“such as a purchaser's name, address, telephone number, credit card number”

lets throw a whole lot of personal information into the software. as if identity theft wasn't bad enough now days.

Gooo Microsoft!

RE: Microsoft patents software watermarking technology

How is this different from Apple encoding music files with identifiable purchaser information? Where's the patent for that and; Simply because it might be more 'random', is encrypted, and is then encapsulated within other binary code, make this any more unique?

Wouldn't this already be deemed public knowledge?

More thoughts on why this is being implemented:
If user's are supposed to enter serial keys, and hopefully Microsoft knows who's buying their keys, then we know WHO'S the Original Purchaser! Even more, this wouldn't stop someone from deeming a download 'stolen' and then their 'binary code' is used to create a freeload. Who exactly can they blame in this given situation by implementing a new tracking method?

My thoughts,
J07

How can Microsoft in good conscience expose highly confidential data of 10s of millions of users world wide to potential fraud? This would be a gold mine of information to fraudsters and considerable effort will be expended by these shady characters to crack this software. Microsoft needs some serious lessons in ethics. This a new low in the abuse of corporate power.

Each piece of SW will have a unique ID that can be traced. It provides a trail that can be followed if this SW shows up on the black market for sale. They do it now. Ever here of an activation key? Its just a lot more solid now. No need for my SSN, it all goes into a DB anyhow.

The random sequence is intersting. Unless you know exactly how the compiler and optimizer work, there is no "easy" way to reverse this out... Very interesting...

Can't believe they want to implement code on the software with the purchaser's information. I agree that the identity theft is getting even worse and why would ANYONE want this technology? Think up something better Microsoft then get back to us, no one will want this. There is a simple fact, there will always be pirates. Deal with it, the problem won't likely go away whether it is burning a disk or downloading the app.

I hope they dont put credit card numbers into it.

I dont blame microsoft for making such a thing any more than I blame someone for having a lock on their front door or an alarm on their car.

Microsoft invests its resources into making products to sell. Theft is theft, plain and simple and of course they want to prevent it. And if they cant prevent it they definitely want to lower the numbers.

>How is this different from Apple encoding music
>files with identifiable purchaser information?

Not a bad question. The answer is that the patent leverages the nature of the data -- that it's a set of executable instructions -- in order to create and protect the watermark. A number of other companies have watermarking technologies applied to data files, but such files do not contain instructions.

>If user's are supposed to enter serial keys, and
>hopefully Microsoft knows who's buying their
>keys, then we know WHO'S the Original Purchaser!
>Even more, this wouldn't stop someone from
>deeming a download 'stolen' and then
>their 'binary code' is used to create a freeload.
>Who exactly can they blame in this given
>situation by implementing a new tracking method?

Another good question.

Microsoft has a good product key architecture, and in many cases they back this up with a "central" validation process. But since Microsoft sells only a small portion of its software directly (and instead relies on sales channels), they have no direct link to the customer, and thus don't know exactly *who* is buying something.

The technology described would ensure that Microsoft's software is protected on the final leg of its journey, from retail vendor to end customer, when the identity of the customer is actually known.

You bring up a good point -- basically, the watermark info had better be tied to something that only the true owner would know (or can be verified as being correct at the time of purchase). I doubt credit-card info will be of much use, given how quickly card companies forgive purchases made with stolen numbers these days (that is, there is no final legal recourse here, the identity binding being too soft).

The other issue is ownership transfer. If I buy Office, and then sell you my copy two years later, it's still watermarked as being mine.

Operationally, the instruction "map" and source application will have to be kept exceptionally secret.

Microsoft can have all this prouct users name and all so precious information is becasue they know it is very safe and hacker proof as much as possible. Now granted it hasnt probably been tested but hey its early

The way I understand it, no personal details will be extractable. A code is created from the details, and then used to switch bytes around. It'd hopefully be impossible to get the user details back from this. (After all, this is what Microsoft is trying to do -- make it harder for hackers to even discover the code, let alone the original data.)

