Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft Kitchen is not affiliated with Microsoft Corporation in any way, shape or form.

 

Microsoft Kitchen reserves the right to amend or waiver these rules by request or as desired.

I hate to take it to this level, but it has become a necessity even if only out of sheer frustration alone. Thank you for all the support many of you have exuded and likewise for all the viewership I receive! As much as I enjoy my stories and posts making their rounds, this isn’t a popularity contest for me. I don’t have an ego that needs to be stroked and the last thing on my mind is duping my readers and shamelessly riding the coattails of others’ hard work. With that said, there is nothing further to discuss regarding this issue. As such, comments are disabled for this post.

-Stephen
http://msftkitchen.com