Posted on 08/02/2005 12:29:08 AM PDT by LibWhacker
The next time you visit the Web site of Microsoft Corp. to download some software, be prepared to let the world’s biggest software company have a look inside your computer.
In a determined strike to quell the proliferation of counterfeit software, Microsoft is now requiring that all customers coming to its Web site for upgrades and other downloads submit their computers to an electronic frisking.
If you use one of the estimated 100 million PCs running pirated software, don’t expect your upgrade. For Microsoft, the new policy is a stepped-up effort to combat the loss of billions of dollars’ worth of software sales every year to counterfeiters around the world. But in ramping up efforts to fight piracy, the Redmond, Wash.-based behemoth already finds itself fending off critics over privacy.
“It sets an extremely negative precedent,” Pam Dixon, executive director of World Privacy Forum, a non-profit public-interest research center in San Diego, said of the company’s initiative. “Microsoft is saying, ‘Before I let you do anything at all, you have to open your computer to us.’ I really object to this.”
The company will scan machines for a variety of information, including product keys or software authorization codes, operating-system version and details on the flow of data between the operating system and other hardware, such as printers.
It is access to this information that particularly upsets the privacy advocates. Dixon says the only information Microsoft needs to fight piracy is the product key and the operating-system version, and she says that Microsoft will be able to identify users uniquely based on some of the information the company collects.
“They are grabbing more information than they need to deter piracy,” she said.
If Microsoft deems a PC to be carrying contraband code, it won’t allow a user to download Microsoft programs, with the exception of security patches. But the software company – which says that more than one in five U.S. computers runs a counterfeit version of its Windows product – is not just waving a stick. It is also offering a big carrot.
Microsoft said it will give a free copy of its Windows XP to customers who unknowingly bought a counterfeit version of the operating system and who fill out a piracy report, provide proof of purchase and send Microsoft the counterfeit CDs.
Customers who cannot provide proof of purchase but file a piracy report will receive a substantial discount on a legitimate version of the operating system, said Tim Prime, a product manager in the Windows client group at Microsoft Canada Co., a subsidiary of the U.S. company.
Executives at Microsoft reject any suggestions that the move will antagonize customers with privacy concerns.
“Customers want to know whether retailers have sold them genuine software,” Prime said.
More than 40 million users agreed to have their systems scanned in a 10-month trial that began last September in several countries. The participation rate amounted to 58 percent of all visitors to the pilot Web site, far exceeding Microsoft’s expectations of just 10 percent, Prime said.
Microsoft said no personal data will be collected during the validation process, and information will remain completely anonymous. The company said it commissioned TUV-IT, an independent German security auditor, to test how well its Windows Genuine Advantage program protects customers’ data. The firm concluded that Microsoft does not collect any personal information that would allow it to identify or contact a user.
Seth Schoen, a staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group in San Francisco specializing in technology issues, agreed that Microsoft would not be able to identify customers personally through the program. But the data collected are unique to every customer, just as human fingerprints are unique, and the issue becomes how long the company holds onto the details and whether they could become personally identifying later on, he said.
Technology companies have walked a fine line for years on the issue of collecting information from consumers’ computers. Six years ago, RealNetworks Inc., whose software plays audio and video content on the Internet, released a patch for its RealJukebox program after the public learned the software was relaying personal information about users to the company.
More recently, Google Inc. created a privacy backlash when it said its free e-mail service, Gmail, would include special software that inserts ads into personal e-mails based on their content.
Clearly, Microsoft believes any risk of public-privacy concerns are worth incurring to fight a problem that has turned into an epidemic in some parts of the world.
Microsoft has been fighting counterfeit efforts for years with limited success. It says that 35 percent of the world’s computers run counterfeit software and that piracy cost the global software industry $33.7 billion in 2004.
The reason gamers would dislike SP2 would be related to the firewall, and possibly some security software.
Firewalls slow down network traffic -- not enough for internet browsers to notice, but not having one might give you an edge in a networked game.
All of this from the same country that thought all of its problems were over on 9/10/01.
...stuff happens....
Online games would make sense. However, the games we play would probably not overtax the local net (Age of Empires, Empire Earth, Rise of Nations).
