Slashdot Mirror
Woman Wins $10,000 Lawsuit Against Microsoft Over Windows 10 Upgrades (seattletimes.com)
An anonymous reader shares this story from the Seattle Times:
A few days after Microsoft released Windows 10 to the public last year, Teri Goldstein's computer started trying to download and install the new operating system. The update, which she says she didn't authorize, failed. Instead, the computer she uses to run her Sausalito, California, travel-agency business slowed to a crawl. It would crash, she says, and be unusable for days at a time. "I had never heard of Windows 10," Goldstein said. "Nobody ever asked me if I wanted to update."
When outreach to Microsoft's customer support didn't fix the issue, Goldstein took the software giant to court, seeking compensation for lost wages and the cost of a new computer. She won. Last month, Microsoft dropped an appeal and Goldstein collected a $10,000 judgment from the company.
Microsoft denies any wrongdoing, and says they only halted their appeal to avoid the cost of further litigation.
When outreach to Microsoft's customer support didn't fix the issue, Goldstein took the software giant to court, seeking compensation for lost wages and the cost of a new computer. She won. Last month, Microsoft dropped an appeal and Goldstein collected a $10,000 judgment from the company.
Microsoft denies any wrongdoing, and says they only halted their appeal to avoid the cost of further litigation.
My guess is now a lot of people are going to be suing MS over this. While they deny they did any wrong doing, the court saw it otherwise.
Be seeing you...
"Microsoft denies any wrongdoing, and says they only halted their appeal to avoid the cost of further litigation." MS has some deep pockets. Their given reason makes no sense. They could outspend any litigant.
There's a huge difference though between providing a security update when an obscure bug, buffer overflow, or some other specific vulnerability is fixed, and an entire OS upgrade is relentlessly, essentially forced on the user.
If a few thousand other people who have similarly suffered also sued Microsoft it would send a message. Money talks. Publicity talks. Rinse and repeat and these kinds of things will no longer happen.
the problem is that the whole point of automatic updates is to keep those users up to date who otherwise would go "I had never heard of security updates and no one ever asked my if I want those updates".
...and you've demonstrated the issue right there by conflating "updates" and "security updates".
Last time I looked, although XP may be risky, using a properly patched Win 7 or 8 isn't a significant security risk, whereas installing any significant OS upgrade without proper testing, planning and backup is an unacceptable risk for people using their system for anything more serious than Minesweeper. Automatic updates should be reserved for urgent security updates of the "imminent remote pwnage" kind - anything less should be advisory & accompanied by warnings to back up and schedule the update for a 'quiet' time.
So, yeah, by abusing the automatic update process (and doing their best to prevent users from keeping it disabled) Microsoft is being hugely irresponsible and endangering the security of users' systems.
There's a problem with IT security in general in that those responsible treat security as an end in itself, and never weigh the benefits of their security measures against the potential loss and disruption caused by the "security measures" themselves. I'm not saying people should be complacent - just prioritize a bit.
(Plus, I really wish I could explain to the IT people at my employer why they shouldn't make their warning emails about phishing attacks look exactly like the sort of phishing attacks that they are warning against...)
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Except this woman won her lawsuit. Microsoft dropped their appeal. The precedent has been set. You might need to prove exactly what the forced Windows 10 "upgrade" cost you, but you can cite this case along with your proof. (BTW, you can't just "quit" a lawsuit if you are the defendant, but you could try to arrange a settlement to avoid setting legal precedent.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
> by abusing the automatic update process (and doing their best to prevent users from keeping it disabled) Microsoft is being hugely irresponsible and endangering the security of users' systems.
Security is concerned with three things: Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability (CIA). Those initials are used in the first few pages of any introductory security curriculum. You should have learned at least that much in your annual "Computer Security and You" training video.
The unauthorized Win10 installation risks the Integrity of the users' data and its Availability. Because it includes spyware, it definitely damages the Confidentiality. It doesn't just "endanger the security", it absolutely damages the security by damaging confidentiality. It is the OPPOSITE of the goals that security people strive for, the opposite of a security update.
> There's a problem with IT security in general in that those responsible treat security as an end in itself, and never weigh the benefits of their security measures against the potential loss and disruption caused by the "security measures" themselves.
Fuck you for trying to blame this malware on "IT security people". It's precisely the opposite of eveything we do.
Windows 10 has absolutely no business being characterized as a 'security update,' not only because the scope is way too big for that but because it reduces security!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz