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WGA phone home


Jazkal

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First off, I want to remind everyone of the following rule:

Discussion of circumventing WGA/activation/timebombs/keygens or any other illegal activity will also not be tolerated.

CYA.

Two web articles, the first from the Inquirer:

Microsoft admits XP phones home every day

the second from Yahoo News:

Microsoft plans better disclosures of tool

What total crap Microsoft is pulling, totally unethical IMO.

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I know, i guess i can understand it checking once, but after it finds a legal xp install it should uninstall its self, leaveing some marker that it has validated the install. or maybe it should only run when automatic updates is installing updates.

imho, it is a bad move by MS to have this program in the first place. makeing it even worse is that it contacts them daily...and on top of that they forgot to point out this "feature" ?

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Now I certainly don't want that on my system, legit or not.

I think the EFF would be interested in this... it's similar to spyware.

Edited by LLXX
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... it's similar to spyware.

Not entirely accurate. Spyware sends and recieves data used in a malicious intent or to produce a profit. WGA recieves a value from the server whether to run or not. It's not used for profit but rather to reduce loss of profit by theft.

Everyone to jumping to conclusions in this day that somehting is against privacy or some sort of spyware because it acts in a way you didn't know. Oh my! Forgive the developer for NOT diclosing every little detail about a program to you. Quite frankly, you have no right to say they have to. You can request and demand all you want, but they're sitll not required.

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Spyware sends and recieves data used in a malicious intent or to produce a profit. WGA recieves a value from the server whether to run or not. It's not used for profit but rather to reduce loss of profit by theft.

As far as I know, there isn't any "legal" definition for "spyware". And by your personal definition:

"Spyware sends and recieves data used in a malicious intent or to produce a profit."

Lets break apart your definition into it's 3 component parts:

1) It does send and receive data.

2) "malicious intent" could be assumed because they didn't inform us of this "feature", mainly because (IMHO), they knew it would not be well received.

3) You even agreed this was done for the main reason to increase their profit.

So by your own definition, it is "spyware".

Everyone to jumping to conclusions in this day that somehting is against privacy or some sort of spyware because it acts in a way you didn't know. Oh my! Forgive the developer for NOT diclosing every little detail about a program to you. Quite frankly, you have no right to say they have to. You can request and demand all you want, but they're sitll not required.

You are entitled to your opinion. Personally, IMO, they stepped over the line with this one. I don't expect Microsoft to explain all the details of all the products they release, they are Microsoft after all (I mean hey, they are a convicted Monopolist). When my own computer starts treating me like a criminal, it's time to start questioning the designer. And you are right, they don't have to answer to our demands and requests, but they do have to deal with those that decide enough is enough ($$ the bottom line $$).

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M$ is shooting in their own foot with this one: Poeple knowing that will want free, pirated version of windows only because they don't like spywares.

Poeple were already p***ed at the XP online checking after hardware change. So I don't know...

IMVHO when you pay $150 for a software you don't want it to dial up and check if you realy have paid that much.

Curiousely, free and pirated version won't do that.

Maybe they don't intend to use the data other than for checking the validity of your installation, but the European commission will be happy to fine M$ another billion for anti-spyware law breach anyway. :)

Edited by Fredledingue
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Personally, I'm on both sides of the fence on this.

Should it be really necessary to check with the server everyday? Probably not. How would the same computer change from one day to the next? Only if the XP installation is found to have a non-legit key should it keep calling home - or at least one that doesn't pass the internal check, in which case all it should take is a phone call to MS to sort things out.

Does it affect my day-to-day productivity at all? Not really. If the program starts up, connects, and then closes, all in the background and without me knowing it, it's not that big of a deal. It's the somewhat dangerous "out of sight, out of mind" thinking. TBH I've actually never even seen the tray icon. :unsure:

@JazKal - IMO, malicious is when it starts to do harm to your system, like the typical malware that we all hear about daily. This tool doesn't do any damage, nor does it erase your files or the like. As for profit - Alanoll made the distinction between making profit and preventing profit loss - there's a subtle difference between the two. Microsoft is entitled to a certain amount of profit based on the number of computers that are running Windows (and/or other MS products). The WGA tool is simply trying to make sure the numbers match up.

In the end, there's the old saying: "Insanity is trying the same thing over and over, expecting different results each time." :P

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Yes it does do damage to some people, maybe not you. But I posted last week how it greatly affected my fps from games.......you basically called me a liar about it and threatened me with warnings and "slippery slopes", which I addressed a few mins ago......tough guy.

WGA doesn't continually run though, so there's no performance loss. The only time it DOES run is during startup and whether you're running a pirated copy.

