Talk:Product key

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There seems to be either a coatrack or a biased point of view in the following so I am clipping out the suspect material. I'll be removing the discussion concerning Microsoft products.

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Product keys consist of a series of numbers and/or letters. This sequence is typically entered by the user during the installation of computer software, and is then passed to a verification function in the program. This function manipulates the key sequence according to a mathematical algorithm and attempts to match the results to a set of valid solutions. In the case of product keys for Microsoft products, there is no information available anywhere which gives any insights into how these keys actually work. They use alphabetical and numerical characters, with the absence of AEIOULNSZ150 which leaves 24 characters. Those left out appear to be mainly ones likely to be confused with other characters. Having no vowels makes it impossible for a product key to inadvertently spell out words. So, what we seem to have is a 25-digit base-24 number, which is a very large number indeed. Something like 4.15 ^180. That is probably larger than the number of atoms in the universe. But somehow Microsoft has managed to never leak a scrap of information about how this number is used in this context.

/* end clip */ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.103.35.72 (talk) 21:05, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

And how is this "biased"? There's no room for bias on a page like this. Microsoft was only being used as an example, being the most widespread example of product keys. It is remarkable that Microsoft has managed to keep the workings of these keys secret for so long. How is this bias? Finally, you are supposed to use this page to offer your opinion before you go ahead and start ripping out content. Freddy011 (talk) 00:16, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Freddy011, I marked very carefully what I did and why I did it so it could be reversed. I too make mistakes. But it still looks like a coatrack. Might I suggest you break out this material as an example rather than embedding it in the main flow of the article? And watch your vitriol please. We all have to live here. 66.103.35.72 (talk) 16:46, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 February 2022
Add a period at the end of "If this account is banned, the user will lose access to every product associated with the same account" in the Enforcement and penalties section preceding the citation. 207.81.187.41 (talk) 03:00, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ Cannolis (talk) 03:16, 5 February 2022 (UTC)