-Caveat Lector-
All of a sudden, the Apple platform is starting to look real good. Anybody
know where I can download a good operating system in the mean time?
I realize that, from the beginning of this latest phase of the electronic
age, privacy has been an illusion, but, damnit, I want my illusions back!
Edward ><>
At 12:20 PM 3/8/99 EST, you wrote:
> -Caveat Lector-
>
>from:
>http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/99/Mar/08/front_page/SOFT08.htm
><A HREF="http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/99/Mar/08/front_page/SOFT08.htm">
>Windows 98 has secret: A code to track users </A>
>-----
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Windows 98 has secret: A code to track users
>
>A unique serial number can be planted within electronic files. That
>raises privacy concerns.
>
>
>By Ted Bridis
>ASSOCIATED PRESS
>WASHINGTON -- Microsoft Corp., whose software runs most of the world's
>personal computers, admitted yesterday that its latest version of
>Windows generates a unique serial number secretly planted within
>electronic documents that could be used to trace the authors'
>identities.
>
>In a disclosure with enormous privacy implications, Microsoft also said
>it was investigating whether it was collecting the serial numbers from
>customers even if they explicitly indicated they did not want them
>disclosed.
>
>"If it is, it's just a bug," said Robert Bennett, Microsoft's group
>product manager for Windows. "If it is indeed happening . . . we'll
>absolutely fix that."
>
>A programmer, Richard M. Smith of Brookline, Mass., noticed last week
>that documents he created using Microsoft's popular Word and Excel
>programs in tandem with the Windows 98 operating system included within
>their hidden software code a 32-digit number unique to his computer.
>
>The number also appears in a log of information transmitted to Microsoft
>when customers register their copies of Windows 98, even if they say
>they do not want details about their computers sent to the company.
>Microsoft's Word and Excel programs are among the most widely used, and
>its Windows operating systems run roughly 85 percent of the world's
>personal computers.
>
>"Nobody to my knowledge has had a database that would allow a piece of
>written material to be traced back to who wrote it," said Smith,
>president of Phar Lap Software Inc. "I don't expect Microsoft to do that
>kind of tracing, but it's sort of unprecedented."
>
>Bennett said Microsoft would create a software tool to let customers
>remove the number, which he said was meant to help diagnose problems for
>customers who called with technical questions.
>
>Smith suggested, however, that Microsoft also could use the technology
>to identify stolen copies of Windows by comparing the hardware serial
>number with a 20-digit Windows product number that also is transmitted
>when a customer registers. The industry claims annual losses from
>software piracy at more than $11.4 billion.
>
>"If they suddenly see the same product ID number with different hardware
>ID numbers, it gives them evidence for court that there's software
>piracy," Smith said.
>
>Bennett said Microsoft was looking into whether the number, called a
>Globally Unique Identifier, ever was obtained from customers who did not
>want details about their computer hardware disclosed, such as their
>network addresses.
>
>The identifier is partly based on a 12-digit number unique to each
>network adapter, a device common in business computers that allows
>high-speed Internet connections.
>
>Bennett promised that Microsoft also would wipe any of those numbers
>from its internal databases that the company can determine may have been
>inadvertently collected.
>
>Privacy activists were not mollified.
>
>"This is going to be a cleanup job larger than the Exxon Valdez oil
>spill," said Jason Catlett, president of Junkbusters Corp. of Green
>Brook, N.J., which lobbies on privacy issues. "There are billions of
>tattooed documents out there."
>
>The controversy follows criticism of Intel Corp., the world's largest
>manufacturer of computer processors, which designed its new Pentium III
>chips to transmit a unique serial number internally and to Web sites
>that request it to help verify the identity of consumers.
>
>Congress is weighing whether to propose new federal privacy laws
>governing the high-tech industry, and the Federal Trade Commission has
>had tough words for the Internet industry for its failure to protect
>privacy rights. Last year, the FTC successfully pressed for a law that
>prohibits Web sites from collecting personal information from children
>without parental permission. Microsoft was a founding member of the
>Online Privacy Alliance, a Washington-based trade group organized last
>year to lobby against new federal privacy laws.
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
> �1999 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.
>-----
>Aloha, He'Ping,
>Om, Shalom, Salaam.
>Em Hotep, Peace Be,
>Omnia Bona Bonis,
>All My Relations.
>Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
>Amen.
>Roads End
>Kris
>
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<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
"From the rage of today's downtrodden comes the revenge of tomorrow's
revolutionary force." Edward Britton ><>
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5285/connector1.html
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DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
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Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
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