As for patent obviousness, I don't think it is. Sure, people have embedded stuff. The patent is about creating a watermark that's hard to discover completely, and doing it in a certain way. Microsoft didn't patent the concept (which is impossible to patent), just the specific implementation.

>How can Microsoft in good conscience expose
>highly confidential data of 10s of millions of
>users world wide to potential fraud? This would
>be a gold mine of information to fraudsters and
>considerable effort will be expended by these
>shady characters to crack this software.
>Microsoft needs some serious lessons in ethics.
>This a new low in the abuse of corporate power.

Lots of fun being a critic, isn't it?

I wouldn't worry. Encrypting this data would be straightforward, and indeed this approach is mentioned in the article. Since the key does not need to reside with anyone other than someone "checking" a watermark, this would be a very secure solution (if you wish to respond that people will crack the key in days, you need to get crypto knowledge somewhere other than online news).

There's also the option of recording the information in a customer database, and then watermarking the executable with a key into the database itself. Then, even successfully extracting the embedded info would yield nothing of value. Operationally, though, this would be more complicated.

Considering all of Microsofts previous attempts at thwarting piracy, I would highly recommend to BOYCOTT this. Every attempt that Microsoft has made, Product Activation and DRM to name a few has been successfully cracked. Microsoft may have smart people working for them, but there are equally smart and smarter people that don't that would love to pervert this new attempt at thwarting piracy at the cost of us, the consumers. If this is going to be incorporated in all Microsoft products, I'm going to switch to either Apple or straight Linux.

It appears that only software downloaded from the internet would be affected. Therefore you could still buy a hard copy of the software and distribute it without all the personal information. Again it seems that such technology is a headache for honest users and a hinderance to novel software distribution whilst not having any effect on piracy. Nobody would want to purchase software online as there would be no guarantee where your personal information might end up. Scary stuff.

Why would this bother you unless you intended to share your software?

-as stated someone distributing to friends through hard copy channels non online material won't be affected
-Your arrangement will no doubt be based on an algorithm which by it's very nature allows not only the distribution and encryption of data but also it's decryption, and either way what rights do they have to use peoples 'private' information.
Before you say it they must Gather it first possibly without your consent in usage before they can Use it to create an encryption for the software watermark.
Which by it's nature will end up like starforce boycotted with games/software returned due to it's nature.
Thirdly if the software is taken into a country that microsoft can't reach with copy protection and uploaded onto the net it would not be Illegal for the person to distribute it would be up to microsoft to prove that they had accepted the EULA before this occurence in a country subject to it's copyright laws which means once it's unleashed and the user does not need to keep putting it up online they can go back to their country of origin with no repercussion feared as it is no longer going to be them breaching the copyright by downloading it regardless if their details are on it.
As smart as microsoft thinks it is even germany needed half the worlds support or at least compliance to even attempt to take it on and they still failed.
one man even with a billion dollars and a billion cronies still can't win a)on a persons home turf, b)against sniper fire, and lastly c) everyone else in the world.
Wake up to the technologoical age you created and take it like a man bill gates.

I was working for a mobile game software developing firm and developed something similar for tracking the distribution of the game from 3d party retailers to the final ones. There were cases when we were not informed about contracts made by the publishers and this was the best way of tracking, we thought of then. Why haven't I thought of patenting it, I don't know, but I think MS has gone a little too far with this.

Whatever is encrypted can be decrypted! Once someone figures out the encryption scheme (and they will for sure) they can get your personal details out.

With regards to piracy, how can you expect people in countries with per capita income ~2000$ (i.e. 2 grand a year) to dish out 200$ for an OS??

The Microsoft Student Innovation Suite is a step in the right direction and we need more companies to follow suit.

MS

Okay, so basically this technology would be used to be able to find the source of the original copy of a program that has been illegally duplicated. This might enable them to retrace the person who originally bought the software.

