Microsoft has filed a complaint at a federal court in Washington accusing a Comcast subscriber of activating various pirated copies of its software. The account was identified by Microsoft's in-house cyberforensics team which logs suspicious "activation patterns." Traditionally, Microsoft isn’t known for going after people who use pirated copies of Windows, but every now and then the company draws a line in the sand. Late last week Microsoft filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against a person, or persons, who activated pirated copies of Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server and Office 10 from a Comcast Internet connection. The software company has a specialized cyberforensics department which analyzes activation logs to detect activation patterns and characteristics which make it likely that certain IP-addresses are engaged in unauthorized copying. “Cyberforensics allows Microsoft to analyze billions of activations of Microsoft software and identify activation patterns and characteristics that make it more likely than not that the IP address associated with the activations is an address through which pirated software is being activated,” the company writes in its complaint. Generally speaking, one person who activates a pirated copy of Windows has little to worry about. Microsoft will log those IP-addresses but has shown little interest in going after casual pirates. However, in this case the company noticed that a lot of suspicious activity was coming from a single Comcast connection. “Microsoft’s cyberforensics have identified several thousand product key activations originating from IP address 173.11.224.197, which is presently assigned to Comcast Cable Communications,” Microsoft writes. https://torrentfreak.com/microsoft-sues-pirating-comcast-subscriber-160229/
to get busted like that....this person most have been doing this for a living selling pirated copies...i assume if u activate over 300 to 500 copies from the same IP address i think that would trigger red flags all the way.....i wounder if that person understand offline activation.
They seem to do this yearly, In 2014 it was 76.245.7.147 (AT&T) and in 2015 it was 74.111.202.30 (Verizon). I don't know what the outcome was. Maybe they're trying each ISP to determine how easy it is to identify pirates.