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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...
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
These days you'll have to deal with the Linux Genuine Advantage.
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]
Yeah, and that's what's broken about the way the law handles corporations.
Corporations should face jailtime for any crime or activity that would result in a person being incarcerated. Jail for a person means the loss of most freedoms and it also means they are separated from the rest of society. "Jail" for a corporation should mean that all assets are frozen and all business activities are forced to halt for the same number of days that a real person would have been incarcerated. If the lost sales result in bankruptcy, that's too bad, just like if a person with a few years to live commits a violent crime and gets locked up for a long time and dies in prison, that's also too bad.
This to me would be the proper treatment of "corporations have the same rights as real individuals." A good alternative might be to keep the limited liability nature of a corporation for any failures or accidents, but to remove it and allow for personally prosecuting and imprisoning any and all members of upper management who knowingly support an illegal action wherever intent can be proven.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
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.
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."
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/
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.
You must have had a fun childhood. "Mister whiskers wouldn't fit in the peanut butter jar .... and now he does!"
I completely agree with your point of view.
Therefore, the solution should not be vengeful actions on persons until evidence is gathered on the questionable conducts.
Instead, the only suitable course would be to put an end to the failed experiment called "corporate personhood". A corporation is by the laws of nature not the same as a person. Therefore what works on a human being (rights, responsibilities, awards, punishments) are totally meaningless to corporations, or at least have their very definitions entirely twisted.
If corporations are to be granted human-like rights, there should be a separate constitution for them so that laws made to enforce responsibilities and rights of corporations would be well-defined.
For example, currently corporations can donate to political courses just like individual persons can. This makes no sense because corporations' concern (mostly, profit maximization, either short term or long term) is entirely different - in fact a lot of the time are totally at odds with individual persons' concerns. Do corporations need to eat? No. Do they have a health that can deteriorate if they ingest something poisonous? No. Can they have children that they care a lot? No. Do they have concerns about privacy? Yes, but if you snoop on them like they do on you, it'll be labeled as industrial espionage.
There are numerous examples to show that corporations will do whatever it can when they can get away with it. It's just "corporate nature". What a wonderful world it'd be if these desires weren't usually in conflict with desires of real persons.