.:Computer Defense:.

Me and my buddies at college have been taking a look at this software and boy can it perform…all drivers you need are installed no problem and programs that would normally take awhile to install individually are all in the one package. I go to an IT school in NY and ive run it by Computer Science professors who look at it in such depth and they have seen no issues or anything with it. We have all been using it and we love it.

and also on that note…the government does more snooping around then hackers

Too anyone in this post going on about “my anti virus found this or that” dont you realise the anti virus companies are in cahoots with these big companies? (Blatant example – NORTON – why its one of the worst avs)

Infact even some of these companies GIVE you trojans/viruses and alert you to buy their product (Something I like to call an electronic protection racket ^^)

So think of it this way, mr gates and mr norton are good friends, mr norton says too mr gates “hey Bill, fancy promoting my software on your OS,”

Bill: Sure Norty, but theres a favour Ive been meaning to ask you, could you blacklist some files as threats in some pirated software someones made of my OS and made sure im losing a minutes wage from which I will die without

Nortan: sure Bill I love you baby(L)

Bill: I Love you 2 lets have gay sex

Howdy and G’day.

This thread is huge and maybe this has already been brought up previously. But has anyone seen the movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley”?
Basically its a movie about how Bill Gates and Steve Jobs started out, ie how windows and mac became. Im not sure exactly ‘how’ much truth is in the movie, but it seems and claims to be based strongly on biographical facts.

To me it seems like a true story turned a little more entertaining (to make it a movie). Ok so maybe it wasnt the most entertaining which is maybe why it was quite true to the facts.

Anyway to my point.
There was DOS.
Xerox (I think, or some big printing company) released a freeware graphical operating system, or didnt bother protecting it, or something like that.
Steve Jobs picked this up and made his first macs running on his slightly improved version of it, which were a great success. He planned to release a better mac with a better version of it.
Bill Gates needed to get his hands on this code so he charismatically got him and his team hired to work on the new mac os. He stole this version, and developed the first windows, and got it out before Steve Jobs did.

Windows and Microsoft did great from this. Steve Jobs struggled to better them, having been beaten to the punch, gets fired from Mac….
Steve Jobs approaches Bill Gates and has a go at him, “you stole my os you dirty rat” sorta thing.
Bill Gates hits him with the reality of the situation “you stole it from Xerox and all I did was do the same from you”

Now Microsoft is more than huge, and owns most of Mac anyway, all through cunning business tactics (business is a cruel and ruthless world).

Now, my real point.
How many home users with pirated windows will ever become the next microsoft from it, and TRULY threaten the company or its profits.

NONE.

Who is the hypocrite.
B G AND MICROnotsoSOFT.

I hope you agree.

To the points raised about supporting the smaller developers. HERE HERE!!
They are the real strugglers.
They are the ones truly under threat from losing profits or their existance from anywhere, especially big companies like MS who just want their version of that app to be the only one in existance.

The advertising (of some other retail product) revenue potential for these smaller companies is huge even if home users dont have to pay a cent.
LOOK AT FREE TO AIR TV
Im not saying we should have ads forced onto our computers, I agree that would be so very annoying. Im just raising that point.

Its those smaller companies producing ingenious little programs and struggling to keep themselves alive in this brutal commercial environment who are the real giants.

Etab out.

Pirated windows is diffrent form software from smaller companies because microsoft gets most of it’s sales from computer manufacurers like dell. the sales and the pirated windows are neglible compared to what Microsoft must get from deals from Dell and HP. this may also be why the price of windows is so high. microsoft doesn’t want you to get an upgrade they want you to buy an new pc. Most of us on this form are geeks. we fix, build or salvage them and need OSs to install. most people aren’t a tech savy and to the businesses they are all that matter. For other software it’s diffrent, but for windows I can’t imagine anyone bothering with all these entraptment schemes, or even worrying about pirates. Microsoft’s main customers are computer manufacuters not users.
this may also explain the low quality in windows mentioned above. If this is so then the best way to change things would be to complain to the Manufacuters insted of microsoft. If a thousand people want microsoft to change that’s nothing but it Dell wanted Microsoft to change that would be diffrent. Dell is already offering linux computers ant that may pressure Microsoft to do better.

