Slashdot Mirror
Windows Tracks CDs & DVDs You Watch
lcypher writes "The AP is reporting that
there is spyware within Windows Media Player
8(which ships with XP), which records the song
titles and DVD titles that a user listens to or views in WMP8. Microsoft execs claim no marketing use right now, but they won't rule it out. "
This looks like less of a big deal than the article
makes it out to be, but it definitely could be used
for evil.
Turns out they are just tracking all the pron
file names so they can track them down on
kazaa easier.
Those lazy bastards. (:
Hmm...I used to use WMP8..never again. I guess what they say is true
..when someone makes a deal with the devil and winds up with a pitchfork stuck up his ass.
It's not, "This is an outrage!" It's not, "This must be illegal!" It's not, "What can we do about this?!"
It is merely: "Ha ha ha!"
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
time to add :)
whatever.the.hell.mediaplayer.uses 127.0.0.1
in the hosts file, and maybe a quick webpage to return
Mlk and a vacume cleaner
the spam-email from that could be veryyy intresting
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
DVD: "1,000 ways to torture a Billionaire", widescreen format. No region encoding.
...
---
But anyway, fair enough. What I'd like to know is how easy it is to insert my own random data into that playlist before it goes off to Microsoft?
Seems the only way to fight this will be with dis-info
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I'm more concerned about this being used to track down people who watch too many "pirated" videos.. Are they not aligned with the MPAA and the RIAA?
.
I guess I should stop watching pornography now because MS will know and then they will design a program that will have porn it it, and I'll buy it, then I'll be mad because stuff doesnt work and stuff....uh why am i still talking?
"you sonofabitch i didn't know!"
If your IP address is static as opposed to dynamic, Microsoft may possess the ability to compare it to the one used to register Windows XP.
Do you like German cars?
The real problem isn't so much what Microsoft will do with the information. I mean really who cares.
But what other 3rd parties could do with it is really disconcerting. Even assuming MS doesn't sell the information, the information is still being collected and deposited somewhere. Somewhere that maybe a detective or the FBI could trace you down. Or your system administrator, wife or mother-in-lawyer.
Just for innocently checking out that warez movie link...or borrowing a DVD that happened to be ripped..
If you read the article all this "database" is a copy from the CDDB records (or whatever CDDB is called these days) used for caching. You stick a CD in, it generates a checksum and asks CDDB for the artist/track listing and stores it locally, so it doesn't have to ask again later. As far as I'm aware, there isn't any sending of this database.
It appears they extended to DVDs as well as CDs (just a bigger database I suppose).
The article is a bunch of fluff for a functionality we've used for a long time with numerous programs such as XMCD, AudioCatalyst, etc etc. Microsoft adds it to media player and omg, privacy for getting the disc information for you. I'm pretty sure there's a button to turn it off.
(Gracenote is probably using the CD request data anyway for marketting purposes these days).
/// Zoid.
Now Bill will know all the porn i'm watching
All the article says is that Windows Media Player does a CDDB lookup when it plays a CD, and caches the result.
If you look in your home directory on your Linux box, you'll probably find a similar cache.
Someone just noticed that you can reconstruct people's listening habits from their CDDB lookups - no big deal.
Does anyone know of a site where MS' misdeeds (like this one) are summed up all in a nice, neat, and concise way? I'm asking because I tend to voice my dislike for microsoft whenever the topic comes up, and people usually ask me what my basis is. Usually it goes something like: 'What do you mean I should get linux? What's wrong with Microsoft Windows?'
The thing is, I've been not liking Microsoft for so long that I've lost track of all the reasons I don't like......Microsoft. I remember big stuff like fake letters to state AG's, a fake video to support the claim that IE is stuck to the OS, a lawsuit against a charity that gave away computers with Windows on them.........but I know there's tons more. And I know someone out there must have a nice, detailed timeline........right?
Several weeks ago when you bought our webcam, we decided that for non-related marketing purposes that we would randomly start recording data and sending it back to the company. We don't intend to sell these pictures to anyone.
"Can't sleep. Clowns will eat me"
In my opinion Windows Media Player 6.x was the best WM version. After that (WM7, WM8) it got overly bloated (it's pretty!), takes forever to load, and looks like crap.
I admit it, I use windows. I have a couple legit copies of WinME. Every time I use media player (rarely), I have to refuse to upgrade... Which brings me to my real point: I will not upgrade past this point (WinME). WinME is it for me. It may not be great, but it runs what I need it to: lots of different sorts of development stuff (mostly java), CAD and 3D stuff, games, etc. I'm a serious software engineer and when I want to deploy I use either FreeBSD or RedHat Linux. And I always keep those up to date (relatively). But Winblows is stuck for me... and this is just another reason.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
By default Winamp logs "anonymous usage statistics" unless you turn it off during the install.
You can also turn off WMP's unique identifier thing if you're worried about privacy.
Honestly though, set down your tinfoil hats for a second: Why do we really care?
Really?
Maybe it's just me but I honestly don't care if some site logs that I viewed porn from so and so site for so many minutes. Why should I?
I also have very serious doubts that MS would ever sell the information it'd collect from it. The money from that is absolutely tiny and the feedback from the public would be absolutely horrible. What I see instead is a more personalized music service, kind of like Launch.com, where it personalizes and gives you music and movie picks based upon what you watch. Amazon does this too when you're logged in, keeping track of recently viewed items, etc.
dang, so close!!! im glad i dont like the gui in xp which caused me to not use it.
------
[insert funny
Maybe this is MS's attempt at remainng within the DMCA. If they know what you are watching/llistening to, then they can report more accuratly to the DMCA. After, isnt MS Windows just another product that you can pirate movies on ?? Maybe they want to minimise the effect of being sued, if they can say "Hey, lok we are already monitering everyone anyway"
...something that can only be cleansed with fire"...
Consider the facts...WMA spyware....Sonny Bono Copyright act....Internet radio IP payments......
...I could figure it all out too if I could get my foil hat working correctly....but the directions jammed in the laser printer at work yesterday.....time for the therapy mallets!
Perhaps the Supreme Court will save us.
The bulletin I saw on bugtraq said nothing about tracking songs. On top of that, Microsoft disputes the bulletin and issues in it, but the author is blantently ignoring their direct responses to all of his points. this is an extreme exaggeration that seems to be driven by the "fear big old Microosft" camp. It is a feature, not spyware.
Beware, Nugget is watching... See?
once they will know that I do like teeny pop.
its all over!
Non-Deterministic Finite Automata
False:Windows Tracks CDs & DVDs You Watch
True:Windows Media Player 8 Tracks Media played.
And the most important piece of information in the article is: "If you're watching DVDs you don't want your wife to know about, you might not want to give her your password," said David Caulton, Microsoft's lead program manager for Windows Media."
What's the big deal? It's just a local cache. Winamp does the same thing, as well as all the other multimedia programs I've tried, so you don't have to redownload. I'd only get upset if they started using it for marketing purposes--they "wouldn't rule it out"--but, otherwise, big deal.
Ok, but what about all those files I download off alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica?
r ewed.wmv
You know, stuff like:
britney_blows_me.wmv
christina_getting_sc
Will it tell Microsoft that I've been watching them? And how often?
Windows XP: Now with improved logging facilities!
I forgot where i read this recently, but it was known as the 'microsoft media player supercookie exploit'.
There is an option to 'allow sites to uniquely identify your player' that features essentially creates a cookie that persists through reboot and clearing of caches in the system.
Even if this was not intentional, I do expect such things from closed-source software.
--
Tis man's perdition to be safe, when for the truth he ought to die.
The alien anal probe stuck up my butt just BSOD'd...
There is a thin line between genius and insanity. I have erased that line. -- Oscar Levant
Quoth the article: "Microsoft said the program creates the log file so a user does not have to download repeatedly the same track, album or movie information. The company said the ID number was created simply to allow Media Players users to have a personal account on the Web site dealing with the software."
It's just a client side cache. That's all. The windows CD player has done this since at least windows 3.1 (although the user had to enter the track titles by hand.)
"...no information is collected on Microsoft's servers that would be personally identifiable..."
So, in other words, Microsoft (having engineered the world's most widely used operating system) still hasn't figured out how to pinpoint where data transfer is coming from. Because it seems to me, oddly, that if I'm sending someone data through a system they set up that I don't know about... they must know about it, and also must know how to analyze the results of all their data-grabbing. And see where the crap is coming from. And keep track of what I'm listening to.
I don't use Windows Media player, personally. But if it ever came down to the log files, I'm sure MS could say to someone who ripped the software: "Actually, you have an unauthorized copy of windowsXP, how else would you be transmitting data through our security loophole with the same key as those twenty thousand other people?"
Install Winamp and/or some other program that will pre-empt WMP and force it to preserve file associations. I would hope that one of the commericial DVD player programs would do the same thing.
