XP Service Pack 2 Bomb

[Hinkel Y.]

Originally Posted by Ogre

So they would get you if you bought a copy and registered with a different key. If you never bought a copy in the first place, then they don't have any records, correct? So they can't catch those people?

There are millions of people who use Windows in the world... If they decided to launch this kind of project to track every single key and the person/people who use them, it would take for ever. Plus, some people keep on upgrading their software from previous versions of windows.

Plus, to catch these people, wouldn't they need some kind of warrent to get their IP addresses and breach some kind of law if they needed to do this? If they wanted to do this, they'll have to do what the record company did going up to court and spending millions to just to get a few IP addresses to sue them for downloading music, but in this case, using the fake codes. I'm sure they could just get the information off the internet, but that would be illegal for them because of the privacy act, right?

Doing the SP2 freeze up is cheaper and easier to impliment for Microsoft. The SP2 is just a short term solution. People who can find flaws in Window would just continue to try and work their way through SP2 and eventually crack it someday. This is just a short term solution for Microsoft to try and lower the piracy stuff for now.

[datatab1]

it just occurred to me, that it isn't the key that microsoft checks on a valid registered copy of windows, it's the PID (product ID).