I am in the unique situation of being able to use XP Black without being a pirate! I work in an organization with enterprise licenses for just about everything that comes on the disk (or I have paid for at least one license for the few items the organization doesn’t license). It has passed all the malware test I have thrown at it, so it must be a ‘good’ version, and I got it from an utterly unimpeachable source who had also run a full suite of malware tests on it. It is BIG, bulky, but not particularly slow, so I suspect the few who have seen odd performance problems have bad or infected copies. The themes are interesting and very Vista-like (without the Vista performance hit). Most of the stuff on my version is freeware with a few exceptions like a cracked demo version of Nero 8, another of Corel Paint Shop Pro and one of Norton Partition Magic 8. I collect freeware as a hobby, so I really DO know what is what. So it IS possible (if you have one or more XP licenses) to install this thing and NOT be a pirate, as long as you stay away from the cracked stuff.

As for the ethics, this is really a VERY gray zone. MS has indulged in absolute criminal behaviour (they just got fined a record about by the EU regulators, for example, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg). They have extorted intellectual property from literally hundreds of developers (if not thousands) in their history, usually by offering to pay a really low price for it, against the threat of buying a competing product and ‘burying’ the victim, or just reverse engineering and using it anyway (which they have done many times also). They are legendary for such predatory behaviour in the developer community. The open source movement has become the response to MS’s predations–and MS has responded by trying to use or sponsor others to use phony software patents to scare potential users away from Linux etc. Fortunately enough large companies (starting with IBM) have signed onto the FOSS bandwagon that this effort will clearly fail. If MS wishes to survive, it will have to stop doing evil things and provide true value (rather than garbage) for what people are willing to pay for software. Thank goodness, for those who cannot pay (still most of the world) and wish to remain pure, there is FOSS, which is more than good enough for nearly all practical purposes at present, and getting better quickly.

OK I’m a pirate and have been since I was a about 10yrs old (About 40yrs now) when I got my first used Reel to reel tape recorder. I’ve even distributed pirated material, but so are and have most of you! Unless you’ve never copied any copy righted material IE. Pictures, Music, video’s Etc. your a pirate too! In most instances just listening to or watching or using copy righted material not derived from the legal source is illegal. So since we all basically are breaking the law all that’s left is the moral delima. Are you hurting any one or at least any one that doesn’t already have it coming to them. Company’s are inherently greedy and in fact are required to be otherwise there stockholders would sue them! when they do something nice It’s not because they’re just a great bunch of people, it’s because it serves their interests (PR etc.). If you’ve ever given or lent copy righted material to a friend or family member you are guilty of distribution. If you profit from some one else’s hard work you may be crossing moral boundaries but, corporations do it all the time. The most important thing for me is to stay within my own moral guideposts not the law after all there have been many bad even deadly laws throughout history! I can honestly say that most if not all copyrighted material I have obtained through other than the proper channels I would never have paid for any way and if I do really like it or find it useful I do purchase it! Every music CD I’ve bought in the last 10yrs I bought because I liked what I downloaded and as far as movies go I have an unlimited rental plan at my local video store why would I ever buy one I never did before I knew how to download them. As for Apps like Black XP If I chose to use it like most people I will put it on a machine with a valid windows sticker. ( I have 2 XP Pro & XP media center) And Just think about this: How much would windows charge if no one ever downloaded free copies?