Does Microsoft not learn? Do they not remember the stink over the tracking in Office documents? The stink over the UID with Intel Processors? Why would they think that collecting a list of CDs and DVDs that we've watched/listened to and then transmitting it back to Microsoft is a good idea? I mean seriously the OS has enough problems without having to worry about the damn thing spying on me.
What do we have to do to communicate to companies that we don't want to give them our information, unless we specifically opt-in. How hard is that? I haven't met many people that don't think it's a good idea to do it that way. Privacy is preserved, but you can choose to give away your privacy if they offer you a good enough deal. I always fill out the various opt out policies, but it's scary how often I have to go hunting in legalese to find out exactly where I need to send it.
While obviously spyware is a ripe pain in the ass. It only spies on two formats; DVDs and CDs. So: Who out there running Windows XP actually uses Windows Media Player to view their DVDs? Almost all retail video cards equipped for DVD playback come with DVD software. There are also a few wonderful third party DVD players. And who listens to CDs? I assume everyone out there rips their CDs to MP3, and then listens through winamp or the like. Bah. -Jeepthang
-------------------------------
High-Res Beer Bottle Collection
Logging
Logging occurs when information is sent from the Player to a streaming media server. Logging informs the server of various pieces of information so that services can be improved. The information includes such details as: connection time, Internet protocol (IP) address of the computer that connected to the server, Player version, Player identification (ID) number, date, protocol, and so on. Most information is neither unique, nor traceable to your machine.
My god man! What else do they want to take? Not traceable to my static IP? The Player ID Number? Who the hell are they kidding when they say it isn't unique?
This is a load of horseshit, thats what it is. Microsoft is babbling at the general public with ridiculous lies. I *use* windowsXP because I think it's good software, and I mildly support microsoft in some things, but my lord, this "informative privacy statement" is crap.
Microsoft uses secret IE tools known as "HISTORY", "CACHE" and user's "IP ADDRESS" TO TRACK EVERYTHING YOU SEE ON THE INTERNET.
I bet it gets 500+ comments.
S.
http://www.stepto.com
What MediaPlayer is doing is nothing new -- it's equivalent to nearly every other player out there with CDDB (or equiv) capabilities with client-side caching so you don't have to hit the internet database repeatedly for your collection of tunes. BFD. It's not uploading anything back to anyone.
Of course, mainstream media can spoonfeed the word/concept "log" (eg. history, audit, etc.) easier than it can "cache".
Fortunately, their privacy policies state otherwise:
It doesn't now, but if an investor comes along with a big suitcase of cash, I wonder if their privacy policy would change overnight?
adam
What kind of marketing data are they going to get from "user 3453845 watches the hell out of 'tina3.wmv'"?
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
Somebody, give me one example where:
Technology permitted capture of more information about us, our habits, our preferences, our purchases, any activity; and a company or State passed on that opportunity.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
According to the article, media player is just downloading the title and track listings of cds and dvds and storing them so it can display them whenever you put the same disc in. Winamp has been doing this forever, and so have a billion other media apps. Microsoft may indeed be conspiring to take over the world and subject us all to their evil whims, but this feature doesn't really seem to have much to do with that diabolical plan.
After reading the article, I think I speak for many of us when I say "Bill Gates, you are a son of a bitch!"
"If you're watching DVDs you don't want your wife to know about, you might not want to give her your password," said David Caulton, Microsoft's lead program manager for Windows Media.
Microsoft Exec admitts to "wrestling the one eyed monster" to porno DVDs. Oh wait, Microsoft is the one eyed monster.
I'm thinking Bill Gates is just trying to get a nice fat list of popular DVDs so he can run and download them from DALnet.
<BillGates> Gee fellas, could you please help me download good pornographic films?
<@Antel> lol, get out of here you l0ser
<BillGates> But wait, I'm really desperate here. I gotta OC-48 and a 12TB IBM RAID storage tower.
*** Antel sets mode +b BGates@microsoft.com
*** BillGates was kicked from #pr0n by Antel (get lost you geek!)
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
As part of downloading the information about songs and movies from the Web site, the program also transmits an identifier number unique to each user on the computer. That creates the possibility that user habits could be tracked and sold for marketing purposes.
The same company that assigns you a unique number for the downloads you make also has the database you were required to register with in order to activate your WindowsXP. Manipulated properly it would be a rather simple task to match a real name and address with what you watch on media player - especially if this 'unique number' and the registration number for XP were one and the same.
And note that Microsoft hasn't ruled out using the data for marketing purposes. Imagine the look on your spouse's face when you suddenly start getting free trial issues of Spanking Teen Cheerleaders! . Or the look on your face when the FBI comes crashing through the door because an 'anonymous tip' from a 'reputable source' claims that you were watching illegal porn videos.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
More, dammit! Alcohol only fills the hole for a day or so.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
Sure, they aren't selling it now - you need at least a year of good hard data that can be proven useful before the companies will start shelling out millions to have what is, in a way, a perfect Neilson-rating type system, only everybody using WinXP is a participant, many of whom I'm imagining would be unwilling.
It wouldnt' be so bad if it weren't user-specific and identifiable.
All I can say is thank god I bought a Mac.
______________________________
Sorry for another rant about /.
Who cares? I don't use Windows. I don't care. I used to have a partition so my kid could play games, but I figured fuck it, he can play outside.
Windows blows. Anyone who has done a couple complete installs of Windows can install Linux. Anyone who can read a book can get around Linux. I don't care about people who think Linux is hard. Fuck 'em.
I don't want to destroy Windows or anything, just who the fuck cares? Windows is an evil corporation, Windows has fundamental problems with their security. Windows doesn't play fair. I don't give a flip about any of these topics. I'm interested in News that Matters. None of these topics are going to change the minds of people who like Windows or Linux. Windows users get what they deserve. Fuck 'em.
Goddamit I'm going to another site. No, screw that, I'm going to bed. And all you dickheads who feel the need to reply to this or mod it can fuck yourselves as well. Fuck 'em all.
Phew. I feel better.
Quite frankly, if I wrote a media player, I would include a robust database that recorded play history. I would actually make the database a big feature...you could browse through it, run stats, and delete it if you please.
The deal is, Microsoft puts all of this crap on our 100GB hard drives that we can never figure out what it does. They also never give you decent controls over the inner workings of the machines. It's sad to think that Microsoft might be storing information that could come up in a lawsuit against me. The real kicker is that they haven't provided a decent way for me to view this information.
It's not so much that I worry about what microsoft might do with the information (the only possible thing that I can think of that MS could do would be to provide "services" to people by spamming us with ads). This article bothers me because MS has no reason to do this. I'm a mac user, iTunes accesses CDDB and stores the info on my computer. why did microsoft see it "critical" to make it part of WMP to store the info on MS's servers. it serves no purpose
Just curious. This issue's new to me and I'm curious what the privacy advocates are worried about.
I'm a little concerned that MS might detect that I ripped a DVD so I could use a particular clip as reference footage for an animation I'm working on, perhaps use the DMCA to fine me for it. Other than that I don't really care if they know what I'm watching or not.
Is there a larger problem I should be aware of? Could somebody explain to me what MS or anybody else could do with data about what movies I watch, or what websites I visit, or whether I'm attracted to either T or A that would be bad?
"Derp de derp."
Here i am on
If you guys have been missing out on this
It's gotten ridiculous -- WinAmp is bloated spyware, RealPlayer is the same (plus it's a fscking virus that changes all your settings, sticks its shortcuts everywhere, and inserts itself into your Systray).
And when I use the Sony Media Bar software that came with my Vaio, to try to listen to a CD while browsing the web and performing another task (graphics or HTML editing, for example), the damn thing crashes!
The machine has a perfectly good DVD-ROM drive. If I could just run a headphone jack directly out of it, and play CDs with no stupid software layer involved, I'd be happy. But I can't.
So now, sadly, I have to listen to music on a portable CD player sitting on my desk. My perfectly usable computer has been handicapped by its software.
The worst part is, that when I see what's coming down the pipe -- region-coded everything, RIAA/MPAA copy "protection" lockdowns destroying fair use, the death of webcasting, even more media mega-mergers, and spyware in EVERYTHING -- I know that it's going to get a lot worse.
If yes, then every time you stick in a disk, the server can log the query that identifies what disks you're listening to. If there's also identifying info sent (a cookie or XP registration code, or even just your IP address that the FBI or Church of Scientology could later use to identify you through your ISP), that's pretty invasive. Even if your IP address is dynamic, your ISP may be able to identify you given the timestamp from the log, by keeping records of what addresses were assigned to who when.
