Question

I am writing a paper on the difference between law and ethics in the workplace and need information regarding the next two questions.

How does microsoft challenge piracy? (an issue dealing in law)

How does Microsoft challenge information leaks within the company? (an issue dealing in ethics)

Please recite sources to anwser these questions as I will need the references.

Answer 1

Piracy and license non-compliance have been a major challenge for Microsoft. Microsoft estimates that such actions cost the software industry around $40 billion in lost revenues. In order to combat this menace, it plans to enhance its Windows Genuine advantage test tool to detect PCs which are not licensed. This would be done through an update patch and inform the users up-front that the copy of Windows is not genuine in case it finds any pirated versions. It also plans to tackle the issue through permutation-rearranging a set of items. Identify the crucial and vulnerable pieces of the MSIL and move them away from the easily reverse-engineered MSIL and convert it into a secure virtual machine language, which cannot be easily reverse engineered.

For data and information protection, Microsoft follows the applicable legal process and present a concrete analysis to demonstrate the challenges of mitigating such a threat. Setting up a disciplined engineering practice and team for looking over the entire database and enabling minimal leaks and instant detections in case of any breach. Microsoft does not even provide any government direct and unfettered access to any data. Encryptions are strong enough to prevent this breach and the encryptions keys are to be found with select individuals only.

Sources – Microsoft introduces anti-piracy measures – Tech2, News Analysis; Microsoft Software solution on Piracy and License Non-Compliance by Danielle Marks; Side-Channel Leaks in Web Applications: a Reality Today, a Challenge Tomorrow by Shuo Chen, Rui Wang, XiaoFeng Wang, Kehuan Zhang, IEEE Symposium on Security and Piracy (Oakland)