Bill Gates Knows What You Did Last Summer

theodp writes "Give Bill Gates your 'pictures, videos, documents, e-mail, instant messages, addresses, calendar dates/scheduling information (e.g., birthdays, anniversaries, appointments), voice mail, phone logs, RSS feeds, subscriptions, bookmarks, mail lists, project management features, computing device data, tasks and location data,' and he'll improve your 'quality of life.' That's the promise behind a patent issued Thursday to Bill Gates and his 20 co-inventors for 'Personal Data Mining', which Microsoft notes 'can include a monetization component' that 'could initiate an auction to sell information to the highest bidder.'"

Comments

Re:Office.microsoft.com hates alternative browsers

[b4dc0d3r]

(apologies for the formatting, I just created this 20 minutes ago for my own purposes). Bottom line: the entire intention of this Office.Microsoft.com "feature" is misguidedly implemented, showing a complete lack of testing using the common 'alternative' platform.

Visiting Office.Microsoft.com with FireFox and NoScript gives the following message:

<noscript>
<table border=0 height=95%>
<tr><td valign=middle>
<div><center><b>One Moment Please...</b></center></div><br>
<div>To help optimize how your Web pages are displayed, we are checking to see if a 2007 Microsoft Office program is installed.</div><br>
<div>If this page does not automatically redirect, you have scripts disabled. <a href='/_services/errors/error.aspx?id=5'>See more information on scripts.</a></div><br>
<div><a href='http://office.microsoft.com/search/redir.aspx?assetid=FX010562591033'>Follow this link if the page is not redirected.</a></div>
</td></tr>
</table>
</noscript>

Enabling scripts, loading the page, then disabling scripts, results in the message at the top of the page, along with the requested page content (which doesn't appear prior to loading scripts):

Warning: This site requires the use of scripts, which your browser does not currently allow. See how to enable scripts.

That seems to be a disconnect. The second message shows that the site can be used with scripts disabled. The only reason I see the "One Moment Please..." message is the lack of cookies. In theory, the browser would check which versions are installed, and then show customized content for your version. IE browser allows ActiveX controls which could access the local filesystem, which can report that information.

VBScript function ofctestax() creates objects using the following CLSID values and then calls GetOfficeX() and/or GetOfficeLcid() functions to see what's installed:

• 4453D895-F2A1-4A38-A285-1EF9BD3F6D5D
• 6632AA50-49DC-475B-B911-A02B84C7C794
• C9712B19-838B-45A5-ABF2-9A315DDDED50

It then calls the function ofcpost() which sets cookies describing which versions are installed. ofctestax() is called inline from a script at the bottom of the page.
How does this work in FireFox?

if (typeof(window.external)=='undefined') {
if (navigator.mimeTypes['application/x-msoffice12'] != null && !IsOpera())
document.write("<embed id='ofcnp' type='application/x-msoffice12' f='ofcpost' width='0' height='0'>");
else if (navigator.mimeTypes['application/x-msoffice'] != null && !IsOpera())
document.write("<embed id='ofcnp' type='application/x-msoffice' f='ofcpost' width='0' height='0'>");
else
ofcpost('N','0','N','0');
} else {
if (typeof(ofctestax)!='undefined')
ofctestax();
else
ofcpost('N','0','N','0');
}

ofctestax is a VBScript function, so in IE and any browsers supporting VBScript, it will run. In other browsers, it will not be recognized, and thus be undefined. ofcpost() function is called with default values, setting cookies to uninformative values.

With no cookies, this happens, because ofcpost() calls post() function:

<script language='JavaScript'><!--
function post()
{

Re:No

[spun]

Actually, modern research suggests you are at least partially wrong. In fact, less than 5% of people will act that way the majority of the time and regardless of circumstance. Around 15% will almost always act in a fair and equitable manner, even if everyone around them is cheating and acting unfairly. The rest will act fairly when in fair situations, and take advantage only when they see the majority of people around them taking advantage.

Google 'fairness reciprocity economic research.' Most people are not in fact driven primarily by self interest, but by notions of fairness and reciprocity. Look up games theory on wikipedia for an interesting jumping off point if you are interested, read about some of the experimental games played, and how people do not act to maximize their personal benefits, but to create and maintain justice.

We're not all evil, but the belief that 'we're all evil' is itself a primary motivation to act in a selfish fashion.