{"id":300551,"date":"2025-04-10T06:31:11","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T13:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sftarticles.wpenginepowered.com\/en\/?p=300551"},"modified":"2025-07-01T14:54:54","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T21:54:54","slug":"this-was-microsofts-curious-strategy-to-keep-hackers-away-30mb-of-storage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/this-was-microsofts-curious-strategy-to-keep-hackers-away-30mb-of-storage\/","title":{"rendered":"This was Microsoft\u2019s curious strategy to keep hackers away: 30MB of storage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Before the days of broadband internet and gigabyte-sized software,&nbsp;<strong>Microsoft found a surprising way to slow down software piracy<\/strong>\u2014by using an old, forgotten product: Microsoft Bob. During the development of Windows XP, engineers realized that installation CDs still had about&nbsp;<strong>30MB of unused space left after padding<\/strong>. Instead of leaving it empty, they encrypted and filled it with Bob.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Microsoft Bob returned from the dead as digital ballast<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Originally designed to make Windows more friendly<\/strong>, Microsoft Bob featured a cartoon-style interface with a virtual assistant dog named Rover. Despite its good intentions, the project flopped and was discontinued after poor sales and high hardware demands. But years later, Microsoft Bob was reborn\u2014<strong>not as software, but as a tool to fight piracy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A veteran Microsoft engineer explained that they packed the CD with encrypted &#8220;dummy data&#8221;\u2014a blob made from Bob\u2019s floppy disk images. This forced pirates to&nbsp;<strong>download an extra 30MB<\/strong>&nbsp;when copying the installation CD, which at the time was a meaningful deterrent given the popularity of dial-up connections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">An odd layer of protection buried inside Windows XP<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another developer involved in the process described how he encrypted the files using&nbsp;<strong>multiple layers of cryptographic tools and random data<\/strong>, creating what he called a &#8220;Bob blob.&#8221; This blob became a unique identifier for each CD version\u2014OEM or retail\u2014effectively turning a&nbsp;<strong>discontinued product into a security feature<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Microsoft\u2019s unusual decision to use Bob as ballast is a quirky footnote in its history. In the end,&nbsp;<strong>Bob may have been more useful dead than alive<\/strong>, helping the company slow down piracy in the early 2000s in a surprisingly creative way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before the days of broadband internet and gigabyte-sized software,&nbsp;Microsoft found a surprising way to slow down software piracy\u2014by using an old, forgotten product: Microsoft Bob. During the development of Windows XP, engineers realized that installation CDs still had about&nbsp;30MB of unused space left after padding. Instead of leaving it empty, they encrypted and filled it &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/this-was-microsofts-curious-strategy-to-keep-hackers-away-30mb-of-storage\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;This was Microsoft\u2019s curious strategy to keep hackers away: 30MB of storage&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9317,"featured_media":300552,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1015],"tags":[],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-300551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300551"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":307956,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300551\/revisions\/307956"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300551"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=300551"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=300551"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=300551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}