Nerdy Photo in Vista DVDs Thwarts Disk Pirates

maximus1 writes "Microsoft says that the tiny photo on the Windows Vista Business Edition installation disks is an anti-piracy feature. The tiny photo of three grinning men — less that 1 mm in size — is one of several images incorporated into the hologram's design intended to make it harder to replicate a Vista DVD, according to Nick White on Microsoft's Vista team blog. 'The real story is interesting, but conspiracy theorists will be disappointed to learn that it is not the result of a deliberate attempt to deceive,' White wrote."

If it were porn...

[rufo (126104)]

...would Vista be pirated less or more?

Re:If it were porn...

[by Anonymous Coward]

If it were the same three guys it would be pirated less.

How is someone supposed to know

[geekoid (135745)]

that they are supposed t look for that to see of the copy they have is legit?

And it only assumes the buyer cares.

Re:How is someone supposed to know

[Saxerman (253676)]

There are a host of anti-counterfeit measures on currency. And for the most part the average consumer will neither know nor care, and just keep passing the stuff off as genuine. Yet the Fed certainly cares, and they are certainly looking for the stuff. Adding tiny anti-counterfeit designs doesn't make it harder to print fake currency, it makes it easier to identify the stuff as fake. So they can locate fake currency floating in the wild and hopefully trace it back to its source.

Watermarks such as this are designed to prevent counterfeits, not piracy. There are large scale counterfeit operations designed to pass themselves off as legitimate software resellers. Considering the type of disc presses these organizations have access to these days, they can stamp some very authentic looking discs.

The BSA and other such agents look out for these tiny missing features, so they know when and where to release the hounds.

A mom and pop shop with a few extra installs than licenses is small potatoes. They group stamping 100s of thousands of discs in China and selling them as genuine in Europe are the big daddy potatoes.

Re:

[bkgood (986474)]

The BSA and other such agents look out for these tiny missing features, so they know when and where to release the hounds. A mom and pop shop with a few extra installs than licenses is small potatoes.

I hope you aren't suggesting the hounds wouldn't be released on the mom and pop shop regardless -- easy money is easy money in the eyes of the BSA.

Re:How is someone supposed to know

[Reverend528 (585549)]

So they can locate fake currency floating in the wild and hopefully trace it back to its source.

This works with money because it is circulated. Once bound to a host, vista cannot be reused.

Watermarks such as this are designed to prevent counterfeits, not piracy.

I have to wonder how many people will unknowingly buy a counterfeit version of windows. And how many that do are actually going to inspect their DVD for a 1mm image.

Re:How is someone supposed to know

[Tim C (15259)]

No, Vista isn't circulated like currency, but counterfeit disks will still turn up in raids, seizures of smuggled cargo, etc.

This isn't about stopping you or me from installing a pirated copy of Vista (knowingly or unknowingly), this is about making it that bit easier to find and shut down the big counterfeiting operations.

Fifth picture discovered

[walt-sjc (145127)]

In an even smaller spot, this picture [about.com] was found...

Re:Fifth picture discovered

[master_p (608214)]

In an even smaller spot, this picture [wikimedia.org] was found...

It's all about the photo

[Shabbs (11692)]

Yes, cuz a tiny little photo is going to stop the piracy. Stop the presses... gather 'round children... PIRACY HAS BEEN ELIMINATED!!!!

All pirates care about is 1) Does it install? 2) Can I "activate" it?

Cheers.

Re:It's all about the photo

[fm6 (162816)]

All pirates care about is 1) Does it install? 2) Can I "activate" it?

Yet another "everybody's like me" Slashdotter. This isn't aimed at preventing dorks like you from borrowing your friend's install disc. MS would certainly like to prevent that kind of piracy, but they don't really lose sleep over it. What they do lose sleep over is big commercial pirate software organizations that want to pass off their product as "legitimate".

Re:It's all about the photo

[by Anonymous Coward]

REAL pirates primarily care about: Can I sell it and get away with it?

