Re: [Off Topic] Windows Genuine Advantage

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

Harry Binswanger wrote:
> this software checks fortnightly to see that you don't have a pirated version
> of Windows. And that using it is a precondition of getting updates to
> the OS. What's threatening about that? Seems perfectly reasonable.
To check ONCE would be reasonable. To check every two
weeks? (And I believe the initial release did it more
often). How, pray tell, would a legitimate copy somehow
become illegitimate? And there are reliable reports
that perfectly legit copies, originally accepted as
such, where subsequently flagged as pirated.
What has a lot of people in a snit is the underhanded
MO. You only get asked permission after something has
downloaded (see the groklaw discussion whose URL I
posted here a few weeks ago, given me by Wendell
Cochran of this list, who called my attention to the
whole mess). And the fact that nobody knows what other
information about your system M$ is gathering. (I am a
respectable old maid of blameless life, but I did not
give--and shall not give--BBBG permission to rummage
about on my hard drive.) And the fact that the initial
version was in fact a beta, but M$ didn't reveal that
when it offered to download it. (That came out after
the false positives for pirated copies surfaced.)
> Is the problem that it may not be limited to doing that?
IN large part. Also the fact that the thing is in two
parts, and your permission is only asked when it is in
effect too late to refuse.


--
Patricia M. Godfrey
PriscaMG@xxxxxxxx