Sometimes we must quit and say "ok assimilate me." It seems as if we as a whole are in a constant fear of "BIG BROTHER," as if most of us have anything that this world or government would care to find out. Want to read my email? Go for it (mostly spam anyway), want to put a camera on my street to watch me pull in everyday of my boring life? Go for it! I already know that this comment is not going to be well appreciated, specially in this forum, however I want you to see that what I am just trying to say is that we cannot live a life of fear. If you are really afraid of "BIG BROTHER" though I suggest you stop watching tv, 'cause, yes, they know what you are watching. Do my a favor, think of something right now that the government would love to know about you. Anything? If you do have something, you are one kool dude (except if it is something like hacker or anarchist files you downloaded for IRC or something), if you don't, welcome to the club. If microsoft wants to know what movies I am watching on mediaplayer they can have it, however I truly do feel sorry for them, cause I would think that the superpower of the computer world would have something better to do with their time. All that to say, Assimilate me, please!
Drain your swampy armpits, wash off your rancid body odor and fix the bug dammit!! But please - for Gods sake, TAKE A SHOWER!
This troll was reposted from the Troll Library without permission of the original author. If you object to this post, or if you wish to add your troll to the Troll Library, please reply to this message.
its a good thing there has been no real reason to upgrade media player since 6.4 other than skins and visualisations. but then, who uses media player to play their mp3s anyways...?
The big question is, will Microsoft respond in the same way and back down?
Got Wisdom?
>WinAmp is bloated spyware
Huh? I'm a faithful winamp user -- have been since it was shareware. When you install, they clearly give you an option to "submit anonymous usage statistics", which you can very easily uncheck.
If you want the term 'spyware' to mean anything, try using it when warranted.
Sam
Now Ms is gonna know all I do is watch pr0n dvd's and listen to britney.. sheesh
But not in and of itself. The thing that is bugging me about windows is that there seems to be more and more spilled about spyware/spyware-type things in XP. Possible universal backdoors for encryption, for example. Nothing bad has ever come of any of it, but what bothers me is that as consumers we're getting used to hearing about this kind of shit regularly, and this is the stuff that Microsoft is willing to admit! I mean, lets be frank, if M$ wanted to lie about something evil in there, they'd more than willing. The question on my mind is can we trust Microsoft(or for that matter any proprietary operating system manufacturer)to not spy on us? There are a lot of people out there, Government/Marketing/et. al, who would be thrilled to get a piece of some secret evil.
What next, a list of documents that I have worked on?
http://www.computerbytesman.com/privacy/supercooki e.htm
The unique ID in Windows Media Player can apparently be turned off, which might make it harder for MS to track you (but the log file is still there).
C'mon, you know Bill Gates made another $50 million dollars during the most recent time you sat your fat ass down to chat with your loser friends on IRC.
that there are way too many windows users on this so-called linux advocacy site
I find this very troubling considering how much power the DMCA has (currently).
what if the RIAA forces microsoft to hand over these logs?(so they can track piracey)
I perceive a lot of thorny issues here where the regular citizan gets hurt to protect the corprate interest!
(and whats up with you-just-can't-make-this-stuff-up dept.?)
OK, yes WMP from version 7 onwards is a nasty beast.
;).
This article is mostly scare tactics, as ever since the beginning of time there's been a file named CDPLAYER.INI in the windows folder that stores CDDB info. A local cache should actually enhance your privacy as it will reduce calls to central servers when you play your CDs or whatever.
WMP 7+ however doesn't use this file. If you look in your Windows folder again, you'll notice a couple of files named WMSysPrx.prx and another one named similarly that actually stores the song database. That's how the 'media library' feature works, it's all stored in there -- you would expect a program that catalogues songs to store a list of media played somewhere, wouldn't you?
It's true WMP does track how many times you play a song. But discovering the fact isn't aexactly a journalistic coup, it's listed in the program itself. Look in the 'Media Library', this is listed along with all the rest of the ID3 information (at least in WMP 7)... not exactly a huge secret. I have never heard of MS sending this info off to its site before... that sounds a lot like how Real got into trouble a few years back, and also a lot like a very inventive and paranoid reporter. If you're worried, delete those files mentioned above every so often.
The unique ID is more interesting. I really recommend turning this off in your WMP options, as it's only really useful if you're buying proprietry WMA files online... and somehow I don't think many slashdotters will be doing that
The worst part is that it opens up the recently discovered SuperCookie exploit in which websites can embed a player in a page and get it's ID number. Since it's globablly unique and installed on most computers, it's a great way of tracking users who are savvy enough to turn off cookies.
So nuke the ID feature quickly from your player options... even if you use *AMP to play your sounds, you could still be vulnerable to this.
<!-- DHTML / JavaScript menu, popup tooltip, Ajax scripts -->
The bloated thing I can understand. I've been running 3.0 for a while and besides the crashing it's just calling for a complete GUI overhaul. They have way to much stuff all trying to function in the same GUI that can barely handle what they have already implimented. It's sad.
Tim Smith - Ramblings from Nerd Land
Lightwave isn't available on Linux. Until it does, I'm a Windows user. Lightwave is what my living is based on.
"Derp de derp."
Ok, I don't think I was clear enough in my first post. Let me re-state. Lets say, hypothetically, that my computer sent back data about every movie I watch, every TV show I watch, and every little thing I do on the web to MS. What could they do with it?
"Derp de derp."
As a bonus,it tells me if my connection to VA is bad while my connection to CA is OK. The playlist comes from Paradise, CA, while the mp3 feed is from VA (shoutcast). Go figger.
db
Cig:
ôô
Ok, clicked on Help->Privacy Statement and was taken to this page: Privacy Statement
Seems kind of self explanatory... again this is the same with any software... if you don't like using it, then don't... i really couldn't care if microsoft is keeping track of what music I listen to or dvds... if in the end all it means is i get information on something i might like (like amazon does) then... i suppose thats ok. I think I'd only have a problem with it, if they used it for evil purposes... which I'm failing to see. Now if they somehows used this to help the RIAA, then i'd be pissed because thats none of their business as an Operating System provider. (IMHO of course)
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
Hmm... I got an idea! Lets all get Windows XP, download Morpheus, and download the shit out of Futurama, and then watch it! I bet when MS gets wind of so many people watching Futurama, they'll buy FOX and make them continue the show!! Spyware beats the pants off of Neilson ratings.
Whatcha think, sirs?
"Derp de derp."
May I make a few small suggestions?
from the article:
"This is essentially a case where it (the ID) doesn't serve any purpose and it isn't used," [Microsoft's] Caulton said.
Which begs the obvious question of why put it in there in the first place.
The end of the article takes an interesting twist:
In a recent memo, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates ordered his company to check for privacy and security concerns before adding new features.
"Users should be in control of how their data is used," Gates wrote. "Policies for information use should be clear to the user. Users should be in control of when and if they receive information to make best use of their time."
[...]
He said the feature seems to conflict with Gates' directive.
"You can really see the Microsoft culture coming through that Gates wants to change. These guys are digging in their heels," he said.
Bill Gates is not a stupid person. Let us suppose for a few moments that he really has seen the writing on the wall and is sincere about this new direction for the company.
Gates bred this culture that he is now trying to change. And the paradigm shift for his company is much sharper philosophically than the previous one of desktop- to network-centric computing.
And then there is the very real argument that Microsoft's proprietary, closed-source code policy is antithetical, or at the very least sub-prime for dealing with privacy and security concerns.
What's an ersatz-visionary computer mogul to do?
evanchik.net
What if Windows started keeping track of the websites you visited? That could DEFINITELY be used for evil.
Just when I got it working under Wine...
WinAmp is bloated spyware
Preferences > Setup > uncheck "Allow Winamp to report basic, anonymous program usage information." Does the whining cry-baby have more questions to ask
"If you're watching DVDs you don't want your wife to know about, you might not want to give her your password," said David Caulton, Microsoft's lead program manager for Windows Media.
That'll go over well:
Wife: "Honey, what's your Windows password?"
Hubby: "I'm... ummm, not telling you. It's, er, a secret."
Wife: "I'm sorry, I thought you said 'it's a secret' ?"
"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana." - Marx
It's gotten ridiculous -- WinAmp is bloated spyware, RealPlayer is the same (plus it's a fscking virus that changes all your settings, sticks its shortcuts everywhere, and inserts itself into your Systray).
:^)
Why not try iTunes?
--Rick
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
they do it to us an hourly basis. anyways he was right. The unique id part is troubling.
replied to this on another message board. I'm going to repeat here what I said there, for the main reason that I referenced this place in the original...
*****
Stuff and nonsense. The conclusion you have drawn is wrong; and the article is a typical example of the mainstream press cottoning on years too late and blowing something out of proportion.
WMP is doing nothing more than a CDDB lookup, which is then stored locally. THERE ARE COUNTLESS PROGRAMS WHICH DO THIS; any good audio program or CD ripper does the same.
