Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft Misrepresenting WGA's Functionality?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the first-time-for-everything dept.

Legal Ethics writes "According to an article on Groklaw, Microsoft is misrepresenting what the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) tool is to pressure people into installing it. It comes with no uninstall, it fails to disclose many pieces of information it provides to Microsoft, and it misrepresents itself as a 'critical update' when it does not address any security vulnerability, although it remains to be seen if it can create one. ZDNet has a series of screenshots so that you can see exactly how badly it misrepresents itself. Oh, and it also checks for updates, so Microsoft can presumably execute arbitrary code on any machine with it installed, merely by making that code part of a WGA update."

9 of 458 comments (clear)

  1. Why punish legit users? by pawstar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And what can us consumers do about it? If we refuse it, we don't get updates. This is punishing us the legit users, while pirates will still be laughing at M$'s latest attempt at stamping them out!

    1. Re:Why punish legit users? by FudRucker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      RE:"And what can us consumers do about it?"

      swich to something better, nobody is forceing you to use microsoft's product http://linux.com/

      --
      Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
    2. Re:Why punish legit users? by thrillseeker · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Why punish legit users?

      Because Microsoft has never been punished for doing so.

  2. Isn't this a violation of spyware laws? by plasmacutter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    well?... last time some software package was reported doing this it was labelled spyware and the company was prosecuted..

    --
    VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
    1. Re:Isn't this a violation of spyware laws? by agent+dero · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You're right, a company can be prosecuted for this.

      Microsoft is not a company, go to any state building or federal building in the nation, and find out what they're running. You're talking about a corporation that has settled antitrust lawsuits with licenses and lockin.

      If Sony doesn't get it's ass handed to them for rootkits, why would you think Microsoft would receive any punishment at all?

      --
      Error 407 - No creative sig found
  3. It's Spyware by any definition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful


    the question is when are the anti-malware community going to step up to the plate and provide protection from this software

    the fact its made by Microsoft should be irellavent, just analyse the behaviour of the application and judge it on that

    communicates unique information at any time to an American based advertising company (msn anybody?) with you the user having no idea of what data and what the implications are of giving this company that data

    can your business really risk an application like this on your systems ? are you prepared for the consequences of letting this program run unchallenged inside your companies infrastructure ?

  4. Re:Sad... by plasmacutter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    but they are not allowed to misrepresent its nature or what it does to consumers, that is called fraud.

    --
    VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
  5. Re:huh by BrynM · · Score: 5, Insightful
    do we really need a play-by-play commentary of some jackass installing an update? 17 pages of ads and shit.
    Agreed. I won't even read content from ZDNet at all anymore. 17 pages is insane (thanks for letting me know how many I avoided). Even with blocking the ads and repaginating the article into one page, ZDNet assumes that the format is acceptable to users because the article generates hits. They won't change it when they think "it's still working". I've tried to complain to them as a (now former) print customer of their periodicals for years and a web user. They don't respond, so I assume they don't care. Calling them just leads to the phone-forward-runaround of "I'll connect you to...". They used to be a good company with good content, but now they are just ad whores (like most consumer computing sites - TOM!). /rant
    --
    US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
  6. Re:Better... by hackwrench · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wish people would quit acting as if anything was unqualifiably better. Life consists of trade-offs but to hear some people talk, life would just be a bowl of cherries if one were to just do this or that... Sheesh... Yes, Linux is better in some ways, but there's that trade-off thing at work there.