There are good and bad points to stealing software. I would like to address the comment a little ways up.
“If you want cheaper software stop stealing it!”
Do you think that this would actually cause the price to drop. A company basis it price on what they want to see on profit per item, this is not based on how many are stealing it. My Step father worked for GM and was toild that if they didn’t take a pay raise the cost of a car would go down. This happened several times without any decrease in the cost of a car. So guess what the union did. You got it, they took every pay raise they had coming. The problem with this country and the world if Greed. No one is happy with a little profit, the want the most they can get. But isn’t that everyone, I would rather make $50.00 per item then $5.00 per item. As a businessman I have to understand that there are going to be some people that will take the option of using a bootleg copy. Should I do anyhtin about this? More then likely not. It would cost more then it is worth trying to find everyone that is doing it. Would I install spyware? Hell no, if word got out that would be the end of my company. Look at intel and there little chip spyware, that didn’t last long. They had to do some huge backpeddling to save themselves.
As a company that produces software, when that product is released it should be error free and should be generic enough to work on 95% of machines which out a single problem as long as the min. requirements are met. The problem is they are released with so many bugs that they are not safe to use. I use a copy of win 2k and have been very happy with it for the past 7 years. Probably one of the most stable OS’s that i have used and use daily. I have 2 machines running xp along with 2 laptops. I have another machine using vista, this seems to be a pain in the butt and with the BSOD all the time. I would pass on buying this and would liket o give it back to Microsoft and get another copy of win2k.
We are screwed though, how many OS providers are there? How much software works on other OS’s other then windows. That is where they got us. It would be nice to get a lot of the software companies out there to start a new OS and support it with versions but they wont they know where their bread is buttered. I would like to see Sony dig deep and start their own OS. They could do it.

That is my two bits.

The idea of releasing frequently pirated software with a string attached isn’t new. It’s out there. If you were involved much in p2p downloading would be the place you see it the most. Anyone looking to get software free is going to encounter corrupted files of all kinds from mis-named porn videos posing as premium software, to tiny trojans hidden in said software. They have to do their research and they have to do their work. Whether you pay cash or time, software just isn’t free in the long run.
Pirates generally run in communities, the ones who take it seriously, vs Joe Consumer looking to save a buck or try before he buys. The serious pirates share learning and tend to be extremely saavy about computers. Many are IT professionals. They pay attention to what they’re installing.
Interestingly enough, they also spend far more on software over the years than any innocent Joe Consumer who decides not to take the risk of pirating. Pirates continually tell each other to remember to buy the software if they’re going to use it in the long run, because the programmers need to be supported to continue putting out quality. If a programmer makes poor quality, they won’t buy it, they won’t even use it.
I happen to know for certain that any pirate with sufficient income to make discretionary expenditures will have paid for every version of M$ operating system he uses at some point, whether by having gotten it bundled or bought it for legitimate business use. He may not have paid for each copy he’s using, mind you, but he’s probably only using one seriously, the others are just hobby computers!
When I buy a car I expect the steering wheel and pedals to work without extra fees. I expect functional tires.

If you have the black edition dvd (heavy user environment edition”, click WPI.ICO, your session will end in 60 sec. and will restart. It will also say “resistance is futile” Then after it restarts your “my computer” will be renamed “The Collective”. Did you get that?
Now, please understand that there are also worms and bombs in there depending on which of the “black” version you got. Yup, other cracks by others are easy to add in there as its not certified. It’s not for you to mess those programs with but tools for when they need to use their bots. AV and FW cannot catch all of them as the OS itself is compromised.
For those who likes the secutiry it claimes to offer and the cool UI, well, there is still an old fashion way of turning off services, moding registry and display properties.

Lol, so I just spent my entire 6 hour shift reading a thread of people arguing over the course of a year and all I’ll be clocking out with is a repetative argument about how expensive things are and the Bill Gates is a prick ^_^

I have to admit that you all made my night at work go by very quickly and I thank you for it, but now I have about 20 minutes left and I’m gonna take a nap and dreap about installing the XP Black 4.10 Platinum Final that should be downloaded at home

I have copies of both XP and Vista and will be tinkering around for a solid comparison.

