Bill Gates will be frisking you with a simple point and click



By SIMON AVERY

Tuesday, July 26, 2005 Updated at 5:17 AM EDT

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

The next time you visit the website of Microsoft Corp. to download some software, be prepared to let the world's biggest software company have a look inside your computer.

In a determined strike to quell the proliferation of counterfeit software, beginning today, Microsoft will require that all customers coming to its website for upgrades and other downloads submit their computers to an electronic frisking.

If you use one of the estimated hundred million PCs running pirated software, don't expect your upgrade. For Microsoft, the new policy is a stepped-up effort to combat the loss of billions of dollars worth of software sales every year to counterfeiters around the world. But in ramping up efforts to fight piracy, the Redmond, Wash.-based behemoth already finds itself fending off critics over privacy.

"It sets an extremely negative precedent," Pam Dixon, executive director of World Privacy Forum, a non-profit public-interest research centre in San Diego, said of the company's initiative. "Microsoft is saying, 'Before I let you do anything at all, you have to open your computer to us.' I really object to this."

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The company will scan machines for a variety of information, including product keys or software authorization codes, operating-system version and details on the flow of data between the operating system and other hardware, such as printers.

It is access to this information that particularly upsets the privacy advocates. Ms. Dixon says the only information Microsoft needs to fight piracy is the product key and the operating-system version, and she says that Microsoft will be able to identify users uniquely based on some of the information the company collects.

"They are grabbing more information than they need to deter piracy," she said.

If Microsoft deems a PC to be carrying contraband code, it won't allow a user to download Microsoft programs, with the exception of security patches. But the software company — which says that more than one in five U.S. computers runs a counterfeit version of its Windows product — is not just waving a stick. It is also offering a big carrot.

Microsoft said it will give a free copy of its Windows XP to customers who unknowingly bought a counterfeit version of the operating system and who fill out a piracy report, provide proof of purchase and send Microsoft the counterfeit CDs.

Customers who cannot provide proof of purchase but file a piracy report will receive a substantial discount on a legitimate version of the operating system, said Tim Prime, a product manager in the Windows client group at Microsoft Canada Co., a subsidiary of the U.S. company.

Executives at Microsoft reject any suggestions that the move will antagonize customers with privacy concerns.

"Customers want to know whether retailers have sold them genuine software," Mr. Prime said.

More than 40 million users agreed to have their systems scanned in a 10-month trial that began last September in several countries. The participation rate amounted to 58 per cent of all visitors to the pilot website, far exceeding Microsoft's expectations of just 10 per cent, Mr. Prime said.

Microsoft said no personal data will be collected during the validation process, and information will remain completely anonymous. The company said it commissioned TÜV-ITÖ, an independent German security auditor, to test how well its Windows Genuine Advantage program protects customers' data, and the firm concluded that Microsoft does not collect any personal information that would allow it to identify or contact a user.

Seth Schoen, a staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group in San Francisco specializing in technology issues, agreed that Microsoft would not be able to identify customers personally through the program. But the data collected are unique to every customer, just as human fingerprints are unique, and the issue becomes how long the company holds onto the details and whether they could become personally identifying later on, he said.

Technology companies have walked a fine line for years on the issue of collecting information from consumers' computers. Six years ago, RealNetworks Inc., whose software plays audio and video content on the Internet, released a patch for its RealJukebox program after the public learned the software was relaying personal information about users to the company.

More recently, Google Inc. created a privacy backlash when it said its free e-mail service, Gmail, would include special software that inserts ads into personal e-mails based on their content.

Clearly, Microsoft believes any risk of public-privacy concerns are worth incurring to fight a problem that has turned into an epidemic in some parts of the world.

Microsoft has been fighting counterfeit efforts for years with limited success. It says that 35 per cent of the world's computers run counterfeit software and that piracy cost the global software industry $41-billion in 2004.

The Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft and the Business Software Alliance reported recently that 36 per cent of all software applications in use in Canada are pirated, costing $1.1-billion in lost retail software sales.

Microsoft should give Windows away for free and raise the prices on the rest of their products 10%.

I'm getting real bored of Microsoft's products anyways.

that's hot

Haven't they been doing this already for ages? I mean, wasn't that the "fear of cookies" and such,....

I avoid updates from Microsoft, so I'm not worried. I don't have anything on my computer that I would need to "hide" from anyway.

c-

You ought to be worried if you're not getting the security patches. And they're not scanning everyone's files, simply checking that the version of Windows running is a valid, purchased copy. Nothin' wrong with that.

I got the impression they were scanning the computer for pirated software, not just your OS. You think my pirated copy of Microsoft Office will be okay?

As for security patches: "If Microsoft deems a PC to be carrying contraband code, it won't allow a user to download Microsoft programs, with the exception of security patches."

asdf

Indeed.

This article is completely dismantled by a simple, absolutely irrefutable argument:

a) the user with the pirated software chose to obtain the software in the method they did, thus inheriting the risks;

b) The user has a goddamned choice to download the software upgrades and thus subject their computer to this search.

It's been a while since I've read anything as ridiculous as this quasi-socialist piece of trash article.

I've got the security stuff and patches - I just mean I'm not worried about them attempting to scan for what software is installed - the standards bodies and the other sofware companies will never let it happen unless they are all synchronized and the goal is to look for pirate software - in which case it's still Invasion of Privacy and still won't happen. Anyone remember when Intel was attempting to use assorted software to read the embedded chip information off of computers and the universe skipped a beat? On top of that, there are too many fire wall scenarios for them to try to get past. I just don't see it happening....

c-

they will only be looking for pirated versions of their software, not all pirated software, theres no way they could do that unless the major application makers gave over their serial numbers and validation codes

Meh, just use Linux instead. [/problem]

They're onto me. I had my computer set to automatically download updates, and the latest download was about a genuine Windows license. I have an icon in my icon tray that will not go away that says "You may be a victim of software counterfeiting."

"victim" makes it sound like you've been hurt in some way. . The only victim in this equation is Microsoft's bottom line.

Maybe they're giving me the benefit of the doubt, assuming I'm bought a bogus version.

I wish i knew what any of this shit meant. I'm good at stealing the basketball and intercepting a football. As far as this computer shit goes, i gotta be clean cause i'm clueless.

and bill gates has about as much to do with microsoft as i do with pearl jam

I tried to download the media player 11 and i couldnt because my cd key isnt validy. oh well, there is no real advantage in this new version.

fuck...more than 200 dollars to buy a fucking key!!!