WMP8 adds a DVD lookup to this, presumably for the purpose of adding a DVD entry to a playlist. I haven't heard of any program which does this before, but it's no more intrusive than the above CDDB lookup.
The information is never sent to Microsoft after it has been collected. The article somehow leaps to this conclusion from the statement that the data is stored locally.
The Washington Post is not the place to go for IT information. Nor are its conclusions to be immediately taken and used as propaganda. While MS are a not-nice company in general, this (10-year-late) online tabloid rant can hardly be taken as an example of their wrongdoings.
This is the kind of thing which tends to get the Linux rabble-rousers on Slashdot worked up, until someone points out the facts of the case. Oh well, false alarm.
*****
Turns out I'm a prophet, it seems.
Do carry on; I so love long debates about non-events and factual inaccuracies here.
- Chris
FACT:
Microsoft has this patent:
System and methods for selecting music on the basis of subjective content.
OPINION:
I bet they'd love to get their hands on these logs/cache/whatever... if what people choose to listen to doesn't count as subjective, I dunno what does!
Draw your own conclusions. I am merely presenting facts and opinions.
Seriously, why not write a program that transmits fake spyware data (say 1000 random titles per day) to MS, Real and ohers just to fill to death their databases?
If they're making a profit out of this dirty practice, well, let's make it cost much more to them!
Anyone did this before?
they could sell that to advertisers. thats the least scary alternative. They could use it to control you. Notice how some IP laws have been getting a bit draconian. But in order to use civil law to control every persons normal activity, you will need a cheap way to get proof. And there you have it. And the third, most dangerous thing is that they could use it to blackmail you. That seems ridiculous right now, but keep in mind that they will have this information always and forever. What looks ridiculous now may seem normal after 20 years. And all the information will still be around. Eventually many Microsoft clients will really mind if there is information about them downloading porn out there.
It said that windows media sent out an id unique for each user as well.
That is what the above poster is talking about.
It's clear from the design of all of Windows XP, not just WMP8, that Microsoft does not want you to have privacy. For example, consider how many holes Windows XP expects you to punch in your firewall.
This anti-privacy attitude is similar to that of the U.S. government. U.S. government agencies are the biggest, most well-funded surveillance organizations in the history of the world. For support for that statement see What should be the Response to Violence?
At the bottom of the anti-privacy attitude is a feeling of superiority. Below that is an inability to make successful connections with other people. It's a kind of mild mental illness that has the characteristic that those who have it find it difficult to realize that they have it.
Bush's education improvements were
if they can identify my listening habits through CDDB lookups. My listening habits are not Microsoft's business. I don't use CDDB and am not entirely thrilled about sending queries to the FreeDB server (or whatever the free CDDB is called). I'd rather download the whole database (or buy it on CD-ROM) and do all my queries locally.
> The machine has a perfectly good DVD-ROM drive.
Unfortunatly this just looks like a money making machine to big industry. They will always club together to extract as much cash from you as possible, this is how they can afford all those expensive lunches and cars...... it's simply greed.
> The worst part is, that when I see what's coming down the pipe -- region-coded everything, RIAA/MPAA copy "protection" lockdowns destroying fair use, the death of webcasting, even more media mega-mergers, and spyware in EVERYTHING -- I know that it's going to get a lot worse.
All I can say is "use the source luke", and don't purchase media content if you are not happy with the conditions. If enough people stopped bying DVD (for example) because they didn't like region control, the Studios would feel it in their pockets and would relax the situation.
Go see music live (and if you're technical, convince the band of the benefits of publishing their own music online).
Simon.
It's like a kind word from your mother, a day of uninterrupted pleasure, a gentle hand that helps you when you stumble.
It's like a cool breeze on a warm day, a friend that knows how to set you at ease, a bank error in your favor.
It's a cheaply available replacement for all that you need, but it's a poor substitute and is exposed every morning.
Look into it next time you take a body.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
For a bunch of technical details about read this posting on Bugtraq.
"WMP extracted movie information from this file and then added this information to a database file, named wmplibrary_v_0_12.db, which is located on my hard disk in the directory " C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Media Index". I didn't see any method of removing movie information from this file, so it appears to me that the file keeps a complete record of all movies watched that have ever been watched on my computer."
I belive there is anti spy patch for windows XP.
I just prefer not to run it. Im perfectly happy with RedHat7.2 and Win2k. both pretty solid and lack spy ware, well win 2k for the most part but i only have meida player 7.(something... 1?).
even in 2k i dont have audio CDs play with media player i just rip them with music match then upload them to my mp3player/storage machine. and well 7.1 doesnt play dvds anyways....
XP=Spyware all together.. they know your hardware they know your music they know your movies. they may even know your shoe size and if you ware boxers or briefs, and for you laids they may know your bra size.
"computers are devices used to pirate media" and "Microsoft being as large and ubiquitous as it is, it's being thought of as the poster boy for computers", Microsoft has little choice but to play nice with media companies and the DCMA. They'd be an easy target if they didn't, unlike Linux (too fragmented in the sense there's no single legal entity you can blame for "pirating"). Also, don't forget Apple has put some rather nasty DCMA-friendly measures into their crippled DVD burners as well ...
News and bla for computer musicians: http://lomechanik.net/
How can this be legal? Anyone know if it is?
This trojan behaviour from Microsoft is not completely unexpected... but i'd like somebody to explain why the heck Morpheus and all the other Kazaa clients keep a permanent database of all downloads, stored in the Morpheus\Db folder as two little files - data1024.dbb and data256.dbb - since the super-nodes only need a list of CURRENT files, these files are unnecessary. Indeed, deleting them has no adverse effect whatsoever. They are simply created anew (minus old-ass data, of course).
.. or maybe kids, who want to blackmail their siblings/parents.
If you doubt me, simply open up data1024.dbb with a text editor and peek-a-booty at records of ALL your deleted pr0n files, recorded for posterity from last year.
Explanations, anybody?? Surely this wouldn't be of use to anybody but parents
Consider these: 1. MS incorporates caching in Explorer - result - easy way to steal user preferences, cookies etc. 2. MS incorpoarates "My Documents" in Word - result - easy to track what everyone's doing. 3. MS tracks DVDs and CDs - this actually shows the levels they could stoop if they ran short of ideas. Any number of exploits exist, which can get the contents of specific files on a Windows m/c. All MS has got to do is to float a 'security' co. and gather all this stuff. This has set me thinking - why did MS write that CD-creating software? So they record what I record? OK enuff of whining.. here's my suggestion: MS must be forced to make all apps independent of the OS. That way if users think caching their preferences is a security risk, they can choose better options. Cheers KRS
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
When a CD is played, the player downloads the disc name and titles for each song from a Web site licensed by Microsoft. That information is stored on a small file on each computer in the latest version of the software.
This sounds to me very much like some sort of CDDB cache. XMMS has done this since the first line of code was written.
You fell for that ploy a bit too easily. Your proposal is just what Billy G wants to happen, and you are now his willing pawn! More WinXP = even greater M$ control, which leads to even greater M$ leverage in the marketplace, and the resultant domino effect will (again) cripple the industry when M$ is revealed as the twin corporation of AOL/Time-Warner, and possibly the Beast. There's likely an obscure reference to the event somewhere in Revelations...
I personally dislike v7.x and v8.x. I still like 6.4 as a simple player. I avoid v7.x and v8.x as much as I can.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Logging
:)
Logging occurs when information is sent from the Player to a streaming media server. Logging informs the server of various pieces of information so that services can be improved. The information includes such details as: connection time, Internet protocol (IP) address of the computer that connected to the server, Player version, Player identification (ID) number, date, protocol, and so on. Most information is neither unique, nor traceable to your machine.
Sooooo, isnt most of this info logged when you visit any webpage? All except unique wmp id, which i dont see as a threat because there are literally millions of copies of wmp out there, is MS or anyone going to go to the trouble of hunting down 1 single person? Stop maoning people
What total a**holes. Next time someone tells you they work for Microsoft, ask them incredulously why they haven't quit yet!
Everyone knows that just as with mathematics, you can do anything in software. The point is, only the mentally damaged and egomaniacal build this kind of bloated, smirking, F***ED by Redmond again supercookie loggers into the monopoly operating system.
CALL TO ARMS!
I'm sure I'm one of the few, but I don't think it's bad at all.
/. article, I got scared. I use mediaplayer to keep track of my CD's. I also rip my CD's into wma format using mediaplayer (I'm sure atleast half the people on /. hates me now). I use it because it's convinient, and I think the GUI is nice.
When I first saw the
However, after reading the article in the Washington Post, I don't think it's bad at all. I expected that the album and songnames downloaded to my computer would be stored in a file somewhere. Kinda hard to apply the names to the songs without storing them somewhere. I think this is another one of those Microsoft bashing stories. I mean, come on, if Microsoft says they are not using the information for marketing purposes, then I believe them.
