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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."
Except that MS has to hand out vouchers for more MS products, giving them an even bigger market share.
[see Sony Rootkit settlement for details]
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
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...
I'll admit that I don't use Windows anymore. These days I use an iMac and a MacBook Pro for most of my desktop computing, and I almost exclusively deploy Debian on servers. That said, I've been along for the ride with respect to Microsoft products for a very long time, both as a user and an I.T. professional deploying systems on customer networks and writing I.T. policies.
Honestly, most consumers get that "deer in the headlights" look when you try to explain what WGA and similar systems actually do. In many cases, people simply don't care what's being sent to Microsoft, as there's a sense of implicit trust in large corporations. I have no idea where this trust comes from, but it's definitely real. I assume it's largely because the majority of users are largely ignorant of how their systems function, choosing to focus only on what's immediately presented by the OS (applications). There's no psychology degree on my wall, so I'm not qualified to guess further on the topic.
This continuous erosion of privacy gets noticed in the I.T. world, but the general public remains almost completely in the dark. Major media outlets don't carry headline stories about these issues, possibly because their "tech journalists" are barely more educated than their readership on these topics. I have no idea how this can be fixed, but I'd love to hear some suggestions.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
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.
Kill everyone and start again?
The Windows 7 drinking game so far includes:
* One shot for every "ethnic" face in an install graphic.
* An extra shot if it's pasted over the head of a white person.
* One shot for every white face pasted over the head of a non-white person.
* One shot for every program with the Office 2007 "ribbon" toolbar stuck on it completely inappropriately.
* One shot for every exciting "new" feature that's been in Mac OS and Linux for the past five years.
* An extra shot if the exciting "new" feature's been in Mac OS and Linux for the past ten years.
* One shot every time you reboot during the install.
* One shot every time the system asks to reboot just because it feels like it.
* Two shots every time it reboots even though you said "no."
* Drain the bottle if there's an actual feature that makes Windows 7 so much better than sticking with XP that you'll spend actual money to get it.
* Spitting your mouthful and cursing when Windows Genuine Advantage decides your full-price copy is actually a bootleg.
* A bitter mouthful every time the system blue-screens.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
And if you want Red Hat without the paid support, just get Cent OS. (http://www.centos.org/) about the only way I know to get Windows for free is with less than legal methods (http://thepiratebay.org/). So if you don't need the support, there are other options.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
The problem is that, if I'm remembering correctly, is that they don't really give you a choice in the matter. Basically use our WGA or don't get our patches. If I'm remembering correctly, refusing to use the WGA would make it impossible to use the Microsoft update to properly keep things up to date. I can't recall specifically whether that included security patches or not.
Good luck getting that from microsoft.
Then you wanted support AFTER your contract expired. You got none. That's expected.
This is not the "whine about Red Hat when you don't want to pay for their service" topic.
It's "Microsoft WGA is spyware."
Hijack another topic please. Not on slashdot.
E
It's not Spyware. You agreed to install it.
And if you agree to install AntiVirus Pro 2009 it doesn't count as spyware either?
... but when I bought my computer, I asked for vista to be removed and the price refunded. Hoped from shop to shop until I found one that agreed (in fact I was ready for a trek, but the 3rd shop in the street was the good one). He got the deal, and I bought the refund worth of RAM to top of the computer capacity. I was pleased, and so was the seller.
My laptop is an Asus eeepc 900A linux 'edition'. Again, I carefully reviewed the options before buying.
Speak with your wallet.
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
Just because you agreed doesn't negate it being spyware.
And from what i gather the issue is that its doing things that are NOT in the eula.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
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?
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.
if I'm remembering correctly,
If I'm remembering correctly,
I can't recall specifically
Why don't you look up the answer and get back to us, Mr. Memory?
Comment of the year
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."
According to the WGA FAQ [microsoft.com]
That was an interesting FAQ. I especially like this part:
Q: What happens when WGA Notifications communicates with Microsoft when a PC is booted up? A: The pilot version of this software periodically contacts Microsoft after validation; however, this feature has been removed from the final version of WGA Notifications.
That seems to contradict your statement:
So why is "phoning home" okay? Why not do it once and be done with it? ... Either way, Microsoft has not kept this a secret, and even promised to reduce checking to once every two weeks [zdnet.com]
If WGA does send information to Microsoft, even if it is only every two weeks, and their FAQ specifically says they do not, I'd say that is the very definition of spyware.
Of cource, Microsoft has their own definition of spyware:
Q: Some people are saying that WGA is spyware. Is this true? A: Broadly speaking, spyware is deceptive software that is installed on a userâ(TM)s computer without the user's consent and has some malicious purpose. WGA is installed with the consent of the user and seeks only to notify the user if a proper license is not in place. If the user declines the EULA, WGA Notifications will not be installed on userâ(TM)s machine. Once installed, WGA Notifications becomes a permanent part of Windows XP software, and therefore cannot be uninstalled.
Let's see: spyware is deceptive software (check), installed on a userâ(TM)s computer without the userâ(TM)s consent (debatable, it is installed as a critical update via automatic updates. Microsoft strongly encourages the use of automatic updates to keep your system secure. If this were an optional update, I might buy that it is opt-in. Microsoft then tells you that the system will be crippled in small ways if you don't install it. There is no option to opt-out. Technically, it is opt-in, but only technically.) , and has some malicious purpose. (Depends on what you consider malicious. From Microsoft's point of view, it is not malicious. However, I'm sure that most spyware authors do not consider their software malicious.)
Request a Linux Shockwave player here: http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/
Really? You were unable to download new RPMs and install them because your support was cut off? That's horrible. That's a serious bug. And --
Oh, really? I see. That's not what you were talking about. You wanted RedHat to continue to monitor your system and provide you with instant fixes through their premium update channel, which you had paid for, even after you stopped paying for it. So now you're upset that you have to wait for official releases like the rest of the plebes.
You really might want to read thosee licenses you keep agreeing to some time. You're not _buying_ jack.
You must have had a fun childhood. "Mister whiskers wouldn't fit in the peanut butter jar .... and now he does!"