Microsoft outlines Argus anti-piracy system

[HEXUS]

It uses Ethereum blockchain technology and a piracy report bounty system.

Read more.

[Saracen999]

So ....

Above, you can see a flow chart of how the Argus system is proposed to work. At the start of the chain, it is important that a unique watermark and/or secret code allows for tracing back to content sources. When a pirated copy is reported by the newly incentivised population, the source becomes the 'accused'. The source can appeal, but if that fails, it becomes 'guilty'.

Hmmm.

First, that reads like guilty until proven innocent. Not a model I'm a fan of.

Secondly, if someone is "deciding" whether an appeal fails or not .... who? A judicial body of some flavour, or someone with an axe to grind, like a rights-holder association? No possible bias in there at all.

And if 'gullty' .... then what?

[ohmaheid]

Microsoft releases software as free to download - Then at a future date declares said software as illegal unless a commercial update is purchased. At the same time users who downloaded said software have become unwitting purveyors of malware, viruses and security flaws, and have no legal recourse. Sound familiar?

[spacein_vader]

Microsoft releases software as free to download - Then at a future date declares said software as illegal unless a commercial update is purchased. At the same time users who downloaded said software have become unwitting purveyors of malware, viruses and security flaws, and have no legal recourse. Sound familiar?

No. Do you have a real world example that I should find familiar?

[Tabbykatze]

Microsoft releases software as free to download - Then at a future date declares said software as illegal unless a commercial update is purchased. At the same time users who downloaded said software have become unwitting purveyors of malware, viruses and security flaws, and have no legal recourse. Sound familiar?

No. Where are you pulling that from..?

[philehidiot]

And if 'gullty' .... then what?

Well, your head is on the blockchain.


EDIT - looking at the "code" reminds me of this:

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

So MS will be sending the Suicide Squad after pirates?? Sounds a bit extreme to get Amanda Walker involved!

[[GSV]Trig]

So MS will be sending the Suicide Squad after pirates?? Sounds a bit extreme to get Amanda Walker involved!

Yeah, if they get really serious then they'll send in Amanda Waller instead..

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Yeah, if they get really serious then they'll send in Amanda Waller instead..

A.R.G.O.S. means business with their extra thick catalogues.

[BobF64]

So .... Hmmm.

First, that reads like guilty until proven innocent. Not a model I'm a fan of.

Secondly, if someone is "deciding" whether an appeal fails or not .... who? A judicial body of some flavour, or someone with an axe to grind, like a rights-holder association? No possible bias in there at all.

And if 'gullty' .... then what?

I assumed the terms were just that, terms, rather than actual legal judgements.

Once something has been evaluated to 'guilty', that would be when its passed on some legal enforcement unit for human review.

But given the past behaviour of some "agents" of rights holders, namely seeding streams to catch people, it doesnt feel like a very trustworthy system, but that said, if all it did was flag the "agents" as the guilty party, it would be quite amusing.

[LSG501]

Throw in the 'forced' requirement of an enabled tpm in windows 11 and you've basically got a way to track back anything they (or another company) like if MS decides to track installs etc (it's not like it's outside the realms of their telemetry tools which can't be turned off)....

[Saracen999]

I assumed the terms were just that, terms, rather than actual legal judgements.

....

Oh, indeed. Hence, I auume, the single quotes. But I suspect it speaks to their mindset, to the rationale they'll use, the model of action.

Did you see Luke, on the WAN Show a little while back where some perceived infraction of an online gaming service rules resulted in an account suspension? When he tried to find out why, what he was supposed to have done, he got told, in very terse terms, "It's being investigated and we will not discuss it." Until it got a publicity deluge on the WAN Show, that is, at which point he got unsuspended pretty smartish.

The mindset of 'guilty' until successful appeal is that it isn't anything remotely resembling a quasi-judicial ethos. It's also one of the reasons I refuse to use Steam. I'm not willing to spend hundreds or thousands of pounds on games only to risk Steam deciding I've committed some infringement and suspending or banning the account, and that is that.

Another analogy, in a totally different line, is parking tickets. The process is pay the ticket, or appeal it, generally to a local authority. If still not happy with it being 'upheld', appeal it to an independent arbitrator. Lsst time I saw statistics, some (Westminster being esecially bad, IIRC) local authorities 'upheld' almost 100% of initial appeals, and then lost more than 70% of those 'upheld' appeals when it got to an independent arbitrator, a genuinely quasi-legal arbitrator. The inference is what that says about the first level appeal, which is that it's not much more than a box-ticking bit of paperwork.

And that is what I meant by not being a fan of the "guilty until proven innocent" model, not that it was actually a legal process. IT's about that ethos, that rationale.