I have used linux, I know how program in Assembly and I still spend most of my time in a DOS box. I'm not a "new GUI user", but I don't think that Microsoft are bad and evil. I like some of their products, and I use the ones I like. Mediaplayer happens to be one of them.
I've had this argument concerning Moodlogic's mp3-profiling software too. Some people seem to think that the idea that some company with a database is at the other end means that they are going to be hit by a ton of targeted spam.
There are several reasons why this shouldn't be a problem.
1. These look-up schemes have no actual way of getting info back to you. Sure, they can probably take your IP address, but unless one thinks that WMP is going to go snitching to find your email address somewhere in Windows, then the risk of having targeted email is minimal.
2. Taking the above into account, one supposes that the information can be used to build up a statistical analysis of what people are listening to. Get this - you've already bought the CD, so the record shop knows it's sold a copy. Or six copies this week. Or whatever. You're already a statistic.
3. The theory that this is being done to build up a 'profile' on users based on their lookups. This is absurd. Even though Windows Media Player 8 comes with a feature which allows remote sites to uniquely tag every instance of the WMP software (which, by the way, can be easily disabled in the options menus), there is no reason for a profile to be kept if it can't be linked to a solid persona, real name and address, other than to draw correlations between the different music on different people's profiles.
In the case of this big scary DVD tracking thing, it can be safely assumed that Hollywood executives are already aware that 60% of Titanic owners also own Pearl Harbour, etc.
This all assumes that the database end of these lookups actually cares to keep logs. Of course to dismiss this requires a tiny bit of faith in humanity.
- Chris
You can also turn off WMP's unique identifier thing if you're worried about privacy.
So just out curiosity, I fired up NetMon and WiMP 7 and stuffed a few audio CDs into my drive. Sure enough, when WiMP made the HTTP request, a little GUID was attached.
Now comes the fun part... per the instructions in Microsoft's Privacy Statement, I went into the Options and unchecked the "Allow internet sites to uniquely identify your player" option. Then I stuffed another CD in and, guess what, the same GUID was still sent up.
Apparently there's been a little miscommunication between Microsoft's programmers and the authors of the Privacy Statement.
"It's an integral part of the operating system."
At least, according to Microsoft.
From: Microsoft Legal Department
To: Valued Customer
Subject: Windows Media Player Usage Report
Hello,
we have noticed you have played back pirated episodes
of Star Trek Enterprise downloaded from the net.
This is a violation of federal law.
We charge you $10,000 for this information; if we do not receive this amount of money, your registration information (as well as the information you used to register on any websites, as tracked by Internet Explorer) will be forwarded to the MPAA.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Okay, coupla items here:
1. Microsoft has a history of collecting data without telling you, remember Win95's "don't send data" option on the first online registration thingy?
2. I don't know why people think that this is _not bad_ because they're _not hiding_ it.
3. What with all the hackers lying around here doing nothing, why isn't somebody fixing this? Or WinAmp? Or ???
4. Why doesn't somebody tell me how to get rid of WMP 7 in ME? You can't get rid of the damned thing and install 6.4 over it. 6.4 sucked, 7 is Terminally Brain Dead.
5. Where's the Competition? Preferably one that can use the same codecs, or even better, download the new codecs from Microsoft. :)
Linux=OpenSource=Freedom
The problem is, that when requesting the information from that web site your Media Player may actually give out your unique user id (does it? can that be turned off? I don't know). Farther down the article a MS spokesperson says, that they don't use the ID in the process (which might either mean they throw it away serverside for now, or that this version of Mediaplayer doesn't send it), but may do so "on behalf of the users" in the future. Then the MS droid spins of into praising Bill Gates standing up for user privacy. I must say that some actions of Microsoft don't fit that privacy philosophy (for example like outfitting mediaplayer with a unique id at all).
--
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
M$ creates a program that keeps logs! Stop the presses!! Doesn't just about every program on a unix system keep logs? ;-)
interesting +5
anyone captured where exactly it is sending this data (ie: whatever.microsoft.com) along with these other "spyware" cddb apps (winamp etc), so some of us may block them on our firewalls/hosts files
Touche. :)
"Derp de derp."
Before I read the list of responses, I thought I knew more or less what spyware is.
I thought it was something that delivered information about me without my permission.
Much as my fingers burn typing anything kindly towards Microsoft (I still haven't used up all the anger from corrupted PowerPoint files working on a past job), I don't see that here.
This stuff seems to be potential, not actual, spyware, although Microsoft's reaction would give me the heebie-jeebies if I used the stuff.
True, the software generates information that could be very interesting to some people and that would royally piss me off if it were being sent out to anybody.
But that's true of damned near everything I do or use on my computer (Linux, not Windows).
The sending's the thing, not the collecting. As at least one poster points out, the cache actually improves your privacy by reducing the number of times you go to the original database.
So long as the info stays on your machine, it ain't spyware.
Check back tomorrow, though.
http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/windowsmedia/soft ware/V8/privacy.asp
IANAL but in the UK here we have the data protection act, which could be used to find out what information Micro$oft stores or any of our UK slashdotters
Under the DPA there are constraints on what personal information can be stored about a uk resident person.
You can ask for a copy of any information stored AND any information how any judgements made about you because of using or transmitting that data.....
Perhaps there is a US equivilent ?
If you steal my data and your a commercial company its called "tracking" and thats ok morally and legally.
If i steal a commercial companies data its called theft and iam deemed a thief and morally and legally wrong.
Funny how things work out for some
Personaly I don't care about it that much, but Its easy to see how sombody sniffing your packets might find something embarassing. Over zealous investigator do have a way of making mountains out of mole hills, I guess they take it personal when thay waist days of time investigating stupid trivial things that don't amount to much.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
I hope there is a group out there that is keeping track of all of Microsoft's evils.
Everyday, there is something else. This is becoming rediculously annoying. We need to have all these grievances monitored and readily presented in the event of a judicial proceeding.
Are the Consumer Rights' people listening?
WinAmp is bloated spyware
FreeAMP It's GPL, its availble for Windows & Linux, and it's music managment system (My Music) simply rocks.
These iptables rules (implemented on the gateway to the internet) stop the accesses the media player (version 7.x) makes on my system. Could someone check if they catch all accesses from Media Player 8 also?:
iptables -A FORWARD -p tcp -d codecs.microsoft.com -j REJECT --reject-with tcp-reset
iptables -A FORWARD -p tcp -d activex.microsoft.com -j REJECT --reject-with tcp-reset
Someone at Fox news reads their EULA's!!!!
Well, v3 *is* a beta... I'd expect some crashes. Also, remember that v3 is also completely skinnable, not like the older versions were. Go download some of the more useful new skins and see how you like it then. I think that once the stability is taken care of it'll be real nice to use.
-Steve
Jeez. They really want the whole world to know how much they want to be in control. And give everyone a reason to distrust them. Thrustworthy Computing My *ss.
TCMA
Try Sonique
Aren't I correct in remembering that the new XP license gives Microsoft the right to inspect your computer over the Internet?
Put that with this and...GADS!
They'll fidn out all I watch on WMP is internet porno. Which is an interesting metric. Until now, Redmond's stayed out of the pr0nline gig, and I feel the industry has been waiting for a true killer app for a while.
The time is now for Open Source porno to combat this future menace!
Hey freaks: now you're ju
I'll agree with the bloat - I have a fair amount of bug issues, too - especially when using non-mp3 file formats like vqf and ogg.
Microsoft has a "Windows Media Feature Wish List".. at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/wish /wish.asp. Wouldn't it be great if they got flooded with requests for a "don't spy on me and invade my privacy" feature?
xmms
region-coded everything, RIAA/MPAA copy "protection" lockdowns destroying fair use, the death of webcasting, even more media mega-mergers, and spyware in EVERYTHING
Sounds a lot like the Dark Ages will soon be reborn. The actors are different, but the roles are the same.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Another fine example of "Trustworthy Computing"...
Unique ID's, Logs of activity, hmm... Suuuuuuure I trust you...
How could anyone effectively use the information if it was not able to be sent or fetched? The statement that they have not ruled out marketing should hint that it is accessable, or will be. Another chip off the rock of personal privacy in the name of big business marketing.
You have 2 choices. Blow it off, and say nah they wouldn't do that, or wait 6 months until it is discovered that it (and more) actually IS able to be read by or sent to others without unchecking 32 boxes in a certain order on 12 configuration tabs while reciting the EULA backwards.
Once again, /. over-reacts.
Cookies are for associating HTTP requests, which are stateless by nature, to create the notion of a "session". For the purpose of getting DVD and CD data from their handy-dandy server, I see no need to create a session any more than there is a need for doubleclick.com to send a cookie when my browser GETs a banner ad.
