Bu-bu-bu-bu-but!
I go back and forth between thinking we pick on Gates too much and thinking we’re not picking on him enough.
A second class-action lawsuit filed in less than a week against Microsoft alleges that a central pillar of the company’s anti-piracy effort — installed automatically on millions of computers — amounts to spyware.
But the attorney behind the first suit, filed on behalf of a Los Angeles man, said the company addressed many of his concerns in a software update it issued last Tuesday.
The second suit, filed Friday on behalf of a group of Washington businesses and individuals, appears to refer to a test version of Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA), a Microsoft program that is designed to check whether a user is running a legitimate copy of the company’s operating system software.
Before it was updated, WGA “phoned home” to Microsoft servers once a day, delivering information about a user’s computer and operating system. This daily communication was not disclosed when WGA was installed and fits the definition of spyware offered by at least two computer security groups, the Washington suit alleges.
This is important information, and Microsoft should have informed users they were collecting it.
You might think that you are picking on Microsoft too much, but hey…since the whole NSA deal, I just give up. Either it is Microsoft phoning home, the NSA sifting through packets in real time, or some security firm selling my information. Owning a computer is becoming a lose lose situation and I, for one, am sick of it. I’d love to talk to people with alternatives. Personally, I am planning for people to jump off this internet band wagon and strap into the good ole BBS days of personal networks.
I’ll join you, Tim.
Microsoft can spy on my computer; no problem. Do I own anything of theirs I didn’t pirate? Let me think… No. Then again, how am I supposed to provide them with free tech support if I don’t have their software?
I figure they owe me a certification or two as well. They need to come up with a grandfather clause.
They’ll never lock it down. Between warez zealots and serious off shore pirating efforts, holes will be found. From what I’ve seen these schemes aggravate legitimate users far more than they prevent piracy. Software sells are too big of target for criminals to pass up. People are cheap also.
“From what I’ve seen these schemes aggravate legitimate users far more than they prevent piracy. ”
While the clueless will ride windows to the bottom of the ocean, those that are smart will go to OSX or Linux.
Recently I turned down M$’s offer to install WGA. Then just last week there were some critical updates requiring my permission. Yup, tucked in among them was the WGA. Again I declined.
Three weeks ago I was having trouble so I restored my computer. With no hardware changes since that restore, I still had to re-register it again. Over an hour on the phone, disconnected twice, speaking with several people with non-understandable accents. Now, only one hard drive changed in over a 1 ½ yrs, address, phone, etc. still the same, a recent re-register, WHY does M$ want to know if my copy is pirated?
Then to top it off, there is a worm masquarading as the WGA. The unwashed won’t know it is not from M$ and even technical people might overlook it because it appears to be a M$ service.
http://tinyurl.com/pq8dy
I just read about the worm in an article in the London Times, and apparently if you Google WGA…there are a whole bunch of *lookalikes* that you can download for the uninformed.
I keep getting a small window that comes up asking me to install the *update* from microsft ….the WGA…..but I only have it pop up at one site I visit maybe 3 times a week, I just hit the cancel button and it goes away, could this be a phony?
I was wondering, how do you know if Microsoft snuck it in during a download? I looked at all my programs and didn’t see it anywhere?
Seems to me that if this thing tried to “Phone Home” there should be some sort of firewall alert. Zone Alarm raises the roof if an application tries to get out without permission. Of course, I would be surprised if the guys from Redmon didn’t have it tricked up to get around firewalls.