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Imagine for a moment if we lived in a world where other things could get banned. Where at any moment at the discretion of a corporation your device will no longer be as functional as it was when you purchased it. What level of monitoring is necessary to achieve this and is it too intrusive. Should everyone be informed that they are being monitored. Windows genuine advantage checks for guarantees that the user is definitively using a genuine copy of windows. It can be determined whether that copy of windows is genuine. If it fails such a test that person will no longer receive updates from Microsoft. In addition to not receiving updates they will get a notification at start up that warns you that this may be a pirated copy. But what if Microsoft decided instead to disable your hard drive or prevent you from playing movies or music. Perhaps they will corrupt your files. You agreed to the Terms of Agreement when you first installed it. So any subsequent changes thereafter will be the responsibility of the user. They can pretty much do what ever because you the user still want to use it.

Does this sound familiar to you? Yes I am referring to Microsoft’s banning practices for its Xbox360 game console. Fair is fair and playing pirated games on their service is prohibited and subject to violations as per the TOS. However other functionality asides from xbox live services should not be affected. For example many banned users are complaining that the HDD and all save states are corrupted and are no longer retrievable. This includes games that were installed on the hard drive whether they were legitimate or not. Playing games from the HDD was crippled. So the HDD can only be used by formatting it on another console which is not banned.

It can only be assumed that this tactic sounds as though Microsoft is taking this more personally and is angered. Thus taking more extreme measures then the usual force to counter piracy. Hence ensuring that banned customers repurchase the console to get 100% functionality again. Purchases of new consoles will boost hardware sales during this 2009 4th quarter holiday season. Which makes the timing of this all the more planned. With this said in this day and age it is eerie to know that consumers are being monitored so closely and it should be emphasized that anyone who plans on modifying anything and then using that device online should expect to be watched.

Imagine banning Other Things