Report software piracy, get a shot at $1 million
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Blog: For a limited time only, a major software industry group is dangling the reward for workplace whistleblowers, but it's at its sole discretion to decide what's worthy of the jackpot.
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A tool has been posted online that can apparently crack Vista's activation process by applying brute force -- and lots of time -- to come up with valid product keys. But the author is now telling users it's wrong to use it.
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How to wreck an IT giant for under $1m Recovering stolen laptops from Italy - $9,668. Consulting an investigative reporter - $7,312. Having a spy scandal erase decades of hard work building up your reputation, while eroding your board of directors and forcing your CEO to testify in front of Congress - priceless. Or rather about $375,000.â¦
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PayPlay.FM is offering its 1.3 million indie songs in DRM-free MP3 format for $0.88 each.
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Damages of up to $30,000 (Â£16,300) per film are being sought by the Motion Picture Association of America in an unknown number of lawsuits filed against people caught illegally downloading digital copies of films.
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A toolkit designed to exploit a recently-disclosed Microsoft JPEG vulnerability has been released onto the net. The toolkit (screen shot from AV firm F-Secure here) makes it trivially easy for maliciously-minded
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I'm guilty.  I'm a Software Pirate!  Not just one or two copies of DOS but probably hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of software.  Growing up my parents didn't have much money.  Certainly not hundred of thousands of dollars for me to blow on software.  I was curious and had a passion for computers that I couldn't control.  I simply wanted to learn and couldn't afford to pay for software.  Luckily I did this when I was a kid so hopefully I won't be prosecuted.  I also believe that everything I did was ethical.  I didn't take any money out of the hands of the software industry and I've already contributed WAY more to the industry than a few hundred thousand in software sales.  This is th ...
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They start with a single stolen file and pump out pirated games and movies by the millions. Jeff Howe from Wired magazine looks at the 'topsites' that are terrorizing the entertainment business.
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But look to lawsuit stick rather than iTunes carrot for the cause
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Phantom sales lost to piracy? Get over it. It's time for the music labels to pull those master recordings out of storage and make some money. Commentary by Eliot Van Buskirk.
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A software patch to protect your system is available from Microsoft.
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For under $20, a new software from Code 42 allows you to backup your PC either at home, to a friend's PC or to a remotely managed site.
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A Microsoft UK replacement scheme for pirate copies of Windows XP suggests the company is testing the waters to see how feasible it is to convert sections of its unlicensed user base to legitimate users.
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The software giant has started a campaign to steal, er, migrate NetWare users over to Windows Server 2003. Sheesh. &quot;Microsoft is offering US-based NetWare customers a voucher worth $600 toward channel-partner
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Paying customers may not get their hands on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1 (Service Pack 1) for weeks, but pirates can download the brand-new code today, according to searches at several BitTorrent trackers.The RTM, or release to manufacturing, versions of both operating systems can easily be found on BitTorrent tracker sites such as Pirate Bay, which has made them available since yesterday.One torrent of Microsoft's newest server operating system, Windows Server 2008, lists 42 "seeders," the term for a computer that has a complete copy of the torrent file, and nearly 190 "leechers," or computers that have downloaded only part of the complete torrent. The Windows Server 2008 torrent installs a 60-day trial edition, according to users on Pirate Bay who have downloaded the 2.5GB disk image.Vista SP1, meanwhile, is even more popular. The most active torrent located using Pirate Bay listed 163 seeds and almost 500 leechers by mid-day Wednesday. Another tracker, Mininova.org, showed similar numbers: 159 seeders and 665 leechers.Pirate Bay reported the file as 2.9GB in size, while users who successfully downloaded the image warned others that it was not an upgrade per se. "This torrent is a complete install of Windows Vista including SP1. So there will be no option to upgrade," said a commenter on Pirate Bay using the alias "Soulshot." "You'll have to backup [sic] your Documents/Music/Pictures/Favorites, install the .iso to a DVD, restart and run the DVD. Which will erease [sic] everthing [sic] on your primary hard disk."Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1 moved to RTM on Monday, when CEO Steve Ballmer touted both milestones during a conference call with financial analysts. Vista SP1, however, won't land on the company's download site until mid-March because of problems with device drivers, while the official launch for Windows Server 2008 has been set for Feb. 27. Neither operating system can currently be legally obtained by the public.Microsoft is no stranger to leaks. Last summer, for example, several builds of Vista SP1 that had been given to an invite-only group of some 15,000 testers ended up on BitTorrent within days.The company, of course, takes a dim view of counterfeiters -- one analyst recently estimated that Microsoft made an extra $77 million last quarter by cracking down on piracy. But its response to questions about the latest leaks was muted. "Microsoft cautions consumers and businesses that downloading software from a non-genuine source can pose risks to their environment," a spokeswoman said.
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Software pirates' increasing skill at creating counterfeit versions of Windows XP has prompted MicrosoftÂ  to introduce a pilot program that offers to verify whether consumers' software is legitimate and replace fake versions with authentic goods.
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A Gartner analyst finds a direct connection between Linux and piracy: many systems come preinstalled with Linux to keep prices down but then bogus copies of Windows get loaded.