Microsoft Licensing: The Pain It Keeps On Rolling

I continued to set up the Dell machine from the other day. I started out my day at the office where I updated my supervisor on the installation, saying that the laptop couldn't be joined to the Active Directory domain because it was running Windows 7 Home, and apparently that ability is disabled in the home edition. I wasn't sure if he'd care because I thought the user was going to be using it primarily at home anyway.

"Nah," he said. "We have Windows 7 Professional and the licenses, just install that on it."

I sighed, packed up my shiny Windows 7 DVD (64 bit, since for some reason the home version of Windows 7 was 64 bit on that laptop with less than 4 gig of usable RAM...) and headed out to the office where I could work on that system.

I vaguely recall that Windows since Vista has been coming in a form where every version, and there are lots of them, of Windows is included on the install DVD. The different versions that cost you hundreds and hundreds of dollars between the lowliest, crappiest version to the least crippled version are all one in the same; they simply have functionality that is disabled or enabled depending on the license key you feed it.

Neat, eh?

Don't get me wrong with what I'm about to say. I personally hate using software that is crippled artificially. It was one of the reasons I initially moved to Linux; my desktop computer could act as a capable server, while Windows, despite being able to handle a modest workload, was throttled back in what it could handle simply because of a registry setting. Even though I never to my recollection was even maxing out the throttled limits I hated the idea that my system was crippled simply because of me not having more money.

At the same time, I understand and support that it is Microsoft's right to impose limits on their users, as we have to agree to the license in the first place and that license places these (irritatingly arbitrary) limits on the end user. That's why I moved to Linux instead of pirating Windows. It's their product. They dictate what can and can't be done with it.

That said, why is it that Microsoft seems to go out of their way to make a task as simple as installing our volume-licensed, legal copy of Windows 7 Professional over the default Windows 7 Home preinstalled on a Dell laptop?

Here's the thing; for the most part, choice is bad for ease of use. You give users choices, you make them think, you give them the opportunity to screw up. That counts against you in the ease of use department. Weird, isn't it?

Microsoft has outdone itself, going out of their way to make something as simple as licensing into a pain in the arse.

The DVD we have actually has two licenses printed on it. One is KMS and the other is MAK. KMS is their Key Management Service key, and MAK is their Multiple Activation Key. Two really long string of numbers and letters that belong to our business. The difference? The KMS key allows us to have an "in-house" server to handle activations more or less automatically, while the MAK key allows us to input the MAK key individually into systems that then call Microsoft over the Internet to activate. Both the MAK and KMS keys are types of Volume Keys.

Making sense so far?

The Dell laptop with Windows 7 Home apparently has a self-activated key already installed. I popped in the DVD with Windows 7 and told it to run Setup. Setup started chugging along, asking a couple questions, then  it got to the point where it asked if I wanted to upgrade or clean install. I said, upgrade! I already installed an antivirus and our full version of Office (after deleting some crappy trial version of Office that was on the system when we received it for configuration. Setup started looking at the drive and said, "Nope! We can't do that with this version of Windows! You have to run the Windows Anytime Upgrade from the start menu!"

Ah-ha! It does have all the versions of Windows, I just need to plug my key there!

I do a search, since the menu system in today's incarnations of Windows makes it damn near impossible to actually find anything now, for the Windows Anytime Upgrade utility. Run it, it asks for the key. I put in our MAK. It rejects it.

Apparently you need a special Windows Anytime Upgrade key in order to activate that function.

So now I have a licensed, pre-activated Home key, a MAK key, and a KMS key, and none of them do me a damn bit of good because I need a WAU key.

I swear, several times actually, and re-run the setup utility, this time telling it to nuke the C: drive and start over.

This time it worked. I had to spend most of the day reinstalling Windows (Professional, this time), reinstalling Office, reinstalling antivirus, and all the miscellaneous utilities that I had installed but wiped out in the full reinstall.

