Microsoft Hunts Down Windows 10 Pirate, Tracks IP Address And Sues Him

Microsoft has been running after the Windows piracy culprits since the last few months. Last week, they filed a case against unidentified users on similar grounds in a Seattle court. The charges imposed on the defendants are of illegal activations of various Microsoft products including the newest Windows 10 OS and Office 2016.

We recently wrote about Google’s fight against piracy which led to the removal of 523,000,000 pirate links in 2016 itself. Now, it’s the turn of Redmond, the Windows Maker. Microsoft has made the fifth addition to their pirate hunt since the month of February this year.

“Microsoft’s cyberforensics have identified over one thousand activations of Microsoft software originating from IP address 69.92.99.109 (‘the IP Address’), which is presently assigned to Cable One, Inc,” – as per the complaint submitted by Microsoft.

The case was filed in a Seattle court last Thursday. Microsoft’s pirate chase campaign involves tracking of IP addresses of people who have activated illegal copies of various Microsoft products like the Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Office 2013, and the recent addition being Windows 10 and Office 2016.

It is interesting to know that the company has been offering their newest Windows 10 OS for free since last July, yet, there has been a rise in the number of pirate installations. The free upgrade offer will end on July 29.

The reason could be presumed that the people who were using pirated copies of earlier Windows versions eventually upgraded to Windows 10 using illegal activation techniques. This is because the free upgrade was only for those users who had purchased copies of Windows 7,8, and 8.1 installed on their systems.

All the unidentified defendants tracked by Microsoft were labeled as John Doe, each of them may have activated more than 1000 Windows copies using stolen product keys or by making changes to the operating system.

In a related filing for the same case, Microsoft requested that the latest be assigned to the same federal judge who is overseeing the four others initiated this year because they “are substantially related.” Altogether, Microsoft has filed 13 anti-piracy lawsuits since November 2014 with the Seattle court.

Windows 10 has been a failure according to Microsoft’s own metric and the company has been slowly sliding off the thrown in the desktop operating system market. Recently, the Windows usage share dropped below 90 percent

for the first time. The loss of revenue caused due activations of illegal windows copies worsens the situation.