Note that Mr. Caulton from Microsoft said they "are not" using the information they collect for "marketing purposes," etc. He did not say they "can not," or even that they "would not." He simply said they would change their privacy policy. Well, they can change their privacy policy again if they want to, and they can start using this uneeded cookie for anything they want.
I'll say it again, if they didn't want or need to associate multiple separate HTTP requests with a single user, then they don't need a cookie. If they really don't want to track, then they should stop sending a cookie.
-hans
maybe M$ is just trying to compile thier own database whitout have to do the work?
http://Lenny.com
IT GOES TO THE CDDB OR ITS EQUIVALENT! And it downloads track information! And then it stores it so you don't have to waste bandwidth to look for it over and over again.
The sky is falling, the sky is falling. Why the fuck don't you guys go and recompile a kernel or something instead of wasting my time with this !news.
Brant
Argle. Bargle.
I don't get it. When a consumer did something wrong, the company start sueing the consumer. But when a company did something wrong, the company just change their license/privacy statements.
What if the next outlook virus grabbed the database and emailed it to all your friends and business associates with your email address attached? Plus since it would include your unique media player id, it could easily be proven which computer the list came from.
Just something to think about.
Microsoft brought us Windows XP. I bought a Mac.
Some good info here that shouldn't be missed!
The scary thing is that according to the article, it wasn't clear to the users that this information was being stored *and* that information was being sent out.
It kinda makes you wonder what else is being stored and sent back and forth accross the internet by Microsoft. Clearly this isn't the first time suspicious things like this have been attributed to Microsoft or others. It's as if MS is doing all these little "innocent" things to see if they can not get caught. So then they can unleash something much more sisinster. (Or am I just being too Paraniod?)
--- Nothing To See Here ---
Could you defeat this whole scheme by putting an entry in your hosts file to direct windowsmedia.com to 127.0.0.1? Wouldn't that prevent WMP from ever sending that data?
True, it'd disable the site and cddb ability alltogether, but is that so bad?
3 words for you: Get a mac. Really. You stick a cd in, you play the damn thing with Apple's iTunes and it works. No spyware, no crappy playback, best of all Apple makes the OS, iTunes, and it all works good. Don't want iTunes? Don't like the CD info sent out? Don't use iTunes. Apple's OS has built in super simple CD-player that allows you simply play any track, start stop, pause all from the control strip... don't even need to open a program. In fact the track listing is in numbers (gasp!) so you know nothing is being sent. This is about as simple as it gets.
I just found out this morning that IE 6 on Windows 2000 keeps a record of all the web sites I've visited! Microsoft doesn't tell anybody about this, but you can see if for yourself if you click that mysterious button on the toolbar that looks kind of like a sundial. There it is, a list of all the sites you've visited, sorted by domain and by date!
The worst part is, Microsoft doesn't deny that they could use this information for marketing!
The only way these customer-hostile corporations will get the message is if we vote with our wallets. Don't use IE! Use only browsers that don't maintain this so-called "History" log! Power to the people!
</sarcasm>
By now, everyone knows that this behavior inside WMP is just CDDB lookup caching. Every CD player I've ever seen has done the same thing. For that matter, so does every program that caches anything, from your web browser to your email program to... well, anything.
You can all stand down from red alert now. Cancel the march on Washington.
Ahem.
After the furor many years ago about how video rental stores should not disclose their customer's renting profiles (I forget, was it a Supreme Court nominee renting pr0n?), I would think that some similar restrictions would be in order for what WMP discloses to third parties.
I mean, if I actually rented those titles through WMP and Microsoft you might say there would be some excuse for their knowing what I've rented.
But if I bought or rented those titles elsewhere, why is it any of their business to know that information any more than it is the business of, say, The Weekly World News' to know what I've played?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Microsoft tracks what CD's we listen to.
The music companys won't allow us to play CD's on our computers.
Can't watch DVD's unless you are on a licensed Windows/Mac OS and Windows will track that too. All of this leads me to believe that an old fashioned DVD/CD player connected to my TV isn't such a bad idea...
Truer words have never been spoken.
These laws basically give full right to companies to embed technology which spies on our habits and daily lives... and if we find out about them... we're the loosers.
Citizens need to do three things to help fight these laws and practices:
- Reverse engineer everything - and talk about what you discover - what we don't know CAN hurt us
- Refuse to give out personal information... everywhere... even at the store. If your asked for your street address at checkout - tell them "sure... give me $10"... companies have to get the idea that they do not get our personal habits for free, simply because we selected their product over others.
- Stop using Microsoft products. Since Microsoft is hell bent on taking over as many industries as possible... and since they show no regard for our privacy... things like CRITICAL UPDATE and XP have got to go away. If you use Microsoft... stop using critical update (since you have little idea exactly what they're updating)... and for heavens sake... don't use PASSPORT or XP - as those are full of spyware capabilities... better yet... use a Mac or SUN or other system where it is at least a bit more open and visible (but don't stop being careful).
We *can* make changes when companies perceive that their products are not popular due to security and privacy concerns.When you install WMP 7, it shows you a privacy statement describing what information they use and how they use it. It's not a surprise to anyone that they can track your usage. That's the reason I always keep WMP 6.4, and I don't use ME/XP.
/.ers never complain about the fact that Google tracks you the same way...
If this surprises you, you haven't been paying attention...
Of course, the
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Of course, this is all because I showed her the new Imac ;-)
But for me, it's Linux all the way. My fiance likes Linux too, but it just doesn't have all the software she wants/needs.
If I can just find a few more Linux apps that'll work for her, I may get us both a Linux laptop.
For me, I'm completely done with windows, I will never buy another copy again.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
The sort-of "local CDDB cache" part of the article is not as troubling to me as is MS's response.
Arrrghh! Does EVERYONE who speaks publicly for Microsoft have to be a callous prick??!!!
Arrrghh! Why is it always AFTER someone calls public attention to the issue?! Can't they do privacy and security in the open? Shouldn't the fscking privacy statement reflect REALITY?!
Gates = Nixon?!
sigh. Sorry, had to vent.
"Because I love Pat Benatar." -- Britney Spears, when asked why she covered Joan Jett's "I Love Rock 'n' Roll"
1. Read the privacy statement, then set up a packet sniffer.
2. You CAN and always have been able to disable this.
3. Leave the conspiracy theories to the Lone Gunmen.
Don't believe what you're reading here- 90% of it is totally false.
How to disable this feature:
The file, wmplibrary_v_0_12.db, contains in cleartext the name of every movie you've ever watched with media player. The names are in cleartext but each byte is spaced out with a pad byte, so you can't just grep for the names you're looking for.
If you delete the file, WMP regenerates it on use.
But, if you create the file as a zero-byte file, WMP does not fix it and does not store any information about what WMP is playing, ripping, burning, etc.
Tested Today, 2/21/02, with Windows 2000 and WMP 7.1. Oh, they didn't mention it's not just XP? It's not just XP.
--
You're Reading Managed Agreement
Gasp! Those links are to software that's not endorsed by a Giant Corporation, and allow you to play any music you could possibly want to! How can you even consider giving Consumers that kind of choice? Its evil, I tell you, pure evil!
For those moderators lacking a sense of humor: The above is satire, and intended to be funny. Moderate accordingly
Media Player will be used to extort money from users, media companies and advertisers. Microsoft wants to be the asshole in the middle and wants to use that position to make money. They have created their own media formats to break at will, a method to do it, and put it all in their EULA. What more can you ask for? Do you really think that they won't sell your information? Oh, I suppose you forgot how they sold "real estate" on your desktop.
The only way for them to keep themselves in that position is to eliminate every other option. If you continue to use M$, your internet will have three channels and you will never be able to contribute. Your money goes to those who would enslave you.
Let's see, M$ can write files to my computer that I can't delete and can access my computer in ways that I can not. They must be root, and I am not.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
No, I would not. I expect programs to do what I ask them to when I ask them to. I'd expect a program that catalogues songs to store the songs I asked it to and present them to me in an organized way later. This "service" does nothing like that for me. What it does is store a list of all the songs I ever played so that M$ can read it, per their new EULA that alows them to spy on every thing I do, I mean alows them to prevent me from pirating music. Right. The new XP identity keeper that uses hardware installed and other checks to protect the OS from unauthorized modifications and use should make sure you act good. They don't need cookies or anything else.
By the M$ EULA they can write files, you can not. You are no longer root user of any M$ box.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
You and at least one more poster are dead on.
What pisses me off isn't so much that MS is tracking this stuff, it's that they're tracking it without telling us or asking us.
When were they going to share this?
"Oh--we're sorry--you're right: we have been tracking user patterns without notifying them. We'll change that right now."
