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Lawsuit Claims WGA Is Spyware
twitter writes "Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA), Microsoft's euphemistically named digital restrictions scheme, is the target of another spyware and false advertising lawsuit. 'Microsoft this week was sued in a Washington district court for allegedly violating privacy laws through Windows XP's Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) copy protection scheme. Similar to cases filed in 2006, the new class action case accuses Microsoft of falsely representing what information WGA would send to verify the authenticity of Windows and that it would send back information [daily IP address and other details that could be used to trace information back to a home or user]. The complaint further argued that Microsoft portrayed WGA as a necessary security update rather than acknowledge its copy protection nature in the update. WGA's implementation also prevented users from purging the protection from their PCs without completely reformatting a computer's system drive.' There were at least two other lawsuits launched in 2006 over WGA. According to the Wikipedia article, none of them have been resolved. The system is built into Vista and Windows 7."
The naming scheme of this add-on somehow reminds me of how certain countries like to add attributes such as "people's" and "democratic" to their official state designations...
It's not Spyware. You agreed to install it. "This agreement may be modified at any time without notice to you and you agree to be bound by its terms. Suck it. Sincerely, Your EULA." As to it phoning home every day, well duh. But what did you expect?
This is Microsoft's official position, afterall -- You're all a bunch of filthy criminals. You can't be trusted. That's why we hide everything in hidden dialog boxes and pop up a dozen warnings in order to delete Internet Explorer from the desktop. You're too stupid to even understand what "delete" means, so we're going to go out on a limb and guess you're pretty trusting of anything that says WARNING! CAUTION! ARE YOU SURE? REALLY? HONESTLY? We're not convinced. Action cancelled. Don't you want to buy an upgrade every year? We want to move to a licensing model that sends us cash yearly. Don't you want to support American business? I mean, what if the Iranians develop an operating system! When you don't install WGA, you're supporting terrorism.
To sign away your rights, click next.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I was successfully able to remove WinXP's WGA from my system.... I installed Linux.
No more sales for Microsoft, and no more nagging from software thinking I've got a pirate copy of something just because I upgraded some hardware.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
Tell them that terrorists and pedophiles are using the information gathered, or that your browsing habits will affect this season's X Factor outcome..
Those topics usually get some attention.
I don't mind that my car has a license plate. I don't even mind having to register with the authorities or prove that the car is indeed my own. What really pisses me off is the cameras and systems that track where I'm going by using the information on that license plate, and tying it to my behaviour patterns.
I'm not a law breaker and I'm not paranoid*, I just don't want my behaviour modified by stealthy incursions into my privacy that could result in profiling and ultimately curtailing my choices in where I go, what I see and what I do. WGA is, I believe, just part of a trend that increasingly encourages powerful public institutions to think of people as objects, as statistics, and the effect of treating people as objects is the source of pretty much all I consider crime in the world.
(*I walked by a construction site the other day and the roofer told me that I wasn't paranoid - in morse code. Clever, aren't they?)
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Following that logic, every issue that's not the most important issue is a non-issue. This way of thinking lets corporations chip away at our privacy "because those other guys are doing something worse", until there's nothing left to chip away.
I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
Look in your pocket... I'm betting you have a cell phone.
Nope, I just checked all my pockets, no phone there. You lose.
Your phone connects to a tower to "talk" - they know which numbers are connected to what towers at any time of the day.
A connection to a cell tower is required for a cell-phone to work. Sending random data back to Microsoft is not required for Windows to work. See the difference?
So if my accountant holds up a liquor store, can I keep him out of jail because I can't do my taxes without him?
If Microsoft is too big to fail, the answer is to cut it up until the pieces are small enough.
Legit users, of course, don't have to worry because Windows will never stop working for them (there are some exceptions, but those are typically solved quickly)
I bet you also believe that 'if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear', right?
I don't give a flying monkey crap about Microsoft's profits; I care about my software randomly not working because some crappy 'validation' software decides that I'm a criminal. More than that, I care about the whole concept of being treated as a criminal until proven innocent by a company that I've paid money to for the product I'm using.
You may be happy to bend over for big corporate profits, but I'm increasingly fed up with this crap -- not just from Microsoft but from other companies who decide to prevent software I've purchased from running until I beg them to fix their god-damn piece of crap 'validation'/'activation'/DRM bullshit -- to the extent that I'm now doing my best to completely eliminate Windows and commercial software which contains this kind of shit from my home.
Corporations do not have the same rights as natural persons in the USA.
That is a deliberately misleading statement. Shame on you for using it.
Corporations have rights as persons. The distinction of "natural persons" is silly. It should be that persons are human beings. Period. Calling corporations "persons" (but not "natural persons") leads to a class system were some "persons" (corporations) have rights/indemnities that actual human persons do not.
