iWarez 829
asv108 writes "It seems that people are finding new uses for their iPod. According to this story in Wired, a Dallas area CompUsa employee caught a teenager transferring a fresh copy of Office for OSX to his iPod from a store demo machine."
Same trick, different decade (Score:5, Interesting)
Glad to see some things haven't changed...
And this is news...? (Score:3, Interesting)
I would think that connecting to Limewire or Hotline would be a heck of a lot easier than trying to get all of the files for OS X off of a computer, though. Sort of like stealing a stick of gum from one store instead of stealing the ingredients for gum from another store.
-Sara
Not Uniqe to iPod (Score:5, Interesting)
Lee
A satisified iPod [apple.com] owner.
I guess that kid hit puberty early... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's interesting to note that the article mentions Disk On Key [diskonkey.com]. A few weeks ago, my friend's place of business had a meeting, and basically the whole premise was that any visitors to the company had to have their keychains checked for such devices, as they were worried about people coming in to visit, and leaving with a copy of a database. I wouldn't be surprised if other companies start adopting a policy of searching for those types of devices either.
Using CUSA, BestBuy, et al as offline storage? (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh that is so true... (Score:3, Interesting)
I do hate that. I have argued with a CompUSA employee who insisted my mother *had* to have a $30 printer cable or her printer "would print on different pages and stuff". I wonder how long CompUSA and Best Buy can last?
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:3, Interesting)
CompUSA here in Dallas has little or no employees..one time I noticed an SBLive box had been opened, and when I peered inside the card was gone. I asked an employee if they had any more in stock...he asked what was wrong with the box in my hand. Upon seeing the missing card, he disappeared to the back with the box, never to be seen again. So I guess they were out.
Alternative transports (Score:5, Interesting)
In my own case last week I was visiting my parents, Dad wanted me to burn a bunch of pictures to a CD for him to send out to relatives. Now, he's got an iMac without a burner and I live 6 hours away in another country. I could have sent them online (we've both broadband) but with the rate caps it would have taken many hours to send the 300-some MB of files and the AppleTalk IP I've got running on my wintel boxes is a bit unreliable for big long slow stuff like that.
The solution? We both have Canon PowerShot cameras (S100 & S110), both with their shipped small CompactFlash cards and both with 3rd party 128MB CF's we've each added. Grabbing his CF's and clearing mine out I was able to load everything onto the CF's though the cameras, bring them home and burn to CDs.
Worked fine, the CDs have been sent out and his CFs are in the mail on the way back to him loaded with some mp3s of radio shows I know he and Mom will enjoy listening to. Now I'm looking at investing in one of those small USB "hard drive" devices for storing my emergency software/system tools on. Easier to carry then a CD, hand it off of the keychain and pull it out whenever I've a need for a PGP key, repair utility or favorite bit of software.
Re:Wasn't Kevin Webb... (Score:3, Interesting)
To legally load Office on a demo machine, CompUSA has to take one of its copies, 'buy it' by filling out an internal use form, take the $400+ hit on their store profits and then load it. The cheap managers don't want to do that and certainly wouldn't have authorized it.
It was much more likely that a savvy employee took a copy out, loaded it, gave it to his friend downstairs that runs the shrinkwrap machine and it was back on the shelf, waiting to be sold in about 4 hours. Mac section has real software and improves mac sales, no harm, no foul, right? Wrong, according to the BSA.
Now if this employee would have actually done something about the 'theft' of already pirated software, their own theft would have come to light and the risk would have been entirely to CompUSA because they *are* big enough to get a BSA raid.
Re:Oh that is so true... (Score:3, Interesting)
Ugh, tell me about it. 3x markup for a SCSI cable, I eventually went online and bought it for $20 instead of the $60 that CompUSA wanted for it.
On the other hand, they are the ONLY store within ~20-30miles of me that have a decent selection of computer cables and such. Not a great selection mind you, but _A_ selection.
(I like in Seattle, I can damn nearly throw bricks at Microsoft, and there isn't a single d*mn friggin computer store around here! SHIT! Sucks big time.)
Hmm, reminds me of when I was younger, at some local computer store (since closed. . . . ) that sold "used" software (open box stuff, at an inflated price mind you) they had this kids center (hey, I said I was younger, around eleven or so).
Well all of the computers had some sort of funked out proprietary interface on them that sucked. It basically was a prettied up interface that led to games on the computer.
Well of course one of the first lessons I had learned on a computer was that the CLI is your friend. So. . .
Reboot. Take notice of startup proccess. (DOS machine).
Reboot, bypass autoexec.bat and config.sys, start exploring HD to find any sort of interesting stuff.
Anyways, suffice to say some employee realized WTF I was doing (to my surprise, most store employees have NO idea what in the world a CLI is, and at many stores the employee's eyes just glaze over when they see a CLI and they just walk right on by.
Since you were modded down for that Reply... (Score:3, Interesting)
In the eyes of law, the intent of that young man was to steal property (office XP) of the owner (CompUSA). And By leaving the store with property he had not paid for (shoplifting and grand theft). I am not even getting into the DMCA, this is common law. If you walk out of a retail establishment with services/property/etc without paying, you are a thief. period.
Now, what would be interesting is if the young man had asked permission to copy OfficeXP on to his iPOD (which you could probably sweet talk a CompUSA employee into letting you do) and then CompUSA would be up shit creek with MS for breaking the A)Liceneces and Retail Distribution agreements and B) the DMCA.
Re:And I Thought... (Score:3, Interesting)
If I stop for more than 30 seconds in a store, I end up having to beat a sales person off with a stick.
I'd much rather they stopped following me around the store trying to sell me stuff, and instead ran the registers so you don't end up standing in line for 20 minutes.
Re:Does that mean? (Score:3, Interesting)
HA! That reminded me of this [utexas.edu] Jonathan Swift letter from 1729. Funny as hell.
Reminds me of the time...... (Score:2, Interesting)
I suppose I can admit this publicly, since the statute of limitations has run out now...
Way back in something like 1983, I worked for a computer store that sold PC compatibles (a "Corona" if anyone remembers those!), and we had gotten some ethernet cards to try out some simple networking. Only problem was that all our machines ran MS-DOS 1.25, and the networking drivers required the new device structure in version 2.0. We ordered the new system, but I didn't want to wait the 2-3 weeks to receive it before playing with the new equipment, so I made a trip to the local IBM store (yes kids, IBM set up entire stores for selling the IBM PC) with a disk. I told the guys in the store that I had an IBM PC, and was having problem with this disk -- could I try it out on their computer? Hmmmm... sure seems to read fine here -- wonder it it will re-format? Wow, that worked too. Can I write to it (...copies some file...). Well, I guess this disk is ok, and I need to figure out what's wrong with my system. Thanks guys, I'll get back to you!
And then I had a floppy with PC-DOS 2.0 on it (which worked fine on our non-IBM machines until the version we bought came in).
Sigh... maybe I'm just old, but I think I'd have a hard time having the audacity of doing the same thing today...
I did with with a MultiMedia Card. (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyhow, I walked into Business Depot, stuck this thing into a Palm, and copied away. There wasn't really anything worthwhile to copy on the demo at the store, I mainly wanted to see if it would read my digital camera images. Point is, MMCs are yet another good strategy for this (but not office, it's too big!)