Sounds clever to me. It doesn't sound very robust though. If MS can find the non interfering instructions in a program, so can the hackers. Maybe the hackers won't know exactly which pairs of instructions have been swapped, but they could simply swap a certain proportion of the non-interfering pairs of instructions themselves. Sure they won't be able to target exactly the same pairs, so they can't fake the watermark, but doing this has a big probability of actually scrambling the watermark, making the source anonymous again.

What if the original user/purchaser sells his computer. Is the new owner going to be accused of pirating the software on the computer? Will it still show the oringal user/purchaser? Does the new owner of the computer have to pay for the software as if that person had just purchased the software? Would it be like buying a used car but having to pay the manufacturer of the vehicle the original price?

Whatever has been encrypted can be decrypted... if they use two way encryption. If they use one way encryption with a hash of the original information they will create a digital "Signature" based on the original information that doesn't really contain the original information and so can't ever be decrypted, not even by them. What they could do is keep the signature on record and then look up the original information if needed.

The article specifically mentions "Will have to compare a greater number of applications"... In other words they know it's not un-breakable. The whole point is to make breaking it as painful and time consuming as possible.

As for scrambling the signature, yes you can scramble it, but if even 10% of the original key survives they have a chance of finding you. They will extract the key, run checksum's to determine which bit's have probably been tampered with and compare what's left against their database. They might have a thousand matches... So they record all thousand matches and put it aside for later. If the same person tampers with another piece of software under their name then the whole process happens again with a new list of a thousand possible suspects. The lists are then compared and suddenly one suspect shows up twice... Hmmm, now they have evidence. The more times it happens the stronger their evidence becomes. Eventually the evidence is strong enough to convince a court and your internet connection and phone are tapped. More evidence is gathered and eventually you end up in court.

Not sure if this is what they had in mind, but if they are willing to take the long slow view then even a fragment of a signature could eventually lead to an arrest, or worse, a restraining order so you can never again legally use any MS software! (try getting a job with that following you around)

Safe for the good users, dangerous for pirates. Actually this is one of the better things MS has come up with. Is it original? Probably not. But it’s still a good idea. That’s assuming they were smart about how they implemented it and didn’t do something stupid like put the real data in the watermark.

There is no way they would actually embed the personal data in downloaded files - thats just asking for issues. There will be an algorithm on their end that generates a key based on the customer info that they put into their database.
Seems like a solid approach to me.

Are they serious about this. They are crapping on the consumer. I hope this fails and that millions of people get their identity stolen. And what if i want to sell my software? Not that i will be buying it if it comes down to this.

Thats akin to saying Al Gore invented the internet. Bill Gates is a computer programmer who, admitedly, has a sense of vision. But he is who he is based almost entirely on the luck of right place, right time.

Inventing a technological age tho? I think not.

wow! microsoft basically copies software watermarking after spending billions on DRM and all of the sudden everyone seems so impressed... watch what you wish for... The technology is over 12 years old...
5745569 April 1998 Moskowitz et al.
6141753 October 2000 Zhao et al.

The responses to this news item indicate just how dependent we have become on the idea that all purchases involve credit cards. What's to prevent me from walking into a store and paying cash for said software, then sharing via P2P? Surely no one is going to demand I show ID to purchase Microsoft Word, etc.!? Or are they going to stop selling software over the counter?

I can't say exactly where I've seen it, but I do remember reading somewhere that Microsoft is working on eventually becoming the primary retailer for all their software. Think about where Xbox Live and now Windows Live are headed.
Actually, it's kind of funny that Apple works pretty much the same way. Only Windows would be on a grander scale.
I forsee the day when my granddaughter buys her first computer and has to download the operating system from MS before it will finish booting up.
Course, by then, Microsoft will be a branch of the US government anyways. :)

It is another reason to avoid MS and try competing software products.

We are talking about Microslop here aren't we? The 'security' experts? It's just a fact that if there's a way to get around this hurdle, it will be found and used. Why do they even try? It's not like they don't make the majority of their money from dell and hp anyways...