For a few days I have been running Linux on my machine at work. More because my laptop is gone and I was forced to use different computer. Anyway, Linux is not the way to go, but I wanted to talk about something else. Just because I do not like Linux and this machine can be reinstalled I was thinking about giving Vista a try. Finally sooner or later we all will have to switch to Vista. Because I do not have license to do it I was going to look at some websites to see how can I pirate it so I could test it. Finally I understood that you can try Vista for 30 days and then you need to activate it or it's features will be fading away. So I will go this way, but there is more to that...
What really scared me is that I found a brute force attack on Vista key that works just by trying different keys and trying to contact Microsoft website to activate this key. Previously everyone who was pirating was using argument that pirating is not stealing, because if I copy your software you still can use it (but if I take your car you just do not have it). With this brute force attack the situation changed. If someone uses it it is taking away a registered valid key out of Microsoft database and it is invalidating a key that is still within a Vista box in some shop. So what if I buy a Vista and my key does not work? Somebody just have stolen my Vista. The situation can be even worse, because Vista has some limit of re-activations. So what if I have activated my Vista and some thief will use generated key (same as mine) and reuse my re-activations? How can I prove to Microsoft that I have not given my key away?

Pirating became REAL stealing now.

PS. I do not really agree with Microsoft policy about limits of re-activation or activation at all. I do not agree with them on many things that bound me and force me to pay them again and again. But if I decide to use Vista I volunteer to accept their rules anyway. I could be bound with Linux or MacOSX if I do not like Microsoft policy.