Although his Athlon 1200 gets cranky slow from time-to-time since it's Win98 days.
I should quit talking about this. He's looking over at my boxes and licking his chops.
"No copying of CD's, DVD copy software refuses to load etc."
this work around works for XP, see if it works for that OS
http://brandon.fuller.name/archives/2004/06/10/09.46.44/
Yep. There ya go.
I'll talk with him Sunday, and pass along the fix! Will report back when I know something.
Thanks!
LLS
"details on the flow of data between the operating system and other hardware, such as printers."
Last I checked, Microshaft doesn't run on my PRINTER, so why do they feel the need to find details on it?
"Wait until you see the Draconian security of the new Windows Vista. I have a friend running beta, and it has security verification on every boot-up. No copying of CD's, DVD copy software refuses to load etc."
Thank you for the excellent info and warning about Microsoft Windows Vista.
If enough users switch from Windows to Linux (e.g., Debian or one of the Debian-based distributions), then Linux will have a larger market share, attracting more software developers and companies to support Linux.
I used Win98 at home until I broke down about a year ago and got XP. On Win98, I had been experiencing ever increasing problems, crashes, hangs - and one most irritating, no shutdowns, necessitating a power off, and the half hour scandisk - because I didn't shutdown properly, LOL. I kept updating frequently in hopes to rid the OS of these problems. XP has been working fine on the same HW. My Win98 machine at work does not have problems - company does not permit updates from MS, only through their distribution.
On Win98, I used a winmodem for years, and typically got 56kb connections using Win98. With XP I could not get anything over 28kb. A computer support person at work told me I'd have to go with a modem with an internal DSP to get the speed back up. I did, and managed to get speed up to 48kb. XP definitely is a performance drag over Win98.
No modem can get a connetcion faster than 53k over a standard phone line. Your actual connection is not necessarily what is reported by your dialer, because under some setups, the modem will report the actual connection speed, and under others it will report the rate between the modem and the computer. It depends on the brand and on the initialization string.
Windows tried to make the modem setup automatic, but unbranded internal modems often get get generic initializations that limit them to 28k. Beyond 28k, you have to send a brand specific setup to the modem to make it connect at at the highest possible speed.
Modems that work beyond 28k also have dynamic speeds. They adjust the transmission speed according to the amount of noise on the phone line.
Well, that's what the dialer said - connected at XX kbps, or speed: XX kbps. Now under XP the device manager reports that Conexant Systems SoftV92 Data Fax Modem uses the Microsoft driver. I don't remember whether or not I had a custom driver in Win98. Device manager reports that the Zoom V.92 PCI Voice Faxmodem uses a custom driver from Zoom, but in each list under driver details, I see MS modem.sys, and other common .dlls, and unique .dlls.
Anyone else have experience with a "Winmodem", or one without a DSP on board, under XP?
When I google your modem I get this:
20. Posted Oct 3, 2004, 2:18 PM ET by jd
modem issues (PCI HSF etc..) after SP2 installation
after SP2 installation XP fails to recognize your current modem driver and starts to recognize it as softv90 and installs the necessary driver. connection goes from the usual 52-56k down to 31.2-33 kbps.
I have resolved this issue by doing this:
1. control panel- phone and modem options
2. under modem tab click properties
3. Diagnostics- note the hardware ID value
and write it down
(e.g. PCI\VEN_14F1&DEV_2014&SUBSYS etc...)
4. now go to C:\windows\system32\inf
5. look for mdmcxsf2.inf
!!!IMPORTANT!!!- backup this file before doing anything in case u need to put
it back!!!
6. open with notepad
7. look for the value you noted it step 3
8. delete the line
9. save
10. go to control panel again- phone and modem options- modem- this time click REMOVE- yes
11. then click ADD-(DO NOT put a check mark on the lower field- then click NEXT
12. WINXP will now automatically choose the driver before SOFTV90 or the next closest driver matching ur hardware.
HOPE THIS HELPS to those concerned. good luck!
http://microsoft.weblogsinc.com/entry/3238014134623324/
You might also investigate this link
http://www.radarsync.com/Computer_Drivers/System_Device/CXT_Drivers.html#54205
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