-Caveat Lector-
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25956.html
-----
MS security patch EULA gives Billg admin privileges on your box
By Thomas C Greene in Washington
Posted: 30/06/2002 at 05:56 GMT
If you caught our recent coverage of the Windows Media Player trio of
security holes you may have followed a link to the TechNet download site for
a patch, or you might have activated Windows Update. If you did the former
(though, oddly, not if you did the latter), you would have been confronted
with an End User License Agreement (EULA) stating, most ominously, that:
"You agree that in order to protect the integrity of content and software
protected by digital rights management ('Secure Content'), Microsoft may
provide security related updates to the OS Components that will be
automatically downloaded onto your computer. These security related updates
may disable your ability to copy and/or play Secure Content and use other
software on your computer. If we provide such a security update, we will use
reasonable efforts to post notices on a web site explaining the update."
"Reasonable efforts to post notices" somewhere on the Web. I think it's clear
from the wording that MS has absolutely no intention of bringing this
behavior to our attention.
Instead, Microsoft has just assumed the right to attack your computer and
surreptitiously install code of its choosing. You will not be warned; you
will not be offered an opportunity examine the download or refuse it. MS will
simply connect remotely and install what it will, or install it secretly when
you contact them.
This means MS will have administrator privileges on your personal computer.
What they feed you may be infected with viruses; it may break your
applications, corrupt data files, destroy weeks or months or even years of
work, but you'll have no recourse if it does. By downloading this WMP
critical security patch, which you must do to operate WMP safely, you'll
agree to give Billg deed and title to your personal property and to leave
Microsoft immune from legal retaliation if they damage your machine.
The pusillanimity of wrapping what amounts to a digital land-grant into a
needed, critical security patch is matched only by the arrogance of assuming
that Windows is now such a fundamental linchpin of a human life worth living
that no retaliation in the courts or at the retail counters is conceivable.
(And that's not to mention 'informal' retaliation by outraged IP warriors,
which we fully expect to see.)
We've heard the Billg rubbish about Trustworthy Computing until we're sick to
death of the trivial incantation. Ironically, Microsoft has just taken steps
to make the Internet immensely more untrustworthy than it already is. When we
know that arbitrary code will be secretely installed on our connected boxes
by software vendors who are not accountable for the damage they may do, any
issue of trust is obliterated.
May I suggest my (personally) favorite solution to that problem? �
-----
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
All My Relations.
Omnia Bona Bonis,
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis-
directions 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, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
