Posted on 06/14/2006 6:45:12 PM PDT by Swordmaker
You may have bought and paid for Windows XP. But Microsoft decides whether or not you can use it.
If your XP software is up-to-date and online, it negotiates its validity with Microsoft servers every day. Nothing personal. Just part of Microsoft's Digital Rights Management (DRM) system protecting Redmond's property... checking to see if your Windows software (and heaven only knows what else) is perfectly valid.
Evoking memories of RealNetworks efforts to protect themselves from their loyal customers, innocent Microsoft officials explained to the discoverer, Lauren Weinstein, that this constant DRM enforcer is obviously not a constant DRM enforcer.
Instead, they averred, the feature simply allows Microsoft to disable the validation checker, Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA), if it should ever malfunction. (After the damage wrought on music lovers' computers by Sony-BMG's DRM software, Microsofties apparently thought Windows imbibers might swallow this "we monitor our monitor for your protection" line of reasoning.)
Silly us. Like Weinstein, we figured the daily validation check might allow Microsoft to remotely monitor you or pull the plug on your system, should you ever displease them down the road... perhaps, by refusing to buy a mandated Windows update, or discontinuing a Windows subscription.
Indeed, Microsoft officials admitted that, in the process of validating, they trap the IP address and date/timestamp.
Thus, as Microsoft knows that laptop's geographic location whenever it's online, it's easy to envision Homeland Security shadowing John Q. Public as he meanders across the country with his laptop... or Chinese authorities tracking a political dissident who had the temerity to use the word freedom.
And then, there's Microsoft itself. In addition to adding more details about you to its information reservoir, the company is blatantly letting you know who really controls the computer you bought.
You've been owned.
...since you applied for your SS#.
I don't see a problem with this. It is Microsoft's business decision, and it opens up an opportunity for competition from Linux and Apple to erode Microsoft's dominance in the consumer and small business markets.
You don't own your house or car, either. Thanks for posting this article. The truth is never pretty.
> I don't see a problem with this.
Since MS didn't even minimally explain the risks and ask
for permission to install this code, they are arguably
afoul of several anti-hacking if not cyberterrorism laws.
Consider the outcome if some random web side had done it.
> It is Microsoft's business decision ...
And is one of the reasons why Windows 2000 was the last
MS OS I will ever buy. Even XP was unacceptable. Vista
is beyond the pale.
> ... and it opens up an opportunity for competition from
> Linux and Apple to erode Microsoft's dominance in the
> consumer and small business markets.
Absolutely. We can only thank Mr.Bill for being so stupid
as to pull a Sony-like stunt.
MS seems to be panicked, and focusing on supposed
piracy is not the solution. The truth about copied
software is that if you could prevent the bogus copies
from running, it would not turn any significant number
of those parasitic users into paying users. Most would
either go elsewhere or do without.
DRM just outrages the honest customers, and
raises everyone's support costs.
"Can Microsoft Remotely Kill Your Windows PC? "
Oh come on now! Who has used Microsoft products for more than 10 years and has NOT had a PC get killed?
Before XP, my PCs were like Kenny in South Park.
Microsoft announced their intent to do exactly this years ago.
Microsoft announced their intent to do exactly this years ago.
MS is teh sux0r
WTF, might as well kick it off early.. ;-)
/suse user
//stalking
///stalking
////stalking
/////stalking
;-)
/fark
Mine is...
is...
and doesn't.
No way.
Not unless I tell it to.
Perhaps, but don't hold your breath for Microsoft to hand over that info for free. Homeland Security and the Chinese authorities would have to pay through the nose to get that info. And if they try any nasty tricks to get it without paying, Microsoft will do even nastier tricks to THEIR computer systems. Imagine how fast the US or Chinese government could be made to back down, if Microsoft decided to hold every Windows-operating PC in the country hostage until the government backed down.
This should be considered spyware at best. What they are doing is totally unethical and they need to be called out on it. I'm no expert in laws regarding IT, but I bet what they are doing gets pretty close to being illegal. If it is indeed considered illegal they could be open to one of the biggest class action law suits in history.
fyi
Well, this article is ridiculous anyway.
For instance, when FR bans accounts, what piece of information do you think they capture in order to do so? You think FR doesn't track IP addresses? A lot of commerce web sites track IP addresses also.
The idea that tracking IP addresses is nefarious and underhanded is ludicrous.
LOL! You remembered!
Of course! Those issues are like watching after little kids to aero eroticas...
How is the poor baby, btw? Did it cough up its xp yet? Or did MS put it down? Just curious.
They haven't yet figured out what I am doing. I can access the internet through their site, but not my windows. It's all OK, because everything is backed up to my ext HD. Time for an older version of windows or a new computer.
If you know what you're doing you can remove this check from the registry... so, if this geek is so worry he should already know how to fix it...
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