LXer: Can Microsoft Remotely Kill Your Windows PC?
 

Published at LXer:

After a blogger recently exposed daily communications between Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) and Microsoft servers, Redmond's response was somewhat unsettling. Officials admitted that the validation checker tasked with protecting Microsoft's digital rights has potential uses beyond those previously disclosed.

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Really Informative and rightly so! Heard abt this much ago. One of the reason why closed-source should not be trusted. Instead of protecting, it actually EXPLOITS!

A little techie:
DISABLE 'AUTOMATIC UPDATES' (NOT ONLY FROM 'MY COMPUTER' PROPERTIES, BUT FROM SERVICES.MSC ALSO)
DISABLE 'SYSTEM RESTORE'-MEANT TO RESTORE YOUR SYSTEM BUT ACTUALLY A HIDING GROUND FROM VIRUS AND MALWARES
DISABLE 'ALERTER'-IT SIMPLY NAGS!
DISABLE 'UPNP', A DEADLY BACKDOOR
DISABLE 'THEMES'-UNNECCESSARILY HOGS YOUR RESOURCES

This stuff makes my heart smile.

As Linux users, we are extremely fortunate.

Life is good!! :D :D :D

Yes rkelsen, we are indeed fortunate. At the least, we don't have to go disable AUTOMATIC UPDATES.

Disabling Automatic Updates does NOT stop your Windows PC from checking in with MS every time you boot. These recent articles, especially the Groklaw one, were the final straw for me. I took Windows off my primary computer yesterday. Still have a copy on my laptop, but I will no longer boot it with the wireless card active. They can keep their 'critical updates.'

When i just finished reading this sentence, I was kinda hoping you were going to tell me what would. Yes there could be many things in such a closed-os that m$ could use to control your pc or in the least report back to them. right now i know only one of them 'Automatic updates'. M$ or no-M$, you must follow TCP/IP rules, thats how I would know what if something mischiveous goes on under my nose.

Liberating isn't it?

Call me a psycho, but I still remember the feeling I got when I deleted Windows 98. From within itself. Piece by stinkin' piece. I made it bleed. It died squealing like a stuck pig. I almost re-installed it just to experience that again! Muhahahahaha...

Anyhow, the next day I went to work and had to use the crap again. It got it's revenge. Several times over the next few years, as it turns out... :cry:

But at least I don't have to use it at home! :D
A hardware firewall? Or maybe you could try Peer Guardian:
http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/

Yes, I would love to delete f..ing windows from my computers but I can't. Linux is to hard to learn and time consuming, I always have problems with libraries, installations take for ever etc etc. I know people that can't handle windows, I could never imagine them with linux. Maybe some day in the future linux will become more user friendly and people will start to dump microsoft and their ugly secret code.

or maybe someday you will become so well versed in linux, you find every other problem nifty! ;)

I hope so, that's the reason haven't quit yet, I want to dump M$.

I find it a little disconcerting that http://www.emailbattles.com/ is not responding at the moment.

OK, it's working now. Never mind. :p

You need to think about things from the perspective of any media conglomerate: If you don't pay your phone bill or your cable bill monthly, they cut you off. If you don't pay your computer bill monthly, Microsoft cuts you off. Your computer stops working. :jawa:

The scenario can even get more draconian. Company-X produces a better media mousetrap. Microsoft wants to buy it. Company-X declines. Microsoft decides that the presence of Company-X's software constitutes a possible infringement upon their digital rights and every Windows machine in the world promptly deletes it. By the time Company-X appeals, they're out of money and gone.

The software environment on your computer, therefore, is something that you do not own, any more than you own the programs played on your television set. You own the hardware, but you don't own what runs on it. You own the work-products (documents and such) but they are subject to "inspection" at any time "to make sure they don't violate any digital rights."

You just invited Big Brother in to live at your home and you pay the rent and the light-bill.

No, I am not joking.

No, I am not engaging in a pleasant bit of hyperbole.

This is something that has been openly discussed for some time, and the Mellinium Digital Copyright Act specifically allows a copyright-holder to be quite invasive in enforcing their rights (as they deem them to be), without a judge-and-jury, without a search warrant, without anything.

You don't like that? Well, hey, I didn't expect it. But let's do the math: I have bezillions of dollars and two dozen key members of Congress on my payroll, and you don't. Money talks, and nobody's listening to you. (One reason why not is that your computer mysteriously stopped working.)

The fly in the ointment, of course, is Linux. There is no way to "buy it," and it runs way-y-y too many servers now (including Google!) to stamp it out.

It would "obviously" be the worst possible scenario for this sort of evil-utopian world vision to come about. These are the same people who opposed, at one time: playing songs on the radio; the cassette tape; the digital DAT tape; the CD burner; sound files. The iPod would never have been invented. One-hour photo development shops would still be a thriving business. :rolleyes: In a word, it would shut-down technical innovation at approximately the 1960's level... and be perfectly content so to do. (Okay, a wee bit of hyperbole now... ;) )

But shenanigans like these need to be exposed. This doesn't reflect the attitude that the common-man has about "a piece of music" or "a television show." The kitchen lights have to be turned on full-bright so that the roach bugs will scatter.

has anyone read this recent LXer posting??

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=453807