Well that's nice. I'm glad they've decided to amend their privacy policy to REFLECT THE TRUTH. That makes it just fine now.
Fuck MS. I'm tired of their crap. I used to think that they were just an illegal monopoly that was too lazy or too incompetent to deal with privacy and security. Now I realize they just don't give a damn about the consumer and will do whatever possible to fuck us and other corporations.
No wonder MS gets so paranoid about open source and public notification of security flaws. MS is abusing the public, and they don't want to lose the ability to do so.
Forget it. This is going way beyond irresponsibility into deliberateness. That's different. I'm starting to feel that no matter how much MS secures their products against hackers or other corporations, it won't matter if they've left it deliberately insecure against themselves.
Newsflash: It's just been discovered that Microsoft has been working with the CIA to track your every move on the web! Last week, l33t hackers in Germany discovered that Internet Explorer has a covert feature, which they have codenamed "Browser History". They found that by clicking on a little button on the browser, Internet Explorer *KNEW* where you'd been browsing! Surely it must have been storing some kind of list of the sites you've been visiting, and therefore it's clear that it's a consipracy against *YOU*. The FBI and CIA both know everything -- your only option is to throw your computer into the sea and leave the country.
Josh Woodward
If enough people stopped bying DVD (for example) because they didn't like region control, the Studios would feel it in their pockets and would relax the situation.
More likely they'll just move to the newest media format with ultra-strict DRM sooner than originally planned.
Typical... Haven't read the link. But if MS has misrepresented its treatment of private information, then it is against the new Privacy Act in Australia. Those living in Australia will have noticed the incredible number of companies going over the top in telling you how your information is handled, in an effort not to fall on the wrong side of the law. Perhaps the attorney general is required to prosecute this case?
I can't beleive users of windows actually tolerate this stuff. If any record of the DVD's I watch is being kept anywhere, thats crazy. I watch porn DVD's regularly... lets say the bush administration outlaws anal porn... the fact that my DVD logfile could be used against me in a court of law is ludicrous. Let's say the FBI comes to your house and confiscates your computer... in addition to the mp3's you stole (copyright violation) they could portray you as a pervert in any court. Look, it may sound ludicrous but stranger things have happened. Basically, the government could undermine your credibility without trying very hard, and that makes you a dead duck.
No matter how bad it is... media player 8 is ugly and bloated. start->run "mplayer2" brings up version 6.4, which is much faster, simpler, and aesthetically pleasing.
"the Studios would feel it in their pockets and would relax the situation."
No, they would claim they are loosing dollars to piracy to get more laws passed to suite their desires, implement a tax, get bailout money from the government(you) as severance for their pain and suffering.
I just found out that my cellular carrier LOGS EACH AND EVERY CALL I HAVE **EVER** MADE and makes it AVAILABLE on something called a BILL!
C'mon guys, even our beloved XMMS does the same thing with its local CDDB database.
Be that as it may, I'm running an OpenBSD firewall, so I can "block out quick" such things.
Just my $0.02 and it's worth what you paid for it.
Speaking of Winamp, is there a way to get it to show the filenames in the playlist?
So much for privacy, since they just modified the policy. How long until they give up on security too?
'SBEMAIL!' is better than a goat!!
The reason your entire viewing habits are available to MS is because every time you insert a DVD, WMP8 contacts an MS website with your GUID and the DVD's TOC. This is in addition to keeping a log of DVD's on your computer. The ostensible purpose for the request is to get the DVD's "title and chapter information."
t m
This begs the question: what is a DVD's "title and chapter information," anyway?
What possible purpose does having it serve?
We all know that CD player programs call up CDDB because there's no track and album titles handy on the disc. That's fine and good: perfectly legitimate use of network callback. Note: there's no need at all for any personally identifying information (GUID, cookie, or whatever) in that transaction... but that's not my main point.
Unlike a CD, a DVD has every piece of information you already need included, along with a custom interface, etc etc. And in all the coverage I've seen of this issue, no one seems to be catching on to the fact that, as far as anyone can tell:
DVDs are not CDs. There is no justifiable need for any user to have a DVD's "title and chapter" info at all, let alone for them to give a unique identifier to MS while requesting it.
So why go to all the trouble of building a scalable web application to service a non-feature?
Sure, MS is rich, but I guess conservatively that this functionality was a low six figure outlay to start, and it creates a neverending and not inconsiderable ongoing support cost to maintain a database and a server farm. It has to be big: they're servicing every XP/WMP8 user in the world, after all.
On a final note, let's consider the infamous Windows GUID. It's generated from a variety of sources: your PIII Processor Serial Number, if available, your ethernet MAC address, and I believe several other pieces of optional identifiable hardware are potentially tapped.
Microsoft is the same company that silently attached GUID's to every Word document you produce, by the way.
GUIDs don't contain your name or email themselves, but wait...
http://www.computerbytesman.com/privacy/wmp8dvd.h
"However, if a person signs up for the Windows Media newsletter, their email address will be associated with their WindowsMedia.com cookie."
It gets better.
"Also when subscribing to the Windows Media newsletter, I was encouraged by an email message from the Microsoft newsletter department to create a Passport account based on my email address. In theory, yet more personal information from Passport could be matched with what DVD movies I have watched."
If you are curious, the other shoe dropping will sound like this:
MS "Passport" registration (which is required for customer support) also collects GUIDs directly.
-David
We're on the road to Tycho.
Preferences>Plugins>Input>Nullsoft MPEG Audio Decoder ...>Configure>[Title Tab]
uncheck the "Use ID3v1/v2 tags" checkbox if you only want the filenames, or leave it checked and change the "%1 - %2" to something containing "%7"
And every time tracking is brought up re the TIVO device we get hundreds of "I like the fact that they're tracking me" posts completely apologising for a Linux based product that is easily if not more evil than WMP, Real or Winamp. This type of two faced philosophy reduces this site to almost 100% noise.
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
...and I love how the orig. poster lays down a plan for the average windows user to go pawing through their system folders looking for odd file extensions and deleteing the file...Like that's gonna happen...They claim that windows is easy to use...I guess that's true until you try to protect your privacy. Then it's prowling the system folders and deleting goofey files...and if the average joe screws up doing that...ka-boom....
I want to be alone with the sandwich
...he..hehehe...hehe
I want to be alone with the sandwich
Windows: This is where you will go today, and this is what you will listen to on the way there.
FreeBSD for the impatient.
I hate when free software expects something in return. Why isn't there an open source ... err ... crappy freeware product that plays DVDs and MP3s without doing this?
I use /. as my homepage Though I'm a "satisfied" Winblows user, /.'ers are a spiffy lot to say the least! :o) KUDOS to ya!
Hate to tell ya', but WMPlayer has logged EVERY file you've watched/listened to since at least v6.0.
Microsoft didn't change the user agreement until _after_ The Associated Press started asking questions. What that says to me is that there could be a lot more of this going on. This isn't simply CDDB server log files, they are storing this information on your computer. Microsoft is going out of its way to keep information about your media preferences and habits (but don't worry, they won't use that information for anything). This isn't just a simple log file folks, when AP asked how users could disable the functionality Microsoft said that clearing the log file will disable Media Player and making the log file unusable (change permissions?) would disable streaming media. Where is Microsoft's answer to this? What else are they tracking about us? This is just another reason the Window's source code should be released to the States.
http://www.askthevoid.com
marketing use?
so now my MSN messenger client at work will be popping-up porn ads every 30 seconds?
repeated spam emails to my hotmail account to buy the video "when kitties attack!"?
free trial issue of 'teen beat' magazine, and my wife starts asking questions about that britney spears mpeg? it was only ONE TIME! you were out of town! i swear!
god help us if they ever release a sequel to Zero-Wing - the Micro$oft spam machine will bring the internet to it's knees!
-mKb
www.pixelectric.com
The last media player that microsoft did that was a "real" mediaplayer was 6.4... since then (7.0+) it's BLOATED, SLOW, the skin system truely feels like molasse, and heck, even in my PDA I installed another mpeg player and divx player because I couldn't stand media player...
It's too bad now, we don't have the choice of extra features without going to uninstall stuff (which you should be able to choose if you want them installed in the first place). But that's how MS seems to be doing their things since a few years... Do a great product, basic funtionnality, add some meat, fix the bugs, see it taking off, and finally, add a LOT of eyecandy/useless stuff, bloat the thing, make it take 4x the amount of memory, and finally, like almost all succesful net-related programs, add spyware.
At least you can still use media player 6.4 for everything on the net right now, I hope it stays like that for a while... it should.. since the basics is "playing back a movie/audio with a codec", whatever you add around it, the basics still remains the same (unless they move all the Digital right management out of the codecs if it's not already the case).
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
Seems that these guys are more after offering a dis-service than any type of service these days.
Everyday, there is some new scandalous scheme.
