5 ms·

I was all set not to believe you, but after I read Eric’s emails, I agree with you. It appears both MS and Eric are overstating their altruism. Emails: https:/

I was all set not to believe you, but after I read Eric’s emails, I agree with you. It appears both MS and Eric are overstating their altruism. Emails: https://blogs.microsoft.com/uploads/prod/sites/5/2018/04/2LUNDGREN6.pdf https://blogs.microsoft.com/uploads/prod/sites/5/2018/04/2LU...

djsumdog 9y ago
Yea .. seems kinda shady. Still, we see shady practices for people in large companies all the time. They've got an entire team of board members and crew to share in the process, so the result is almost always monetary compensation, fines, etc. Maybe we should see more CEOs in jail in a similar manner, when their decisions to commit fraud intentionally causes the loss of savings and homes for so many average working class people? In any case, we're seeing his small shop and his attempt to spin the case. I often feel like I'd never own my own business, because in a lot of cases, you have to make these types of risks and compromises to make it. Just look at the FedEx guy who gambled all his companies money to keep them solvent. Had he failed, he probably would have been prosecuted and jailed, but he made it, so he's praised for taking an insane risk at the cost of everyone he employed.
zeusk 9y ago
I don't see how Microsoft is overstating anything. A) They didn't bring the case, US Customs did. B) As the victim (financially) of the Crime they were approached to state the financial damage to decide on the restitution amount and they chose to pick the lowest price on market and further reduce that amount to depict their actual profitability for selling obsolete software. C) Eric's intentions were clearly not to recycle and reduce waste but to profit from this racket of duping buyers into buying "genuine" recovery discs with Microsoft and Dell logos and tampered activation keys (read the court docket for more details).
- sp332 9y ago
  The price they quoted was for a disc with a valid license. His discs didn't have licenses, so they were worth a few cents apiece.
  - zeusk 9y ago
    > His discs didn't have licenses That is where you're wrong. Read the docket, better yet here is a screenshot from the demonstration that the discs had keys replicated from original Dell recovery discs: https://imgur.com/3eHjPjO https://imgur.com/3eHjPjO Moreover, "so they were worth a few cents apiece." - The value of financial damage (especially in this case) matters only towards deciding the restitution amount. They also have a cut-off, above which the crime is considered to be under federal jurisdiction which wouldn't have mattered in this case since the amount was obviously above the cut-off and the crime was of inter-state nature.
    - justrobert 9y ago
      I haven't had to recover from an OEM vendor install in awhile, but if I remember right there are many situations where the user does not need to input the serial number for activation.
      - zeusk 9y ago
        Windows Vista and up support reading device activation information from the system BIOS. However, in this case you wouldn't see "Contact Dell for Support" on a lenovo laptop as demonstrated during the trial (see screenshot above).
        justrobert 9y ago
        The image gallery doesn't tell us if they were using a dell recovery cd or something else.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
    - gonesilent 9y ago
      Looks like to me the normal error using a none oem disk with an oem key that is baked into bio

djsumdog 9y ago

Yea .. seems kinda shady. Still, we see shady practices for people in large companies all the time. They've got an entire team of board members and crew to share in the process, so the result is almost always monetary compensation, fines, etc. Maybe we should see more CEOs in jail in a similar manner, when their decisions to commit fraud intentionally causes the loss of savings and homes for so many average working class people? In any case, we're seeing his small shop and his attempt to spin the case. I often feel like I'd never own my own business, because in a lot of cases, you have to make these types of risks and compromises to make it. Just look at the FedEx guy who gambled all his companies money to keep them solvent. Had he failed, he probably would have been prosecuted and jailed, but he made it, so he's praised for taking an insane risk at the cost of everyone he employed.

zeusk 9y ago

I don't see how Microsoft is overstating anything. A) They didn't bring the case, US Customs did. B) As the victim (financially) of the Crime they were approached to state the financial damage to decide on the restitution amount and they chose to pick the lowest price on market and further reduce that amount to depict their actual profitability for selling obsolete software. C) Eric's intentions were clearly not to recycle and reduce waste but to profit from this racket of duping buyers into buying "genuine" recovery discs with Microsoft and Dell logos and tampered activation keys (read the court docket for more details).

sp332 9y ago
The price they quoted was for a disc with a valid license. His discs didn't have licenses, so they were worth a few cents apiece.
- zeusk 9y ago
  > His discs didn't have licenses That is where you're wrong. Read the docket, better yet here is a screenshot from the demonstration that the discs had keys replicated from original Dell recovery discs: https://imgur.com/3eHjPjO https://imgur.com/3eHjPjO Moreover, "so they were worth a few cents apiece." - The value of financial damage (especially in this case) matters only towards deciding the restitution amount. They also have a cut-off, above which the crime is considered to be under federal jurisdiction which wouldn't have mattered in this case since the amount was obviously above the cut-off and the crime was of inter-state nature.
  - justrobert 9y ago
    I haven't had to recover from an OEM vendor install in awhile, but if I remember right there are many situations where the user does not need to input the serial number for activation.
    - zeusk 9y ago
      Windows Vista and up support reading device activation information from the system BIOS. However, in this case you wouldn't see "Contact Dell for Support" on a lenovo laptop as demonstrated during the trial (see screenshot above).
      - justrobert 9y ago
        The image gallery doesn't tell us if they were using a dell recovery cd or something else.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - gonesilent 9y ago
    Looks like to me the normal error using a none oem disk with an oem key that is baked into bio