This wouldn't piss me off so much if I hadn't seen the alternative way to handle licensing. In Linux, there are no real restrictions. You may get a flash of the GPL license, but no key to enter, no restrictions on how you use the operating system (other than what the GPL enforces, which for most users is of no consequence).

On OS X, there are licensing restrictions, but Apple largely takes you at the honor system. Their attitude seems to be, if you put the operating system on hardware that's not ours and it doesn't work, you're screwed, buddy. Apple is largely a hardware company. They make money from their hardware and services. While they have restrictions on what you can and can't do with their software they don't go out of their way to make customers bend backwards while gargling Yankee Doodle Dandy on a unicycle in order to install their software on their hardware.

In the end it feels as if you buy their operating system just by having purchased the Mac. It doesn't bug you for software keys or activation. It just installs. The closest I've had to being locked out from an installer was trying to use a MacBook installer CD to reinstall OS X on an older system whose hard disk had failed. The install CD was keyed to work only with MacBooks, even though it was the version I had on the PowerMac before it died. I think I was still able to reinstall on the new hard disk by booting the Mac to Target Disk Mode and installing from there, as I recall.

No pestering. No nagging. Definitely no typing thirty-digit codes by hand. Maybe Apple just thinks it's not worth pissing off or frustrating customers for the possibility that someone will pirate their software. I had to take my mother-in-law's old G4 notebook in to an Apple store after the operating system became corrupt, and in the end they did a restore from a clean image. The guy at the Genius bar asked what version of OS X was on it.

How would I remember? I haven't looked at that system in probably two years. I can't remember what I wore two days ago, let alone what my mother in law had on her notebook. I guessed 10.4 judging from what I probably had on it when it became her system.

The Genius didn't ask for proof. Didn't hassle us at all. I think he was prepared to install whatever version I said (except Snow Leopard, since that didn't work on G4 Macs). Oh dear, they might lose $30 if I stole a newer version of their operating system! Instead, they made happy customers a priority over losing a drop in the bucket in change.

On the other hand I ended up losing most of a day of work because I needed to install from scratch Windows because I didn't have a particular type of key. Because the keys we paid lots of money for, legitimate keys, wouldn't work to do an in-place upgrade that would have taken ten minutes.

Thanks, Microsoft. One of the largest companies on the planet and you manage to make something as simple as installing your operating system a major hassle for a legitimate customer. Let me wave my "you're number one" sign at you without using my pointer finger. With both hands.

The Merion School Spy-On-Kids-With-Webcam Case

Wow.

Every once in awhile I get hit with a story that leaves me scratching my head and saying to myself, "What the hell were they thinking?"

This particular scratching came from the story pertaining to the Lower Merion School District. The best summary thus far of the events comes from Philly.com. The gist of the story; kid had a school-issued laptop at home, gets called into the office, and the assistant principal confronts the kid with a picture taken by the laptop's built-in web camera showing him with "pills" and accuses the kid of drug activity.

Um...

The school had software called LANRev installed on the laptops for theft control. If a laptop is stolen, then it's "tagged" on a server and the laptop tries to "call home" to record the IP address as well as record snapshots from the web camera and screen activity.

The student's family apparently turned around and filed a lawsuit for invasion of privacy, and from there poo was hitting all sorts of ceiling fans. Students had noticed the webcam light randomly blinking on and off at various times and were told this was a "glitch," that they could ignore it.

Now it's time for all sorts of indignant cries to rise up from the choir...

For example, one parent saying that the computer could have taken pictures of his daughter when she took the computer into the bathroom as she showered. Huh? Isn't that like cooking bacon in the nude? Why would you take a thousand-dollar laptop into a humid, wet room while you were showering? You do know that electronics don't like water, right? (this link gives the example in the transcript of the podcast) My daughter is nearly 18 years old and I wouldn't hesitate to whack her on the back of the head if we spent a thousand dollars on a computer for her and she took it into the bathroom while she showered.