REAL pirates primarily care about: Can I SAIL it and get away?

Re:

[Shabbs (11692)]

Aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrgh... 'tis true matey. On both statements. I was thinking about the smaller pirate, lower case "p". ;)

Cheers.

Link To Pictures

[pavon (30274)]

For the majority of slashdotters that don't have a Vista DVD and a magnifying glass sitting on their desk, the engadget article [engadget.com] has pictures.

The three guys trap your soul ...

[siddesu (698447)]

Then, if the disk is illegally copied, they send the soul to Microsoft Hell. And if the disk is genuine, the soul goes to Microsoft Heaven.

Re:

[lgramling (1064562)]

they send the soul to Microsoft Hell. And if the disk is genuine, the soul goes to Microsoft Heaven.

What's the difference?

All I know is ...

[WrongSizeGlass (838941)]

... if I worked on the 'Vista' team I sure wouldn't want my picture printed on the DVD. What if someone recognized me on the street? Or in prison?? Or on /.???

Re:All I know is ...

[wizardforce (1005805)]

... if I worked on the 'Vista' team I sure wouldn't want my picture printed on the DVD. What if someone recognized me on the street? Or in prison?? Or on /.???

how can we recognize you unless you uploaded your own photo? for all we know you look like this: 8>)

Re:All I know is ...

[WrongSizeGlass (838941)]

how can we recognize you unless you uploaded your own photo? for all we know you look like this: 8>)

OK ... where's that hidden camera?

I Feel Ripped Off

[Nom du Keyboard (633989)]

The problem is that when I got my Vista upgrade discs through Dell for systems bought just before Vista was released, I don't have pretty hologram discs like that at all. I have just plain printed Dell labeled junk that anybody could counterfeit.

Let's see what's wrong...

[perlhacker14 (1056902)]

First off, nerds like us are the ones who pirate stuff in the first place. Second, if the image is so small, which user is going to see it, and if the user cannot see it, then claims of amnesty are theoretically possible. Third, due to the traditionally nonintimidating nature of the nerd, what pirate who sees the image will think and stop what they are doing? It seems that Microsoft demonstrates its foolishness through oversight and arrogance once again. Though, the whole idea is quite funny for the rest of us!

They dont really want to stop piracy

[grapeape (137008)]

If they really did it would eliminate the fallback excuse of why no one is buying it unless being forced to. The local CompUSA here was going out of business and even at 75% off during the final days they were open there were still dozens and dozens of vista boxes just sitting there.

"I buried Paul"

[$RANDOMLUSER (804576)]

Microsoft Corp. has clarified the identity of the mysterious trio on the installation disks for the business version of Windows Vista.
And no, you can't play the installation DVDs backwards and hear the devil talking, either.

Yeah, you have to play them forward to hear the devil talking.

Avoid CLick through

[blhack (921171)]

Real story [blognewschannel.com]
no ads.
This isn't an anti-piracy measure, Microsoft is actually pretty upset about it. They don't like easter eggs because it makes them look unprofessional. If they find the guys that did this, they will probably be fired.

Re:Avoid CLick through

[blhack (921171)]

from TFA:

Microsoft doesn't like easter eggs in its products, doesn't like surprises that could make it look unprofessional or just be embaressing. Larry Osterman said, "Nowadays, adding an easter egg to a Microsoft OS is immediate grounds for termination". Jeremy Mazner has more:

        Leading up the release of Windows 2000, Microsoft starting getting a lot more serious about selling servers into the government and large enterprise markets. These guys saw NT 4 as the first really credible enterprise-class product from MS, and were evaluating Win2k to see how things were progressing.

        The story, as I recall it, is that one of these customers had some strong words for our easter eggs, suggesting that any company that could let such things frivolous things into their products wasn't doing a very good software engineering job, and thus couldn't be trusted to run an enterprise-scale business.

