I have to tell you, as a writer and former magazine editor, I've been
professionally embarrassed by some of the shallow coverage I've seen of
WPA; by how readily many writers have simply parroted the Microsoft line.
It's newspeak. It's doublethink. And some people who should know better
are buying into it.

See, for example,
http://www.wininformant.com/Articles...rticleID=22367 . It says,
in part:

....you might be pleased to hear about some of the changes
Microsoft is announcing. First, regarding the controversial new
Windows Product Activation (WPA) technology, Microsoft told me
that for the vast majority of new PCs [that is, on new system
where XP comes preinstalled], WPA will be tied solely to the
BIOS. This means that users can change every piece of hardware
on their systems--including the motherboard, as long as they
get new motherboards from the same PC maker--without ever
having to activate the product....

"Pleased?" If BIOS-locking sounds like a good thing to you, then you must
have missed the original outcry when XP was first in beta: There was a
ton of (IMHO, justified) negative commentary on BIOS locking, where XP
would be keyed to a particular machine. People were outraged because you
could pay full fare for software, and then be more or less restricted to
using it only on the machine on which it was originally installed.

Of course, when WPA fledged fully, it appeared to be even worse than that-
--a 50-digit/multi-element hash that tracked up to 10 system components,
and that would force "reactivation" with system upgrades. Public reaction
was *extremely* harsh.

So, now Microsoft magnanimously has "softened" WPA so that OEM
installations will "only" be BIOS locked, without tracking all the other
key hardware in the PC. In other words, they went back to the original
idea of BIOS locking on OEM setups.

Some commentators are completely forgetting that BIOS locking was
(correctly) seen as a bad thing just a few month ago. Now, they're
saying, "Good news--- Microsoft has softened WPA on one type of OEM
install! It only tracks the BIOS!"

We're supposed to be "pleased" with this? What, is this national short-
term-memory-loss month or something?

By crude analogy: It's as if a mugger announced he was going to assault you,
but instead of taking your entire wallet, he just takes some cash. Commentators
might opine "You'll be pleased to note that our criminal has 'softened' the
mugging. You'll hardly notice the loss of what he's taking. What a nice mugger!"

Man oh man.

But there's more: Remember in my original column when I suggested that
Microsoft encourage registration with a carrot instead of a stick? (I
suggested they offer a major discount--- something like 50%.) Well, check
this out:

"Another exciting change involves XP home licensing. During the
XP beta, I spoke to Microsoft Product Manager Allen Nieman and
others at the company about the possibility of a home license
that would let users purchase additional copies of XP at a
lower cost so they could install the OS on multiple machines.
Last week, Microsoft confirmed that it will offer Family
License packs to address this need. "We just finalized this
[arrangement the week after we shipped XP to manufacturing],"
Kristian Gyorkos, an XP product manager, told me. "The
packaging isn't yet complete, but we will offer additional
Family Licenses." The licenses will offer an 8 to 12 percent
discount over the usual XP price and will require that users
first purchase at least one retail or OEM copy of XP."

"Exciting?" Let's see: The home versions of XP normally will cost $90-
$190 or so, depending on whether you're getting the upgrade or full
version. So this stellar discount means you can get additional home
licenses at $80-$170 or so, saving you a whole $10-20. Wow. We can all
use our discounts to buy Happy Meals.

You know, on second thought, this discount *is* a great deal--- for
Microsoft: You pay almost full price, and they don't even have to give
you a CD, an instruction book, or anything else, except permission to
install XP on another machine. Almost no cost to them, high cost to us.
Wow, I'm all tingly with "excitement."

In the original InformationWeek article, I also mentioned that WPA would
mainly be a hassle for normal users, and would do almost nothing to stop
hard-core malicious crackers and serious copyright infringers. Well,
that's coming true, as this clip (
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/21434.html ) sent along by reader
"luben" shows:

At the moment there are a couple of versions of the XP RTM
version available in warez [malicious hacker] channels. These
are claimed to have circumvented WPA, and there's no real
reason to doubt this. There's also a leaked Dell OEM version
which is said to install without WPA on Dell machines. In
addition to this, WPA has been extensively documented, and a
while back tecChannel showed how easily it could be fooled.

And reader "arrondee" was one of several readers who described various
experimental hacks and patches used to defeat all or some of WPA:

Disconnect from the internet, install xp, reboot in safe mode,
run regedit, modify

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFTNT\CurrentVer sion\Winlogon
(change Activation Required value to zero)

then

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Cu rrentVersion
(change RegDone value to 1)

So, WPA is already broken, easily circumvented, no barrier at all to
someone who is serious about using an illegal copy of XP, and mainly just
a hassle for legitimate users--- but we should all be "pleased" and
"excited" because it's maybe less of a hassle than the early worst-case
scenarios seemed? Give me a break.

Is it me? Am I seeing bogeymen in the shadows of WPA where none exist? Am
I missing something here?

Please check out the article at
http://www.informationweek.com/853/langa.htm and then let me know if you
think I'm nuts--- or if you think I'm right--- at
http://www.informationweek.com/forum/fredlanga .