That is [management going to jail for crimes the company commits] already the law in the USA.
Not really. There are situations where that happens, but tell me, how many Ford executives went to prison for the Pinto? Or that guy that owns the peanut factory that was responsible for killing people a year or so ago? Or Gates and Ballmer over MS's anti-trust conviction?
Sure, an executive might go to jail, but unless their crime involves financial misconduct, the odds of them going to jail is infinitesimal. And even in the case of financial misconduct, if their misconduct only ruins the lives of their human customers it's no big deal, only if they defrauded either the "market", the company itself, or rich people, do actual humans go to jail for the crimes of their company.
The fact is, corporations get to have their cake and eat it too. They get rights as persons, but they don't have the responsibilities and liabilities of persons. The notion that people are "natural persons" and corporations are just "persons" is absurd.
I know of great place to get the latest version of Oracle Enterprise addition for any platform, no license keys, no activation required, no trial periods, no protection at all. Just download it for your favorite platform and install it.
technet.oracle.com
Last time I checked, Oracle is pretty profitable, even though they have no copy protection of any kind. Apparently, the ACTUALLY trust their customers somewhat which puts them in a pretty rare class these days.
Microsoft is only shooting themselves in the foot:
"Be grateful for what you have. You may never know when you may lose it."
Palm hacked USB vendor code which is against the rules you agree to when you use USB. Apple patched it. It is insane that Apple is painted as the bad guy on this one. They deserve plenty of hate for their BS AppStore rules, and overpriced HW, but fixing an exploit that hacks the USB protocol is not one of them.
You're suggesting that they patch critical security flaws right away. The only difference here is the quality of their excuse.
Then maybe they shouldn't break the law. Or am I thinking too hard again?
Microsoft has had monopolistic practices, but they are not (by definition) a monopoly.
Naturally that depends on what your definition of monopoly is, but one common definition seems to be:
In economics, a monopoly exists when a specific individual or an enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it.
Microsoft consistently fits this definition. Though Europe seems to be a bit more consistent in enforcing it, probably because MS's lobbying is far less effective across the pond.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Presumably, "product or service" means "type of product or service". Apple is the only one who sells the iPhone, but the iPhone does not dictate the cell phone market. Similarly, McDonald's does not dictate the chicken sandwich market. Microsoft, on the other hand, had near complete control on the operating system market up until the resurgence of Macs in the last few years, though their control is still very strong, and it's still nearly complete in the corporate market.
If my interpretation is wrong, then yes, obviously that definition doesn't make any sense.
I can't speak for the person to whom you were replying but I can give you my response to this. I'm rather indifferent to executives. There is one thing I really don't like about them, however. I really don't like that they can either get away with, or receive only a slap on the wrist, for doing things that would cause the average person to be locked up for a very long time if he/she did the same.
Some people are a bit petty, so they will call that jealousy or envy because that's the only way they can understand it, but really it's an issue of rule of law. If the concept of rule of law is tossed out, so that the law doesn't apply equally to everyone, then the society we know and many of the freedoms it protects get tossed out with it. It's a slow process of erosion that can take generations to happen, but I see something like that beginning to happen here and it really should be recognized for what it is.
Not sure about the GP, but my original post accounted for this and I don't believe there is a flaw in it (as in, if there is one I don't see it). Keep the limited liability nature of a corporation, that way if a venture fails or an accident happens then the members of the corporation are not personally liable. However, if they make decisions that they know will result in real harm to real people, and if it can be proven that they knew this would happen, then you remove the "corporate veil" and you personally prosecute every member of management who was a part of the decision-making.
I don't believe that prosecuting people who knowingly and intentionally cause harm to unwilling third parties threatens anyone's rights in any way. In fact, I believe it strengthens them, specifically it strengthens the rights of those third parties to not be harmed against their will. The only thing I am personally calling for is the removal of one technique for intentionally harming other people with impunity. Do you believe that your objection to the GP applies here? I don't think it does but if I am overlooking something I would be glad to have it pointed out.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
"If Microsoft was in "jail," it would affect many parts of the economy"
Indeed, the economy would bloom, and the computer market would develop at unheard of speeds because the biggest obstacle to any new computer technology just got removed from the equation.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
It shouldn't be limmited to upper management, it should be for ANYONE in the company.
Because clearly Suzy the receptionist, Bill the janitor and Jake the help-desk guy have not only in-depth knowledge of, but extensive influence over, the decision making process of executive management and therefore deserve to share their fate.
I suppose you think when people are executed any relatives they have closer than a second cousin should go down with them as well ?