M$ && Sending files back? [was: SOT: w2k alters mbr]

[chy at genuity.com (Chuck Young)]

Guys,

I was just wondering if I had missed something like what John was alluding
to in the EULA.  Thanks for the snippet wiz as Homey don't normally read all
that shite.  I have read the GPL though :-)

I would be highly enraged if anyone could *legally* download any file I had
created using their software from my computer for any purpose they wanted,
and it was made legal via some EULA.  I've come to expect it from ongoing
vulnerabilities and cyber-hooligans who are able to defeat current
protection, and I would hope my government would be kind enough to present a
warrant before searching or seizing anything I had saved to whirling
magnetic media, but a vendor - no way.  Who knows?

---------------
Chuck Young
Security Consulting
Genuity E-Services
--------------------

-----Original Message-----
From: Keller, Tim [mailto:Tim.Keller at stratus.com]
Sent: Monday, June 17, 2002 11:59 AM
To: 'Chuck Young'
Cc: discuss at blu.org
Subject: RE: M$ && Sending files back? [was: SOT: w2k alters mbr]


Chuck,

I'm not sure about John's statement, but I do know that the EULA that you
sign when you download Microsoft Media Player has the following paragraph in
it:

*	Digital Rights Management (Security).  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.

After reading this Gem of legalese, I take it to mean that microsoft can at
its own discretion decide what you can or can not run on your machine.  If
it feels that "Tim's magical music ripper" is being used to rip cd's into a
format that lacks some form of Digital Rights Management built into it, they
could send down an update that would inhibit it from running.

Thanks,
Tim.

-----Original Message-----
From: Chuck Young [mailto:chy at genuity.com]
Sent: Monday, June 17, 2002 11:18 AM
To: John Chambers
Cc: discuss at blu.org
Subject: RE: M$ && Sending files back? [was: SOT: w2k alters mbr]


Of course I've never read all of the EULA, but is the statement:

"by booting W2K you've also given them permission to send any of your files
back
to headquarters, to use as they wish."

really true?  Just askin' for a rundown on where that came from.  I'm not an
advocate of MS, but I'd like to know if this is the real deal or if you are
just taking poetic liberties here.  I mean, I like poetry too...

---------------
Chuck Young
Security Consulting
Genuity E-Services
--------------------

-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-admin at blu.org [mailto:discuss-admin at blu.org]On Behalf Of
John Chambers
Sent: Monday, June 17, 2002 10:58 AM
To: discuss at blu.org
Subject: Re: SOT: w2k alters mbr


| Buying a new computer, (o joy, (note lowercase)),
| I get w2k with it.
|
| Being a curious sort I install it, everything
| works okay except that w2k sets itself (hda3)
| active, stealing the next boot.
|
| Is there any way to stop w2k from doing this,
| or to have grub fix it?

So they're still doing  this.   A  couple  years  ago,  I  found  the
paragraph  in  one  of MS's pages of fine print where they state that
Windows will check all the partitions during  a  boot,  and  any  not
containing a valid MS OS may be marked non-bootable.  This is to help
you,  of  course,  since  you  wouldn't  want  to  be   confused   by
accidentally booting a partition that doesn't contain a valid OS.

I also found another paragraph which states that by  running  the  MS
OS,  you  give  them permission to do as they wish to any file on the
disk.  So you should be glad  they  only  modified  the  master  boot
record.   By  running  W2K,  you've given them permission to wipe the
linux partition clean.  You might also make sure that you don't  have
anything on your disk that you don't want MS to use, since by booting
W2K you've also given them permission to send any of your files  back
to headquarters, to use as they wish.

Of course, if you  wanted  to  challenge  this  in  court,  it  would
probably be declared illegal. But you first make sure that you have a
couple million $ in your legal fund ...

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