        The argument never made much sense to me. Easter eggs, at least on teams I worked on, were never anywhere near critical-path code. And they often seem to have been pretty well tested by every member of the product team who wanted to verify their name showed up. Maybe there's some story I don't know about how an Easter egg caused a perf hit, or crash or something (I bet if such a story existed, Raymond would know it.). In any event, it seemed like we one day got this email that said "no more Easter eggs ever again", and that was pretty much the end of it.

Re:Avoid CLick through

[martinX (672498)]

But how can MS find them? They are so tiny and could hide anywhere.

At least...

[ceroklis (1083863)]

... they didn't use this one [trinity.edu].

Re:

[KlomDark (6370)]

Isn't that Geddy Lee's mom (dark glasses) in the picture?

So this is why Vista is so expensive

[Kildjean (871084)]

Hmmm Embeded holographic images... So wait a second, is this why Vista is so Expensive? I mean are people who are paying $300 bucks for vista paying really $1 for the OS and $299 for the Hologram?

Sweet!

Worried about being authentic

[mmarlett (520340)]

So does anyone have a torrent of this hologram? The Vista I have really needs it.

Nerdy Photo?

[GFree (853379)]

That's not a nerdy photo.

If there were really serious, THIS [informacyde.com] should have been the embedded image.

It's a secret BECAUSE...

[TheDarkener (198348)]

Nobody has cared to look at the Vista Business Install CD.

Kneel before ZOD

[jptechnical (644454)]

If an explosion occurs nearby, won't it shatter the hologram releasing these three criminals that were imprisoned on Krypton nearly 3 decades ago? You know they must be pissed! They would have super human powers, and superman is nowhere to be found!

Does no one get it?

[batkiwi (137781)]

This is not about buying a cheap copy for $5 and "wondering" if it's real or not (hint: it's not). A contrived example of why this is important:

You go to your local mom and pop PC shop. You buy a PC for $1000 including Vista. They give you a disk that has a nice color silkscreened vista logo. 9 months later, the activation hack they applied and didn't tell you was applied is fixed via update, and you call MS to deal with validation. They ask you about your disk, which has no holograms. They tell you you've been "had," so you go back to the mom and pop shop and require a real copy, this time knowing what to look for and demand.

The same story could be told about small businesses who are not large enough to use corporate version with their own keyserver, and thus buy bulk professional licenses and have the CDs as proof of license.

Cracked?

[Associate (317603)]

Will cracked versions feature a pasty white buttocks of the nerd that cracked it?

Vista by itself is enough to thwart piracy

[bl8n8r (649187)]

My sister's friend's brother's girlfriend has a cousin that went to china and said she saw them throwing out the vista cds and pirating the clamshells.

Re:fail

[rborek (563153)]

Microsoft is more worried about the large-scale pirates - the ones that sell the disks to unwitting consumers, either standalone or as part of a new PC. This would allow them to more easily show that the disks themselves are counterfeit.

Re:fail

[petermgreen (876956)]

It only takes one customer (or test buyer) to spot a counterfeit and provide information allowing the counterfieter to be traced.

Plain pirates who do nothing to disguise what they are selling as legit may do some damage but buisness customers are easilly scared away from them by the threat of audits, counterfieers OTOH can sell at a much higher price to buisness customers taking sales directly from MS.

Re:

[prockcore (543967)]

when 20% of their windows genuine advantage tests result in a legal copy being branded as a pirated copy, why not fix that too?

Oooh look, a statistic pulled out of thin air! It's magic!

The one reporter I've seen who experienced WGA first hand actually found out that the shrinkwrapped copy he had purchased was counterfeit.

Re:

[GFree (853379)]

For that matter, how many pirated copies of Vista actually exist? [such negative reaction to it why pirate it?]

One point of reference would be to check the number of seeders/peers on any given torrent site for a particular OEM version of Vista Ultimate, pre-activated.