*expecting good things*

Well I have read it all and still I am no wiser than I was before, I have six legit versions of XP running and two running Black. I love the black. also Avast did find a series of trojens on the installation all in ,exe files though this did not phase me as Avast usually gets excited over .Exe my simple answer is if software company’s charged the real worth of there product there would be no piracy, the development has been well covered their greed leads to the wilfull cracking of software however if XP sold for its real worth of $50 and vista $55 no one would bother to crack them.
PS thanks for the black well done

i hope i speak well: well what can i say hmmm…. i’m not from america i’m from Romania so i wood like very much to buy the products but i’m very poor so i take the pirated version of the product that’s why you must understand the poor 2 not just make them fell bad

I have many a times used pirated software. But the difference with me is that i don’t store very personal information on the PC. Many a time i have gotten viruses/worms/Trojans, I have accepted that. On the other hand i have used the xp black on a machine with a network and it works flawlessly (other than the keygen files).
I don’t think anyone should be bad mouthing Microsoft. They decide their price it is up to you to decide if to buy it or use a pirated version. if you decide the latter then you have to stand the consequences.
No Matter what they do people would find a way to pirate or get around their barriers they know this and they have to live with it.
simply

bear with me this is a long one

Not necessarily all ‘Black Edition” versions of XP are bad. Mine, for instance, is a perfectly legit copy of XP Pro SP2 which I have modified visually, and also de-spammed. I modded it with up to date drivers and slipstreamed updates simply to make life easier. I could give a copy of it to you, and it would still be perfectly legit as long as you use a legitimate XP Pro SP2 cd key. The coprpoate entities do this sort of thing ALL OF THE TIME!!! why do you think that XP Pro includes tools to make copies of the CD for unattended installs and slipstreaming RIGHT ON THE CD? As far as Vista goes, there mixed opinions, but I doubt that we’ll see XP disappear anytime soon. Pirating other software, to each his own, but the big companies are literally begging for their software to be pirated considering the exhorbitant prices that they are charging. We’ve worked Adobe systems to death here, but considering what they charge for Photoshop, Flash, Premiere, or any other program in their vast collection… someone name one average college/high school student who can afford it? I’m an MCSE student. If my school didnt GIVE me a copy of Windows Server 2003, there is no way in hell that i would be able to study at home (considering the rediculous asking price of approximately 4 grand). If I wasnt provided with that software, I wouldnt really have a choice but to get a pirated copy off of a torrent site somewhere. As far as getting a modded version of an operating system, you shouldnt really get it from anywhere but from someone that you trust and know very well. Some people call me a ‘hacker,’ but then again that’s kinda the shortened job description of a security systems engineer. I’ve even got a few security patches of my own making for XP Pro. (Bill Gates, there are at least 6 HUGE holes in XP security that you havent fixed yet at the time of this writing that I have fixed) The multinational corporations are going to have to live with the fact that there will always be pirated software, there will always be hackers, there will always be pirated music, and unfortunately, companies both big and small will just simply have to deal with it. I cant say to call it an acceptable loss, but they should have better anti-piracy measures in place to slow it. Unfortunately for the large companies, there are laws in place to protect people from entrapment and to protect their privacy. This is mainly to keep unscruplous software engineers out of peoples computers. You’d be suprised what positions of power that really dangerous hackers tend to be in and in what ways that they abuse their power.
Microsoft has finally put a halfway decent security system in Vista to prevent piracy, but like any system, it has weaknesses and will eventually be defeated. Someone will eventually find the product activation switch in the Vista kernel, and that system will have been ultimately defeated as easily as it was erected. There is a reason that virtually all versions of linux are free and companies like Redhat have found better ways to make their bread & butter off of an operating system. Mac I believe is the only company actually charging for a linux-based client operating system, if not one of the very few. Companies will just have to learn to charge a reasonable price for their products, find a better way to make money off of these products, or bend over and call it an acceptable loss, which they will write off at the end of the year at the expense of the taxpayers, which they have no qualms about doing anyway. You cant just assume that if everyone stops stealing software that the price will drop. Adobe’s products are primarily marketed to businesses, not individuals. In everyday life, do the vast majority of individuals need the kind of capabilities that Photoshop has? I find it highly doubtful. It is more cost effective to have your pictures printed at a developer, even though we have photo-quality printers on the shelves of every major electronics retailer. The majority of video editing that the average person does consists of creating a DVD menu, and dumping the recorded video from the camera to the DVD. Who other than a web developer/animator is going to make flash videos and games? The only people who do this at the individual level would be students and enthusiasts. Generally, if you can afford a $10,000 industrial-quality camera for a hobby, you probably can afford the appropriate industrial-grade software and computer. A falling dollar and a weakening economy isn’t exactly helping either.
Back to XP Black Edition…. there are too many versions of this going around for one to refer to it as a legitimately named operating system. I do not sell my version of the OS, and I do not provide CD keys for it, therefore ultimately concluding that this is not a pirated version of the OS. By the way, the nifty little UI that just about all versions of XP Black have, is just a skin that was either taken from more recent versions of XP Media Center, or from the Zune plugins in Microsoft Plus! It’s nothing new, it just looks pretty sweet and is much easier on the eyes than that painful blue that comes with XP as the default.
As far as Sony coming up with their own OS, technically they already have because with a few driver additions (ok, a LOT) and a few tweaks to the kernel, the OS that the PS3 runs would run on just about any computer. It is a Linux based OS after all. The kernel tweaks wouldn’t be that major either. It would just be adding support for different CPU’s (mostly for the multiple processors and different numbers of CPU cores), and expanded memory addressing system, and if they want to support legacy hardware, support for the PCI and IDE buses (the PS3 either runs SCSI or SATA disk drives, not 100% sure on that one). The PS3 would have to be either SATA or SCSI because IDE simply doesnt have the bandwidth for the games that it runs.

