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Examining Microsoft Update
eggsovereasy writes "The Inquirer is reporting that a group in Germany has deciphered the information sent to Microsoft during an update using Windows Update and says that information on all software installed on your computer is sent, even that which is not Microsoft's own software." The original article is, unfortunately, pay-per-view. Update: 02/26 18:19 GMT by T : ionyka points to this "related article from ITWorld that deals with Microsoft's transferring of information through Windows Media Player. When you open up Media Player it sends information back to Microsoft like what movies you play, what songs you listen to and where they come from."
This may also be an alterior motive to Microsoft buying Virtual PC from Connectix last week. They want this same data from Mac Users. I imagine if it's not there then it will be added to read all partitions mac/Linux/PC
Knowing what your customers have on their hard drives is sensitive corporate data. Basically, you know the Hot or Not Programs in the industry and then develop programs based on their hard drive residency!
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
The reason why it sends info about other applications (and third party drivers for that matter) is so that they can attempt to be a single-source vendor of patches if needed.
While the intentions may not be all that honest, it's not a horrible idea. I've noticed numerous times when running Windows Update that it's offered to upgrade my Cisco Wireless LAN software as well as my Epson print drivers. Kind of nifty and not all that bad, if you ask me.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Nice claims, but we the free part of the article doesn't show any actual examples of data that's transmitted. At least not data apart from some generic xml tags.
Any easy way to verify this ourself?
I'm suspecting their claim is true, but I'd like to see the data...
Reinout
Reinout van Rees
Although I often semi-sorta-half-hearted-defend Microsoft when people make unsupported categorical statements or otherwise speak mindlessly, I am also willing to speak out against them when they are wrong. As in this instance.
I would have to do some research, but I believe this might violate their own privacy policy. Even if it doesn't, they really have no moral right to send any information about your system without letting you know what it is and giving you a chance to abort the whole thing. Yet I am unsurprised, in fact I expect every big company is doing this kind of thing when they can get away with it.
Not that I am saying "Everyone is doing it, so what is the big deal?" My attitude is more "Let's stop this crap now!"
So I have a suggestion -- someone should start an open source project to create a re-writing proxy for updates that strips out all the stuff Microsoft is sending in the updates, except what is absolutely needed. Make it open enough that we can plug it re-writers for other companies as well.
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
A cow-orker of mine actually argued with me one day that "No Information" really meant nothing, nada, zilch was sent back to MS.
I should have taken him out back and beaten him with a frozen salmon. Hello!? How do they know what patches you need if they can't look at your system and tell their servers what you've already got.
The fact that the program takes the time to rifle through the system is of no surprise to me. While, I think the practice stinks it hasn't stopped me from using the service though. Given the choice between MS finding my installation of UT2003 or some script kiddie looting my system, I'll choose the former.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
"I should have taken him out back and beaten him with a frozen salmon. Hello!? How do they know what patches you need if they can't look at your system and tell their servers what you've already got."
They could send a complete list of available patches to your system and let the client running on your computer pick which ones are neccesary, without microsoft ever knowing what software you have installed. Granted, they could deductively determine what hardware you use based on what patches you then request, but since you can only download patches for microsoft software, the best they could do would be to determine what hardware and microsoft software you currently have installed.
I'm not defending microsoft here but nothing in the blurb that you posted says that MS won't collect the list of software on the machine. To play devils advocate its pretty easy to say that the installed software is part of the configuration information on the machine. Further it makes some sense how this is useful in picking which patches are presented to you. If there is a patch in windows update that fixes a bug that affects 1 software package in the world that 1% of users use then wouldn't it be useful to scan to see if that is installed and only present the patch to the 1% of users that need it. Especially given that many bug fixes cause bugs in other software that relies on the broken behavior or some kludgy work around.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
Microsoft needs to collect this information for driver updates and other *useful* updates.
No they don't. They can just send a list of updates to the client, and the client can display the updates that apply to your computer. This is why Microsoft can claim no information is being sent to their server: because sending information isn't necessary.
This is actually how APT works.
If I tell windows to look for the drivers for a particular device than by all means probe the device for information about it. How does scanning all installed applications aid in this endeavor?
If the reasoning was to better detect and avoid application conflicts I would possibly agree with this method, but the software clearly doesn't do that.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
Never confuse "Lazy_ass_user computing" with "computing for people who have better things to do with their time than fuck around searching for drivers on some poorly designed manufacturer website".
so this person with a so precious time should think twice before buying products from a company with such a "poorly designed website" or that don't ship a version of the drive with the product
-- SouNerd.com
This isn't just some random company that nobody has ever heard of, with a clean slate. It's 2003. When people deal with Microsoft they know what they're getting into, regardless of what Microsoft says.
Sorry, I'm gonna call bullshit on this one. While it's true that people involved in the industry generally know what's up, many people outside of it don't. People who have better things to do than read IT-related media get all of their news about MS from totally mainstream sources in the first place, and lot of people could really give a rat's ass about today's MS article on Yahoo's front page. As far as Joe Sixpack is concerned, it's an IT-related story, and he probably doesn't care what it says. If you are not into the theatre scene, do you read reviews for every play in your area? If you are not interested in business, do you read every story in the business section? Probably not, and my mother doesn't read every store about Microsoft.
Saying that the victim is at fault is not a solution to the problem, and is not an excuse for bad behavior on MS's part.
teeker
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Windows Update is committed to protecting your privacy. To provide you with the appropriate list of updates, Windows Update must collect a certain amount of configuration information from your computer. None of this configuration information can be used to identify you. This information includes:
If a lawyer writes "this information includes...", then that's exactly what they mean. They don't mean that it is a complete list; there may be other stuff that they're not explicitly telling you about.
Justin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
I use the Update Agent in RedHat almost on a daily basis - the RH Network knows absolutely everything about my setup (programs, modules, etc.) right down to what version of the Kernel I'm running - that way they can inform me of vulnerabilities and problems that I'm probably susceptible to as soon as there's an update available...it's a "good thing".
Why is it that when Microsoft does this kind of thing, suddenly there's a more sinister motive behind it all?
I don't hear anyone complaining about Redhat's privacy policies...
Life's far too short to use IE.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.