But this does bring up a legitimate concern, namely the ability for someone to get pictures of kids in their rooms in various states of undress. This would then bring the school (or system administrators) into the nasty territory of child pornography.

Hmm...

I'm personally torn on the issue. I've read the excellent writeup by Stryde Hax on his blog here, and I think I understand his viewpoint. Unfortunately it's not really a balanced view on the situation (as is his right to present on his own blog, of course; he I think he has been very understanding of dissenting viewpoints in my opinion and am glad for what he has contributed to the story since most involved seem to prefer throwing out non-constructive or vindictive opinions without any actual content to justify the viewpoint, while Stryde has been very good at articulating his view.)

Here's my take.

People have a right to their property, and to protect said property from theft. If I'm robbed, I am damn well justified in being angry at the violation of my privacy and have a right to be angry at having someone steal my sense of security.

I think I should be allowed to set my computer to do whatever I want. It's mine. If I want it to take pictures and upload them to a server, I should be allowed to do so, as long as there's no intent to violate someone's rights (having my computer take pictures of me during the day or pictures when it's stolen is legit in my book, but having it programmed to take pictures because I'm planting it in a locker room is clearly wrong.)

The school laptop program is giving students school property. This cannot be emphasised enough because people like to conveniently forget that part of the story. The schools is lending property to students. My feeling is that because the laptop isn't mine, and isn't under my control, I'd trust it about as far as I absolutely must and after that it's shut down. The laptop was supposed to be used for schoolwork, not texting friends, browsing the web for porn, or anything else the personal computers are used for, even email that isn't school-related. Anything you do can be recorded and used against you later. I have yet to understand why people can't get that through their heads; just as employers own the computer on your desk at work and can browse your mail and monitor your Internet use, schools have the same rights on their network, and unless it's spelled out otherwise you should reasonably assume those Big Brother rights extend to a laptop you don't own.

I think that a school should be able to do whatever they can for gathering evidence to bust people for stealing expensive property, and taxpayers should support it since this ultimately is funded by the taxpayers. Losing laptops and breaking them and treating them like crap doesn't get them fixed for free. Someone foots the bill, even if the path for the money is convoluted to the point where kids don't understand that Mommy and Daddy may end up having to pay more in taxes because they can't be more responsible with school property.

BUT...

There are caveats to the case. The computers were meant to bridge the digital divide; every kid has a computer with which to do schoolwork under the laptop program, and that meant as they implemented the program that every kid was basically required to use the school laptop to get through their classes. In other words, there wasn't a choice in the matter. They had the laptop, and it was apparently spying on them at times. Again I wouldn't have trusted them for anything not school related; I'd use the laptop for school, and use my own computer for my own personal use. This isn't necessarily an option for kids that don't have computers of their own, and I understand that. But I'm still torn on that as another issue because it seemed that many of the kids that can't afford even a $300 computer manage to afford a cell phone. Priorities. But that's not the topic at hand.

Also, the school denied that the laptops had the ability to take pictures of the kids and spy on them. It's one thing to have the ability, it's another to hide the fact that it can be done. According to the Philly.com story, representatives from the student council asked administrators about this and were basically ignored when they voiced privacy concerns; from the sounds of it the administrators stuck to the story that it was a "glitch" causing the webcam light to come on. Totally unethical.

The Philly story also points out what was possibly the biggest bonehead move on the school's part. The user agreement that the kids and parents had to sign was just the old boilerplate used in past years for using the Internet in the school, nothing new or updated related to using school computers at home. Dude, liability 101...were you all asleep at the wheel here? Where was the tech with half a whit of common sense who stopped to say that maybe you should have special rules in place for kids carrying thousand-dollar equipment around, especially knowing that kids treat school equipment like crap since, "Hey, I didn't pay for it! It's FREE!"

