In professional warez there is a lot of money to make. I'm not talking about the guys that are trading games over the internet or those copying a CD once in a while but I'm talking about the people that copy e.g Windows XP in factories and selling thousands of copies.
According to Microsoft this is not only bad for their profits and the world economy, it also funds terrorism. Because police priorities are mainly on finding drugs and because punishments are lower, pirated software is more attractive to criminals then e.g cocaine.
Ms. Piquette said that software piracy is "less risky than drugs" for Colombian drug cartels, and profits are funneled to terrorist organizations in areas such as Northern Ireland. Moreover, she added, the "criminal penalties are often grossly inadequate" if pirates are caught. |
Ms. Piquette did not specify which of the several violent organizations in Northern Ireland benefited from software piracy.
Microsoft isn't relying solely on police and government agencies to halt piracy. The software giant has developed its own automated system for finding illegal software on-line, she said.
In the past, Microsoft's pirate-hunters would surf the Internet manually looking for people offering illegal copies of software. Automated processes now hunt pirates much more efficiently on-line, accomplishing in 24 hours what took an entire month before, she said.
The article also speaks about an automated system to track down software pirates. With this system Microsoft should be able to track down more pirates on an easier way, with an accurancy of 99.5%
Source: Globetechnology
