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Interesting tad bit - MS Windows Genuine Advantage Phones Home Every day

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app103:
If you dont want WGA, then you cant use windows update (but you can still get critical updates via auto-update, which microsoft has stated they wont prevent).
-Josh (June 09, 2006, 12:36 PM)
--- End quote ---

They are now forcing WGA for autoupdaters too. You can no longer download automatic updates without receiving WGA as your next update. You can download updates after that even if your pc doesn't pass the test, but you will have nags telling you that your OS isn't 'genuine'. I know quite a few people running pirated versions of XP that have had a problem with this recently. Most rolling back to Win2k or moving to linux because of it. (I guess the nags are working?)

Without WGA installed there are no more updates for any XP users.

My past experiences about a year ago with blocking certain Microsoft IP's has resulted in some odd things...mainly related to receiving updates.

In order to download updates from the Windows Update site, you can't block a specific server that it will do a time check with. You will get an error about your clock being wrong and Windows Update will refuse to work properly.

I thought this was kind of odd, but when I unblocked all Microsoft IP's Windows Update site began working properly again.

I tried to unblock them one at a time to find the right combo but that only fixed the problem temporarily, as they keep changing the server they use for the time check. I had to unblock them all eventually.

I can be the paranoid type sometimes and didn't think my OS needed to phone home without me knowing about it or agreeing to it or knowing what for.

I have come across a few things in the past to justify this blocking behavior. Namely the spyware that used to be included with MSN Messenger that they at first claimed wasn't part of their product, that would reinstall itself every time you ran MSN if you tried to disable it. They have since removed this from MSN. (do some research on the history of the mysterious loadqm.exe)

Also there have been some reports/rumors about the WMF exploit being something deliberately written into the WMF specifications by Microsoft in case they ever needed to use it as a backdoor to force install anything they needed/wanted to on a user's pc...by just displaying a graphic on their site...or as an ad on another site....or by other means of getting you to view the graphic.

The fact that some 9x versions of windows are affected by this and Microsoft refuses to issue an update to fix it before the end of life & end of updates this month kind of bothers me. We have been waiting since January for an official fix. Do they have some nasty stuff planned for 9x users to get them to upgrade against their will? Or are they just being lazy? Or by not patching it, do they think older machines will suddenly be able to run a newer version of windows and they can make some more money? I don't know but I am patched against the problem on my WinME machine despite their lack of fix for it.

Now about IP's....Your IP is like the house number on your front door. Just knowing it doesn't give someone a way in. And hiding it is like trying to take the numbers off your door in order to hide your house. It's silly and can have some negative results. Imagine doing that in real life and then ordering a pizza or calling a taxi.

Everything you do online is tied to your IP. Without it you get no web pages...no antivirus updates, nothing. All servers you connect to from the time you log in online till the time you go offline will get your IP...and even more info...like what operating system you use...or what browser you are using and the version of it. If you don't like it, the only solution is to pull the plug on your connection and not have an IP.

There are the paranoid types that think knowing someone's IP means they can crack into your computer. It's not as simple as that. It would be like saying that your house can get robbed if you put a number on the front door and keep the place securely locked but by removing it and leaving the front door unlocked it will somehow save you from being robbed. (It's not the house number that is the problem here.)

But everyday I saw people in my chatroom that were very paranoid about others knowing their IP. We openly displayed it when you entered the room for the purposes of being able to block gross misbehavers and identify impersonators of people we know....and to be able to report peddlers of child pornography to the proper authorities (yes we have seen a few of these in the room)

I have also seen some idiots trying to scare people with the "I got your IP" line, perpetuating that kind of paranoia. So much that I started displaying mine as part of my username in the room just to prove a point. I think quite a few of my admins did too to prove the same point. (one of the guys in the room displayed 127.0.0.1 as part of his username for many years as a joke about us doing it, even after we stopped). We all did notice one strange effect by displaying our IP's so openly...we all got fewer port scans showing up in our firewall logs. :huh:

Carol Haynes:
WGA stops you downloading updates but not installing them. If you have access to a legitimate copy of Windows with WGA then you can simply download all the patches manually and move them any other computers you like.