Most parents don't seem to know just how much liability schools have to cover their arses for. When a teacher sees or overhears anything, anything, they have to report it to higher ups or they can be responsible should something happen to said kid. Kid has a bruise around the neck resembling fingers? Kid have unusual cuts on the arms, or marks that look like something was injected with something? Or maybe they heard some passing talk about a kid being coerced into oral sex? These things have to be reported to administrators or authorities.

So if I were there when discussing issues in rolling out these laptops, one of my concerns would be that these things are virtual black boxes for collecting data on kids and that would put technicians into a potentially dangerous situation with knowing "too much." Troubleshooting a computer and running across browsing history involving abortion, drug use, parents raping sons or daughters...sure, chances are slim, but in a litigious society there is little room for "we'll deal with it if it ever comes up" and hope for the best. With the addition of taking pictures of the computers in homes, you can be sure to bet that I'd worry about collateral damage; pot plant in the background? Parent or sibling walking in the background half-nude from the shower? It's a can of worms I'd not want to deal with.

More than that, where are the checks and balances? The article states that the system was only used if requested by administrators at the high school or higher-levels. That isn't good enough. There should have been an iron-clad method for controlling who gets to use this and view the collected evidence, not just within the school but by a third party, such as the local police department. Better yet have the police involved each and every time the system is used.

Side note-the school apparently is saying that the police department did know about it, because the pictures are uploaded to a website where they can view the collected evidence. The retired police chief was quoted as saying he knew nothing about it. Another case of police being...surprise...technology-tarded, nodding their heads when told about what they can do when in fact they had no clue what they were agreeing to? Or is the school lying? Or are the police covering their own behinds?

These seem like common sense cover-your-behind issues that should have been dealt with at the outset of the program.

Of course there are little details that are squeezing out as the story develops. Worse, the details that do leak out are mostly one-sided, as the school plays the stoic "lawyer advises us to say nothing so we're not commenting" game while the kids and parents are shooting off whatever details they want, true or not. For example, there's no full explanation for why the theft-tracking was activated on a laptop that the school knew the particular student had in his possession. There is also a rumor that the kid wasn't using drugs, he was actually eating Mike and Ike's candies, which if it's true is going to be a definite story for the hall of embarrassingly stupid mistakes.

The Philly.com story also has some more background on the details of the kid and his history with (mis)using the equipment. According the news story, his family never paid a required $55 insurance fee before taking the laptop off campus, and the laptop in the question was a loaner unit because he had broken at least two laptops. It then went on to say that the theft tracking features were turned on because the school suspected the student had taken the computer home when he wasn't supposed to, in which case it would be considered "stolen."

...of course, it was just laziness and/or lack of procedure that would lead them to turn on the picture taking features, as the only thing needed to prove the laptop was removed from campus was that it "phoned home" to the school's server after hours from an IP that belonged to a home network.

No doubt the case is going to continue to contort and twist as more details leak out. The federal authorities are now involved to see if there are civil rights that were violated, and congressional representatives are trying to score points by calling for an investigation (really, with all the waste in government, is it necessary to waste time grandstanding on this when there's already a court system being involved?) Everyone is now in spin control mode, doing what they can to cover their own arses and justify missteps.

What is clear is that the school was engaged in unethical behavior. Had I had a hand in the program, I would have encouraged openly telling students that yes, there are systems in place to keep them from being stolen. Students are issued laptops with ID numbers that are registered, and they are responsible if said laptop is broken or disappears while in their care. It has been my experience that kids treat technology as if it's disposable if there's no consequence for destroying it; they need to have encouragement from parents and school alike to take care of the equipment.

I also would have made it perfectly clear with an updated technology policy what is expected from students and parents charged with the care of the laptops. That would include notifying them of the possibility of photos being uploaded remotely as well as what the laptops could be used for. How they could have been so negligent in this is truly mystifying.

But life is 20/20 hindsight and this district will have a black eye for a long, long time. They will be known for many years as a district that deviously spied on kids and because of that they will have a long and hard road to travel in rebuilding what trust they had among students, parents, and probably teachers. They'll also have an interesting time if they are found guilty in the courts and end up paying a large settlement to this kid's family and as a consequence raise taxes on residents in the district...

