It’s supposed to protect you from predators spying on your computer habits, but a bill Microsoft Corp. helped write for Oklahoma will open your personal information to warrantless searches, according to a computer privacy expert and a state representative.
Called the “Computer Spyware Protection Act,” House Bill 2083 would create fines of up to a million dollars for anyone using viruses or surreptitious computer techniques to break on to someone’s computer without that person’s knowledge and acceptance, according to the bill’s state Senate author, Clark Jolley.
However…
If you click that “accept” button on the routine user’s agreement, the proposed law would allow any company from whom you bought upgradable software the freedom to come onto your computer for “detection or prevention of the unauthorized use of or fraudulent or other illegal activities in connection with a network, service, or computer software, including scanning for and removing computer software prescribed under this act.”
That means that Microsoft (or another company with such software) can erase spyware or viruses. But if you have, say, a pirated copy of Excel — Microsoft (or companies with similar software) can erase it, or anything else they want to erase, and not be held liable for it. Additionally, that phrase “fraudulent or other illegal activities” means they can:
—Let the local district attorney know that you wrote a hot check last month.
—Let the attorney general know that you play online poker.
—Let the tax commission know you bought cartons of cigarettes and didn’t pay the state tax on them.
—Read anything on your hard drive, such as your name, home address, personal identification code, passwords, Social Security number … etc., etc., etc.
Welcome diggsters!
holy cow thats fsked up! Also a blatent breach of the first amendment (which I believe protects american citizens from anybody passing into law anything that breaches a persons privacy). If this happened in england, not only would I refuse to buy anything microsoft related, it would probably incite violence against those people and companies affiliated to the law being passed.
7. The theocracy is fully entrenched in our foreign policy since were pushing land rights for ‘chosen people’ based on fictitious literature. I dont want my rights or viewing habits decided by Jerry Fallwell but I also dont want us to support mindlessly people who base their whole existence on waht Moses, Daffy and other fictional characters said.
so i guess i gotta start deleting porn.
Do like we do in our house have one computer for work and every thing else. the other for internet only so if it craps we do a quick drive rebuild and we are up and running again.
This is what i would like to call “over the top”. How can Microsoft, or ANY major corp, join with ANY state and create a law such as this? People need to stand up for themselves. I’m honestly thinking of a WinXP boycot in OK. This just shows how well our gov’t is looking out for us.
I’ll tell you the only thing stopping me from going to Linux. You can’t play games on Linux or at least not the games I want play. Other than that, I would’ve gone to Linux years ago.
hahaha well macs do have better graphics systems, unfortunately not many games come with them… at least WoW is on mac, i would just have a secondary computer not hooked up to the internet for any single player games like oblivion
I’m moving to Canada…
Why don’t we be as concerned as the price of gas. I suggest we boycott Exxon for one week. Let’s hit them in their pocketbook.
First of all, Gentoo linux by far surpasses any Debian distro.. or any other distro for that matter so don’t waste your tme with Ubuntu. Other than that… I think software companies like M$ should make people want to buy their software… Quite a few people that pirate games will buy them if they believe the developers did a good job. Windows as an operating system has never been worth the insanely outrageous prices that Microsoft tries to sell it for. People buy OSX because it is a good operating system, and Apple usually does a good job keeping things fresh and exciting. And then we have the typical “I dont use linux because I can’t play games” well let me tell you about every game utilizing the unreal and or any of ID’s engines then it runs natively in Linux. On top of that Cedega is a great way to emulate games and I’ve ran games like WC3, Guild Wars, WoW, NFS:MW, and many others. And with linux i’ve never once needed virus and spyware protection which eliminates part of the problem right there.
I too live in Oklahoma and plan on starting a grassroots petition against this bill. Now that this bill has already passed through the house and is on to the state Senate, the person to contact now is Senator Clark Jolley. For those interested, he is the one who is presenting this bill to the Senate, so contact him and tell him you do not approve of this bill, more precisely lines 11-20 on page 9 of the bill. His email address is Jolley@oksenate.gov, his office number is (405) 521-5622. PLEASE HELP IF YOU LIVE IN OKLAHOMA!!!!
I for one am emailing Jolley right now. If you live there and dont like it do something about it! If you dont live there and dont like it do something about it before it happens in your state! i.e. GET OFF YOUR A**
Big government, Big Brother and now Big Gates?
I GUESS i’LL HAVE TO RESORT TO ONLY CATCHING UP WITH MY SISTER AND HER FAMILY (WHO LIVE IN TULSA) BY HAMM-RADIO. WERE STILL MOVING BACKWARDS, STEPPING ALL OVER OUR SACRED BILL OF RIGHTS -IT TURNS MY STOMACHE. I S AY… WHIP IT OUT bill gates, AND WE’LL SEE YOURS FIRST!
nice
I am glad to see that you fought this in OK. However, in Pennsylvania
this thing is moving along smoothly without even so much as a hearing. The media has been silent and legislators aren’t even talking.