UPDATED 10:23 EDT / DECEMBER 10 2014

Microsoft toughens on U.S. cybercrime, still struggles overseas

piracyMicrosoft is presently going after a member of the public who has been spotted by the company’s cyberforensic department for activating a suspicious amount of pirated copies of Windows 7 and Office 2010. The Redmond giant has filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court in Seattle, WA, and has asked the court that the person shows his or her true identity and be subject to paying damages to the company. If charged, the defendant will have to pay a considerable fine and could even face time in prison.

The alleged pirate in question Microsoft says has already been identified, and has been tracked to an AT&T ISP with the Illinois IP address: 76.245.7.147. It’s thought the defendant is involved in selling computers that have pirated software installed on them. Microsoft has asked that the court reveals the name of the alleged pirate and pays back, “illegally received money and profits in the form of bank accounts, real property, or personal property that can be located and traced.”

A court document, which was collected by TorrentFreak, showed that multiple requests had, “characteristics that on information and belief, establish that defendants are using the IP address to activate pirated software.” The document shows that an unspecified amount of copies of Windows 7 and Office 2010 with suspicious keys were either taken without consent from the refurbisher channel, or were lifted from the company’s supply chain. Microsoft added that a third scenario was possible and that, “product keys of various types have been used more times that they are authorized by the applicable software license.”

Microsoft is known as being somewhat of a pirate magnet, but usually turns a blind eye to the illicit use of its products in individual cases. Earlier this year CEO Satya Nadella even went as far as to admit that piracy could in some ways be converted into profit, explaining, “We’ve always had freemium. Sometimes our freemium was called piracy,” alluding to the fact that it’s not always a bad thing to have people foraging within the Microsoft ecosystem even if they got there by tunneling under the fence.

In spite of the occasional blind-eye tactic, earlier this year Microsoft bolstered their overseas – especially China – anti-piracy policy when it forged an alliance with attorneys general in the states of Louisiana and Oklahoma. The company also boasts that its cybercrime team has smarter technology enabling it to investigate more thoroughly possible acts of piracy by closely monitoring activation patterns that IPs engage in.

Why using counterfeit software could ruin your day

 

 

Microsoft reported last year that it had settled 3,265 software copyright infringement cases in the year of 2013, only 35 of which were across 19 U.S. states, and 3,230 which were international cases across 42 countries. The company usually focuses on large cases of piracy involving businesses and seems to leave the little man be; the recent case, if it should prove to be a fact, shows Microsoft has a zero-tolerance stand on piracy for business.

Putting a stop to piracy in the U.S. is a realistic objective for Microsoft, but in regions such as South East Asia where counterfeit software is often the norm rather than the anomaly, it is something of a Sisyphean task. Many consumers in that part of the world are not monetarily suited to the real thing, which could prove to hurt them in the end. Reports suggest that there are many risks involved in using pirated software which range from bad, to downright scary.

David Finn, associate general counsel in the Microsoft Cybercrime Center, noted last year in a Microsoft news bulletin, “Software counterfeiting negatively impacts local and global economic growth, stifles innovation, and puts consumers and businesses at risk.”

In Thailand alone it’s reported that out of every 10 computers 8 are using pirated software that is infected with malware, according to Microsoft South East Asia. It was also stated that across the entire region of South East Asia the infection rate of computers stood at 69 percent. While users might be quite rightly scared of the dreaded blue screen appearing due to some seemingly insuperable bug, or being hacked because their Windows updates are not installed, for some individual users and small businesses the right to legitimate software is practically unattainable. This may change if Microsoft’s reported modifications in its Windows business model take effect.  Meanwhile on U.S. soil, pirates may find themselves at the mercy of the courts if they dare to test Microsoft’s crime busters team.

Photo credit: Nicolas Raymond via photopin cc


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