Private Data From the Government: Ironic Edition

People rarely stop to think about their data. I always found it amusing...working in a repair shop I have more than once run across data that you'd think from the average Joe that had walked in wouldn't be downloading. I've had calls while working with an Internet Service Provider asking how to get an accidental wallpaper image removed before the caller's wife came home (you shouldn't have clicked the "set as wallpaper" while staring at those, sir...). And yet these people don't give a second thought to the data they're exposing when they send their computers off for repair to some stranger.

Turns out than in most bureaucracies the problem still remains, usually due to oversights, overwork, understaffing...but in the end, the problem still remains and there are "incidents".

The part that is sad is that even for people like me who do take time to think about these issues there is plenty of data on me through the government and various businesses (you know those cards you use for discounts at stores? They don't do that out of kindness, boys and girls...your shopping habits are worth big money) and I have no control over what is done with those records.

I just wanted to remind everyone of this after I ran across this story here about American government information being found on a hard disk purchased in Ghana (that's a country, in case you're an American where ignorance is a freedom we tend to like taking full advantage of...HA!). For $40. The data included, among other things, information on government contract information. Awarded because of the ability of the vendor to keep date secure.

The vendor is Northrop Grumman. You may of heard of them. They do a lot with our defense department...one of the big names in the world of toys that make things go boom.

They blame it on a vendor they hired to securely dispose of their hardware. The third party vendor doesn't know how it happened.

Whoopsie.

iChat AV Communication Error

As I mentioned before my wife is on a trip until Sunday. Her schedule finally permitted her an early morning break...seven to eight AM, if that can be considered early...to try to chat and say hello to me and the kids.

We both have access to MacBooks, so naturally we'd use iChat AV to video chat. I use it quite a bit to chat with my mother when she wants to say hello to her grandson before bedtime. If she can use it to video chat with me then that should say something for how easy to use iChat is for a task like that.

But it wouldn't work.

Every freakin' time we tried, it would give some communication error.

Searching online gives a lot of entries from people stretching back YEARS saying it could be because of your router, because of firewall or quicktime settings, yadda yadda blah blah. You know the only reliable fix?

Use Skype.

I like iChat. But how, after all this time, can they not get video chat working properly?? It's one of their big features...you're supposed to be able to video conference people on a snazzy 3D-like display but apparently if you have some minor glitch in the handshaking that establishes the connection you will get a vague "error" that offers to send the information to Apple who in turn will ignore the issue.

I had this happen when chatting with my mother...it errored out, it errored out, then one day it worked. It's been working since. I didn't change my router. I didn't alter anything on her end. It just decided, "Hey, maybe they really want this to work, let's work this time around," and it did.

My wife is 24 hours away by freeway in a supposedly halfway decent hotel (a Comfort Inn, I'm told) but I'm afraid if it's a vague issue with their router or firewall there's not much that can be done to troubleshoot it.

Quite frankly, why can't the connection tunnel between the two machines an do a direct connection?? Why is this so difficult to get working?

I wanted to use iChat because iChat is relatively simple to use. It's a damn shame Apple can't seem to get around this video error that apparently plagues so many users.

But if you're interested in the fix that involved not screwing with your router or bandwidth allocation to Quicktime or any of that other bulls#@ you shouldn't have to play with, use Skype. It's free to use the chat function, it's multiplatform, and most of all, we managed to get a video connection up and running within ten minutes while really ticked off at running into the video error issue for the umpteenth time.

I love the Mac. I love it for home users. I don't hesitate to recommend it for non-gamers out there who just want to get their work done, especially for people who want to edit home movies or just browse the web and read email. But Apple really has a couple issues where I think their programmers suffer from a cranial-rectal inversion, and the inability to voice/video chat reliably from iChat is one of them.