Linux, simply put is a better OS. It’s EXTREMELY stable, Lower overhead, more flexible, easily expandible, and, well, FREE!!!!!! The only reason why Microsoft is current king of the market share is because of sheer coporate genius. I’m not backing bill by any means, but there is no one better at running a business than he is. Heres a lovely little tidbit for you all. Do you know where to find Linux? where do I start?….. Cell phones, video game consoles, copy machines, networking hardware (except Cisco IOS & HPUX, theyre unix based as far as I know), system monitoring software, web browsers (i.e. firefox and opera) email (thunderbird, squirrel mail, horde), your computer’s CMOS, cars, cash registers, web servers, game servers, YOU NAME IT!!!!

To:DuRoLuRo
download a linux live CD, you can get one from Ubuntu or Fedora fairly easily, boot the CD, make sure you have your stuff backed up, and wipe out the hard drive that way, you should be good to go to whatever OS you want then. If that doesnt work, hard drives are cheap nowadays and really easy to install (go western digital, its worth the few extra dollars and i’ve only had one fail which they replaced no questions asked)

Right to Copy 19xx-2k8. Crystal or Unlimited Ed. is much better

Boy what a conversation!

I agree that piracy is not the best thing in the world, and also think that the original prices of OS’s should be cheaper. Its just like the gaming systems. PS3 for $400? No way! I may be a little behind the time when it comes to my gaming system, but I have the slimsline PS2, which cost me $100, and the games are much cheaper. This is just a comparison.

As for computers, I am pretty up to date and like to play with things. I had a pirated copy of Vista a year before it came out, and I was able to familiarize myself with its problems and learn how to fix them. As a result, I have found Vista to be quite a stable platform, and bought it last year. If I hadnt been able to try it for free, my decision to buy it would have taken much longer. (I know, I know – there are those of you out there that hate Vista, so dont skewer me too much).

I very recently got XPBlack, and am having fun just playing around with it and the programs it came with. As a self-taught computer builder, this kind of thing is just priceless. I currently am running 4 OS’s, including Linux. 3 years ago I knew nada, now I know enough to repair computers for other people and have an offer to become a certified computer tech, which is something I never used to consider.

There are many people out there that cannot afford the set prices for these products, but in the long run our society benefits from the knowledge that people gain from these pirated copies, such as stated earlier about the college students using such copies.