Last time I checked there were a couple hundred seeders and about a thousand plus peers, keeping in mind of course that once you download a new OS, chances are you're gonna get straight to burning and installing it, which reduces the seeder lev

exactly

[ihatewinXP (638000)]

The pirate copy I bought in here in Beijing had these security features:

1. Plastic sleeve
2. No box
3. Burned CD with "Vista 32 Eng" written in Sharpie on the front.

And it works great. Even came with the guys phone number in case I had problems applying the validation hacks.

If youre going to buy a pirate version what do you care? I have seen the nicer versions (with fake box et. al.) but trust me, no one is fooling themselves into thinking that they are getting a $400 program for ten bucks.

But my even more ghetto pirate version only cost $5 and it came with Office 2007 as well (which employed the same counter measures) ;)

Re:exactly

[Geoffreyerffoeg (729040)]

no one is fooling themselves into thinking that they are getting a $400 program for ten bucks.

That's for the $10 copies. There are, however, the $400 copies, in which case people are fooled into thinking that the $400 they're paying for this program is going to Microsoft instead of some thief's pocket.

(And yes, this is in fact theft. The data might not be "stolen", but the $400 definitely was stolen.)

Re:exactly

[Carnildo (712617)]

(And yes, this is in fact theft. The data might not be "stolen", but the $400 definitely was stolen.)

No, it isn't. Selling an item with the pretense that it's a different item is called "fraud".

Re:exactly

[arashi no garou (699761)]

Actually it depends on which country or even which state the transaction occurs in. Where I live (Georgia, United States) it's called Theft By Deception. There is a parallel charge called Deceptive Business Practices, which covers businesses and individuals claiming to be a business that attempt a fraudulent transaction. If they actually succeed in selling a bogus product or service, and money exchanges hands, they are hit with the theft charge as well.

Re:exactly

[ArsenneLupin (766289)]

You forgot one word. Lemme correct it for you:

That's for the $10 copies. There are, however, the $400 copies, in which case people are fooled into thinking that the $400 they're paying for this program is going to Microsoft instead of some other thief's pocket.

hehe...

(And yes, this is in fact theft. The data might not be "stolen", but the $400 definitely was stolen.)

I completely agree. In both cases!

Re:

[Lehk228 (705449)]

actually at the community college i graduated from in may, every non-geek i knew of with vista either had trouble with it or just outright hated it.

geeks tand to get things fixed or returned, while non-geeks are more likely to live with the problems and bitch a lot.

Re:fail

[GFree (853379)]

Dude, for most of us Slashdot might as well be the planet. So shut up and (sudo) get me a sandwich!

Re:fail

[Pharmboy (216950)]

There isn't a lot of negative reaction to Vista.

Dell had to revert back to selling XP due to customer demand. Many poles, published on many sites, indicate that the business world is nonplussed with Vista and many have no plans to migrate over. This includes our shop that runs all XP on the desktop and Linux on the servers only.

Many, many people are not interested in Vista, particularly since it won't run a lot of popular software. By the time you can't get support for XP, we will have already migrated to either OS/X or Linux. There IS a lot of negative reaction to Vista. The average gamer or grandma may not care because it is their only choice, but many of us will stick with XP until a better choice comes along. I run IT and I haven't bothered installing it, although I can for free. Won't run all my hardware and software, is buggy as hell, so why would I?

What really matters: More people are trying to pirate XP than Vista. When people won't even STEAL a product, I would consider that a negative reaction to it.

Re:

[NaturePhotog (317732)]

Many poles, published on many sites, indicate that the business world is nonplussed with Vista and many have no plans to migrate over.

Many Poles? I certainly hadn't heard much about Polish bloggers before. I wonder why they're speaking out about Vista? :-)

My experience with Vista has been limited. It came on a friend's new (Dell) laptop. There weren't any particular problems with it, but the software I installed was Firefox, Thunderbird and a slew of Adobe apps (Photoshop, Illustrator, et al, from Creat

Re:LESS THAT 1 MM IN SIZE

[normuser (1079315)]

LESS THAT 1 MM IN SIZE...

If you must comment on your penis size, Please use your journal.