Personally I think WGA is a bigger security risk and won't prohibit piracy. I guess that a lot of patches will appear on P2P networks and cracker sites to avoid WGA and then God alone knows what will be in those payloads! The nasties probably won't just affect the idots downloading them that way but have a knock on effect to the rest of us with new viruses/trojans getting into other people's systems.

Josh:
app103: i must say that is a very well written reply.

In response to you win9x issues, Since Win98 and WinME have reached their end of lifecycle, there will be no more patches for either OS. This is a good thing, in my eyes, since win9x/me were based on an inferior code base. Security wasnt put into mind when designing these os's. Windows NT/2K/XP were built on an entirely different codebase and as such, had a different goal in mind. Now, the WMF bug was code left over from back when the internet was as known, and as such, microsoft didnt add checks for possible buffer overflow/underruns. That is why that exploit became so widespread, because it was designed to work a specific way on an OS that wasnt designed for widespread net use.

f0dder:
I'm with Josh here.

Microsoft wouldn't intentionally put a backdoor in windows, it would be too much outrage if it was discovered. And with the 55% win2k source leak and even more of the NT4 source, well, it would have been found out.

As for the WMF problem, I really doubt it was planted intentionally. It looks more like a careless reuse of code to me. Of course nutjobs like Steve Gibson claim otherwise, but they're nutjobs after all.

As for WGA, the data it sends back is "like, whatever". But I don't like any kind of "call back home", whether it sends sensitive data or not. It's simply uncalled for, and while you might say "but it doesn't send any personal info" is a slope of acceptance that'll quickly lead us to a nasty Big Brother situation.

app103:
app103: i must say that is a very well written reply.

In response to you win9x issues, Since Win98 and WinME have reached their end of lifecycle, there will be no more patches for either OS. This is a good thing, in my eyes, since win9x/me were based on an inferior code base. Security wasnt put into mind when designing these os's. Windows NT/2K/XP were built on an entirely different codebase and as such, had a different goal in mind. -Josh (June 10, 2006, 11:59 AM)
--- End quote ---

That doesn't mean that suddenly there will be drivers for all my old hardware that will work with an OS other than Win95/98/ME. (as is the case with my P1)

And don't confuse security with stability, which was the major difference between the 2 code bases.(how it handles memory use) The security differences are from the desk chair point of view, as NT allows you to limit what someone sitting in your chair can do. This was to prevent employee tampering. Something you shouldn't have to worry about at home if you supervise your children like you should be doing.

My choice as a home user was influenced by the sales pitch I was given that said that WinME was better for home use than Win2k, because Win2k was meant for business use where people didn't play games. I was even told that Win2k was deliberately made bad for games, in order to discourage people from playing games when they should be working. This was the sales pitch for WinME and ultimately why I ended up with it on my P3, instead of Win2k like my father had on an identical PC bought at the same time as mine. They could have made a bit more money if they told us the truth, as I would have wanted Win2k instead.

And Microsoft knew that the WMF issue needed to be fixed back in January, and they did fix it for an OS that is just as old as my WinME. (Win2k) End of updates wasn't supposed to happen till June. They still owe us this update as far as I am concerned.

And personally I feel as if they owe WinME users, in particular, updates for as long as they are still supplying updates for Win2k, since the ages of both OS's are the same.

And IE 6 users of all versions of Windows... except 9x... will still get their holes patched. That means that they still plan on supporting IE 6. There should be patches for all versions of Windows that IE 6 can possibly be run on till they decide to no longer support it on any version of Windows....like they did with IE 5. They patched that on all Windows versions till they decided not to patch it on any version. They didn't single out anybody based on OS.

WinME users have always been handed the short end of the stick and cheated by Microsoft. If they were not going to give us what we were due, the least they could have done was give us the option of some steep discounts on an upgrade version of Windows that they planned on really supporting or refund us some of the money we shelled out for WinME...a long time ago.

And I know there are plenty of people that would agree with me on that. Plenty of WinME users feel as though that was the OS that should have been the first OS in history to be recalled, like you recall a bad car or dangerous toy or some other seriously defective merchandise.

btw...have you noticed that most of the major exploits that have been publicized the last few years have been for NT based versions of Windows while 9x has been IMMUNE to them? (sasser & blaster are the first 2 to come to mind) So much for NT being 'more secure'.  :P

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