The WGA Check that installs from Windows Update and the Microsoft has ONE program that runs, and exits when satisfied. Whether or not your copy is legal, you may not have right access to a file it saves or any other number of variances that are caused by you.

I have WGATRAY.EXE run every startup, and exits within a second or two. After that, there is NOTHING. Nor do I recieve any WGA notifications in the system tray. Out of curiousity, did you use nLite or change any system settings or remove any components?

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Alanol,

How does WGA reacts when there is no connection or when datas are not received/sent?

Are you still able to use your computer for example?

Now consider that 100 millions PC has to conect to the M$ server everyday, that makes 36 billions connections per year.

IMO I'm not sure that it was wise to do that. M$ customer center will be flooded with complains and questions from the 0.005% of error amongst the 36 bln connections.

In all seriouseness I don't imagine that this is economicaly viable unless you resell or use some personal datas in the process.

And make no mistake: 6 months after Vista will be released, they will "find" a security flaw that requires an internet update unavailable without WGA.

Poeple who have pirated XP will stick with their pirated version. They will never give $150 (let alone $500 for pro) for XP or Vista whatever M$ does.

If you want to sell a lot you have to be cheap or only those who can afford will buy.

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@Fredilingue - I think I hear what you're saying, but people are willing to lay down quite a bit of money on the hardware for their system. When it comes to the pirated versions of XP, it's basically a tradeoff between a new 300GB hard drive and an operating system. The only difference is that if you were to steal the hard drive, the local cops would come after you. ;)

And I can buy a licence for XP Pro OEM from my favorite computer shop for $150 CAD, XP Home for $100. :)

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Maybe in Canada copyright theft is considered a criminal theft, but in the USA, it's not. I'm not condoning anyone that does pirate software, that not what I'm saying.

You steal a hard drive, the cops will charge you with a crime.

You pirate software over the internet, then the affected parties can sue you in a civil court. Big difference IMO.

And the way things are going, I think it will soon be a changed here in the USA. I think that is a big shame, as I think the cops should be out there looking "bad" criminals, ones that hurt other people.

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you would think that MS is smart enough to know that they are fighting a losing battle with WGA...the programmers at MS writing the codes to Vista and XP are only 1/3 as smart as the Pirate Coders and Reverse Engineer Pirates.....the percentage of pirated copies to legal copies is so small it wouldn't cover a gnats (_|_).....and is only making the majority of the legal percentage mad and suffering the blunt of MS Stupity and Greed....Bill Gates needs to worry about the Chinese. :yes:

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You pirate software over the internet, then the affected parties can sue you in a civil court. Big difference IMO.
What part of the US do you live in? Pirating software is considered theft in the least, and copyright infringement at worst. The first considering the price of hte software is a Class C Misdemeanor in Texas (punishable by up to $5000 fine and 2-3 years in prison), and copyright infringement is a federal offense where the punishment is substantially more. Even after THAT, Microsoft can then sue you.

As for the MS engineers not being as smart as the hackers....i would have to disagree. They are equally as smart. Speaking as a software developer myself, you try to make things work. You don't think "How could this possibly be misused?" because you're entirely focuses on getting it to work. Hackers on the other hand already have the software written and they just must find the hole in the code that the developer never thought of. When you make a GUI, you try to think of every way an user to screw it up (whether entering a non-usable value, or clicking something or what have you) and even after that, there's those few users that find SOMEOTHER way that you would NEVER have thought of to use the GUI and thus leads to over concerns.

I think the cops should be out there looking "bad" criminals, ones that hurt other people.

I would agree with you there. If you ever look at some of the laws....it's considered a more major offense to download a movie from the internet then to kill someone (i'm talking man slaughter not Murder 1). Download a movie can lead to 20 years in prison, Man Slaughter is 10-15. There are other laws in place that are similar that were enacted though input from the "intellectual property owners". It's not like killing anyone, or molesting children, or rape, or anything like that are serious or anything right?

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I just think it's more of an annoyance to users of legit copies than pirated ones.

Those who use pirated Windows obviously know what cracks are and aren't afraid to use them, and defeating WGA is by no means difficult compared to some of the other software copy-protection systems out there. Thus the intent of WGA as an anti-piracy measure is an absolute failure.

On the other hand, there are those using legit Windows, who don't want to use cracks, and thus are affected by the annoyances that WGA causes. It's having no effect at all on the pirates, but does have negative effects on those who are using "Genuine Microsoft® Software"

...and BTW there are copyright laws here where I am, but nobody cares about them :lol:

Edited by LLXX
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