I'm sticking with Linux, thank you very much.
You could always go for an alternitive media player such as Zoom Player. And its free!!!r es directX)
http://www.inmatrix.com/zplayer/
(requi
I don't understand how Microsoft can claim that there working toward more secure computing, when at the same time they are stealing data from your machine. I think there goal is to make the system so that no one else can steel data from you except them. This way they can have a monopoly on your data, and marketing will have to come to Microsoft to buy your information.
Microsoft designed window media player this way, they want it to access the internet in order to do various things, such as give you the latest content. If you are use third party software (like ZONE ALARMS) to prevent the software from acting as Microsoft designed this is proabbly illegal. It is not as bad as modifying the source to stop it from accessing internet, but it amounts to the same thing basically. I think that if you don't want media player to do this you should just not use it at all and do use some other piece of software.
If you consult the WMA techinical documentation one of the fields you can put in a WMA file is a URL to report to everytime the file is played/openned.
A lot of information is reported as part of this transmision (machine, user, etc.).
Microsoft's response to the issue, mentioned above, lets it slip that Windows Media Player tries to connect to windowsmedia.com:
So it appears that completely disabling cookies is not the only way to stop Windows Media Player from phoning home. You could also add windowsmedia.com to your HOSTS file or to ad-blocking software like Internet Junkbuster.
The hosts file allows you control over a single address. So you could block, say, ad1.some_ad_company.com, but ad2.some_ad_company.com would still get through.
With the dns server you can add an entry for *.some_ad_company.com and block the entire domain.
Personally I have those domains redirected to a web server that returns a 200 response for any URL thrown at it.
I like your idea about the ID. I'm not fond of the digital rights management features that prevent the fair use of music you have purchased when you wish to use it on your 2nd computer. (I refuse to purchase any music covered by such features.)
Coding Blog
It's a trivial fix, really. Windows Media Player records the list in a file. Just make the file read-only! Problem solved.
Here's the file name for Windows XP:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Media Index\wmplibrary_v_0_12.db
Here's the file name for Windows ME:
c:\Windows\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Media Index\wmplibrary_v_0_12.db
Here's the file name for Windows 98:
c:\Windows\wmplibrary_v_0_12.db
The easiest way to find the file is to search your disk for "wmplibrary". Then right-click up the properties for that file and make it read-only.
This spying behavior has been around for a long time. I noticed it a year or so ago, and made the log file read-only. It's been working fine ever since, without writing a log.
You can see the log in the Windows Media Player by pressing the "Media Library" button and opening up the outlines. Just make sure to clear out the log first, before you make it read-only. When you delete an item from the log, it goes into "deleted items" folder. So make sure you finally clear out the "deleted items" section of the log.
I found the log file by using Igor Arsenin's "taskinfo" utility, that lets you see all the files any process has open. Taskinfo is a great tool for figuring out what logs any Windows programs are keeping. Solid Russian engineering. Use it to spy on the spyware!
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
Remember this file that used to reside in the Windows directory? It could store the title and track names for every CD in your collection... if you ever found out about it. Really handy. I loved it. But now Win2k has come out with a new CD player. Who knows where good old cdplayer.ini went. I got frustrated and gave up trying to figure out with the new system. The only thing it seemed like it cared to do was download Artists info from some stupid site like Tunes.com. I never could even verify the existance of a local database similar to cdplayer.ini. What a piece of crap.
Some of you may have seen a few articles written over the past day that
.NET Magazine:
.NET Magazined ex.cfm?Art icleID=24202
d =kb; en-us;Q272116
question the functionality of DVD Playback in Windows Media Player for
Windows XP.
Please let me make one thing absolutely clear - under NO circumstances
is personally identifying information transferred to Microsoft as a
result of DVD playback.
When the user first inserts a new DVD, the player goes up to
Windowsmedia.com and gets the chapter information, thus enabling users
to easily navigate within the DVD. As is the case with most service and
commerce Web sites, the Windowsmedia.com Web site has a cookie
associated with it to allow it to personalize and improve the user
experience. When the player contacts WindowsMedia.com to get the DVD
media information, it sends a cookie that includes no personal
identifying information.
According to Paul Thurrott, News Editor for Windows &
"In short, MPXP includes a feature that does exactly what most users
want, and it doesn't violate their privacy or security in any way. If
you'd like to disable the feature or learn more about how it works, you
can read Microsoft's in-depth response to the AP security expert on the
Web."
- Paul Thurrott, News Editor for Windows &
http://www.wininformant.com/Articles/In
If you are still concerned about this feature and wish to prevent DVD
information from being saved on your PC, there are several easy options:
* Choose "Work Offline" from the File menu, which will prevent the
player from connecting to the Internet for DVD lookup. Note this will
also turn off access to the Media Guide and Radio Tuner features.
* Set the privacy level in Internet Explorer to "block all cookies."
* You can also clear the information completely by deleting the media
library. Note: this will remove all of your media information,
including personal playlists. This will not remove any of your audio or
video files. More information and steps to delete the library is
available in
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?sci
Sincerely,
Sean Alexander
Technical Product Manager - Windows Media Player
Windows Digital Media Division
Microsoft Corporation
why don't the bloody record companies just
put the info on each CD.
I have read so many articles about pandering to
the CDDB.
Who needs the bloddy thing?
They are never trustworthy That gives you a reason not use windows xp or Microsfots tools who nows what other spyware they have on you
Yuo just have to think of the idea, not how to
do it ?!????!!!.
I thought up the internet and digital convergence
way back in 1978.
All your everything belongs to us.
I suppose I should correct myself. WMP uses Gracenote which was formerly CDDB. My Bad.
The tracking could be used for evil. So can flatware. That alone means nothing, I'm afriad. Speaking of using user data for evil, it sure took a long time for this /. page to render while I waited for doubleclick's ad to load.
woooooooo
thanks
Doesn't anyone pay attention to anything? WMP gets its information from AMG (the All Music Guide). Just lookie at the little "AMG" in the media player when WMP grabs text info from MS' text info server. They use their own protocol and service, and their data comes from AMG. Just look at the data you get from WMP and compare it to what you see on AMG's web site, and it becomes bloody obvious.
BTW, DVDs *do not* always have text info on them. In fact, they rarely do. You'd think they would have fixed the problem CDs have by actually putting useful text info on DVDs, but they didn't. Nor did they put cover art, or even a unique identifier, on the DVD. This screw-up means there will be a definite market for DVD info lookup services.
...is AtGuard. - Freeware (German link only sorry, but that "Download" link should be understandable for all)
/banner/ etc. in path from the requested website. Animated Gif's are set to non-repeating. *sigh* The browser don't even know what he's missing. Pesky JavaScript popup-commands are selectively filtered with the rest of JavaScript untouched.
;)
AtGuard is even better in filtering net access from programs. ZoneAlarm is too generic for some applications, it just knows "program x.exe is/is-not allowed for internet-access/server-rights" what you dont know is what adress, what serviceport etc. it uses, nor can you block access from one program to one address while allowing access to another
Atguard instead allows you to control everything you like from restricting each application to a specific internet address and port to port-ranges or ZoneAlarm-like generic access for individual programs.
Plus it includes very good html-blocker features, filters html-transfer for any browser. It just strips every img src that contains ad.* or
Great for surfing pr0n, warez, commercial net-newspaper and other ad-and-popup-ridden sites without all blinkin' crap and OnExit()-sickness.
ok it maybe sounds hyped hehe, but it's a really cool desktop firewall prog. I had enlightening when I dumped ZoneAlarm for this
Example: it is possible to keep morpheus working while at the same time all it's damn blinking ads are blocked, no hosts file editing, generic website blocking *.doubleclick.net etc.. The default filters may be a bit too aggressive but now I even view slashdot without that banner above
And for all that it's freeware
Its not really the fact that they are keeping track of what I'm listening to or watching. If I wanted to hide it, I could and probably would. I just think it is not right how they can get away with for months keeping track of this without letting us the customers know. I find that they keep having security problems with not only XP but IE also that just means I will have to read the licensed agreements more indepth.
Does anyone else get the feeling that Microsoft is slowly and carefully setting the stage for a major big-brother operation in the medium turn?
Everywhere you look, they're setting up user-tracking systems, which are implemented, discovered and then explained away as either conveniences or mistakes...
What happens when they get linked up? Hotmail, your WinXP registration code, any of the merchants that sign up to use Passport and now your CD/DVD/streaming-media listening preferences....
How much information is there in these systems? Hotmail alone must have tens of millions of users and XP is now pretty muc hstandard on new machines. Of course, it hasn't happened yet, and it probably won't happen tommorow, but how much longer can they hold out/resist the urge?
with all the gator like programs out there and now ms doing this? makes me like watching all the in and out through my firewall waiting for some unsuspecting program try to contact its higher master.