So yes, pirating is wrong, and of course yes its a result of overpriced products. As far as I can see, the benefits that result from this piracy outweigh the “loss” experienced by the manufacturer.

FSF, ftw
that’s y i use Linux. U don’t have to pirate ANYTHING cause it’s all free and it’s more secure. Number of Linux viruses….0. Rootkits….very few.

Microsoft does have adware in Xp look into it it is called-Alexa and the next windows 7 might be subscription based- Vista is just a in between software.

ok so ya made some odd points and yes i say odd!
1 do you know any of the people that work at microsoft?
(what was that) did you say no?
ok I rest my point it was proven alonnnnnnnnnnnng time ago
that big corps like oh i dunno telephone companies and the fbi will listen in to your calls so if you really think your safe just because you paid for it lol
continue to bend over and whip out your wallet because buying software
is like going to court for a speeding ticket lmao
there is always 10 moron’s that say guilty with explanation your honor and the judge gently tells him whatever give me 125 dollars and get out and yes the points will be on your record even tho the cop said it wouldnt lol sorry but pirates are way cooler than ninjas and here is why if we like what we got from the p2p networks then alot of us live by a code and go and buy it. bu if we dont then we are put on societies cross and burned sorry but i got tired of getting screwed with the vhs era of tapes i rented at the video store! no test run ya rented it and if it sucked you got screwed and couldnt ask for your doe back so reason with your own guilt and quit pointing your finger sooner or later it will get pulled… sorry man but you cant log this ip

man that comment may need corrections but dam it made me feel good lol

I installed Black XP and did not find the 3 trojan horses on the dvd. I used Kaspersky, Nod32, McAfee 2008 and Microsoft Anti-Spyware which are all up to date. This fuss has nothing to do with a choise an individual can make abot the use of software and where to obtain it.

Guys, if you can afford Vista Ultimate and all Bill’s software, then buy it. But as for trying to kill Black XP developer, then the world will never run out of monopoly and its supporters.

Keep it up Black XP! I support you all the way. And thank you Bill Gates for your Ideas we improve in a much better way. Maybe you wont charge us for what we already know in the future.

And… whos piracy are you all talking abot?

I am a Senior Graphic Designer working in the Philippines. I use software like 3DS Max & Vray, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Microsoft Office, watch Video Tutorials of particular programs, etc… on a Windows XP OS… all pirated copies (downloaded). Just how on earth will a Senior Designer living on a less-than-600-dollars-a-month salary be able to buy authentic software like the ones mentioned above and, at the same time, support his/her family? And a lot more working professionals here in our country earn half my salary, just imagine that. We will have to starve to death for weeks or even months just to buy licensed software. And, sadly, that’s the truth. Sorry to all programmers/software developers out there. I may have to stick to downloading “free” software for a very longtime.

BC if that is your situation then you do what you have to do to survive.

Did you know that most of the time KeyGen’s give off virus warnings… if you’re scared.. Try running the keygen on a old computer or on a VM…

And sometimes they’re added to the virus/spyware database and will be detected as malware.

There is no need to pirate software when the open source community is creating so much good content as well as re-creating a lot of the most popular paid software available.
Bargain hunting gets you a long way if you need windows. My current Compaq PC cost under AU$800 and is an average mid level PC with monitor and Vista Home Premium. Now 12 months after that purchase I still can’t replace the machine for under AU$1,000.
On the other hand I could have built the same machine for roughly the same price but for hardware only and used Ubuntu or one of the other *nix Operating Systems. The problem with doing that is my X-Box 360 wouldn’t be able to stream live TV from it, nor would I be able to play the latest games on it but otherwise I would be able to do everything I need to.
The security on Vista is easier to use and understand for the average beginner than it is with XP or *nix.
Cost for Vista here is
AU$145 Home Premium OEM
AU$250 Ultimate OEM

@Black Edition

Thanks for XP Black– it’s awesome. Just curious, though, Will there ever be a Black Edition 64-Bit? I’d like to be able to use my 8GB RAM.

where do i find the keybord language setup?