Newsgroup: it.comp.sicurezza.windows
Titolo: La Microsoft ci spia 2

Tempo fa scrissi su it.comp.sicurezza.varie un post in cui riferivo le
voci che circolano piu' o meno diffusamente su possibili violazioni
della privacy da parte della Microsoft nei riguardi degli utenti (o
utonti?) che hanno installato Windows, e dopo un lungo thread si giunse
alla conclusione che era solo una leggenda metropolitana.
Oggi pero' al TG1 delle 13.30 ho visto un servizio che trattava proprio
di questo tema a riguardo di Windows 98...
Chi ne sa qcs di piu'?
 Tenendo conto di tutte le scemenze che dicono di solito in TV, ho
pensato che poteva essere interessante approfondire qui
quest'argomento...dopo l'Intel anche lo zio Bill ci vuole schedare uno
per uno? :-\
Ciao
Newbie 1.1

...

Su la Repubblica.it di oggi c'e'  l'articolo su winsozz98:ricapitolando,dice
che ogni documento prodotto con word o excel lascia una firma digitale che
identifica l'autore,c'e'  scritto chi l'ha scoperto e le scuse ridicole
della ms.
ciao da Reno





della ms.
Scusa se mi intrometto: tutto qui?
No, perche' se stai parlando del fatto che i documenti Office si
portano dietro un header nel quale sono riportati autore, chi ha fatto
l'ultimo salvataggio, date varie eccetera, non mi pare affatto ne' una
novita' ne' una cosa che fosse nascosta... sono tutte informazioni
leggibili nelle proprieta' del documento...
Dimmi se c'e' dell'altro...
Jojo

>>>   
fea...@tin.it
   <<<<
cin...@iperbole.bologna.it

 Dimmi se c'e' dell'altro...
<BEGIN REPORT>
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/03/biztech/articles/07soft.html
March 7, 1999
Microsoft to Alter Software in Response to Privacy Concerns
By JOHN MARKOFF
SAN FRANCISCO -- The Microsoft Corporation moved to defuse a potentially
explosive privacy issue today, saying it would modify a feature of its
Windows 98 operating system that has been quietly used to create a vast
data base of personal information about computer users.
Microsoft conceded that the feature, a unique identifying number used by
Windows and other Microsoft products, had the potential to be far more
invasive than a traceable serial number in the Intel Corporation's new
Pentium III that has privacy advocates up in arms. The difference is that
the Windows number is tied to an individual's name, to identifying numbers
on the hardware in his computer and even to documents that he creates.
The combination of the Windows number with all these data, the company
said, could result in the ability to track a single user and the documents
he created across vast computer networks. Hackers could compromise the
resulting data base, or subpoenas might allow authorities to gain access
to information that would otherwise remain private and unavailable.
Privacy advocates fear that availability will lead to abuses.
"We're definitely sensitive to any privacy concerns," Robert Bennett,
Microsoft's group product manager for Windows, said.
"The software was not supposed to send this information unless the
computer user checked a specific option."
Mr. Bennett said the option to collect the information had been added to
the software so that Microsoft support employees would be able to help
users diagnose problems with their computers more accurately. He said the
Redmond, Wash., software giant had never intended to use the data for
marketing purposes.
In response to a complaint from a software programmer in Massachusetts,
Microsoft will not only alter the way the registration program works in
the next maintenance release of Windows 98, Mr. Bennett said. He said
Microsoft technicians would look through the company's data bases and
expunge information that had been improperly collected as a result of
earlier versions.
The company is also exploring the possibility of creating a free utility
program that would make it possible for Windows users to delete the serial
number information from a small data base in the part of Windows system
known as the registry, where it is now collected.
Microsoft has been discussing the issue with a Cambridge, Mass.,
programmer who contacted the company earlier this week after discovering
that the Microsoft Office business software was creating unique numbers
identifying a user's personal computer and embedding them in spreadsheet
and word processing documents.
The programmer, Robert M. Smith, who is the president of Phar Lap Software
Inc., a software tools development company, told the company that he
believed the practice created a potential threat to privacy. 
Microsoft officials said earlier this week that the numbers generated by
the company's software were part of an effort to keep different components
from interfering with each other in an increasingly complex world of
networked computers.
However, Mr. Smith said that the number, in effect, created a "digital
fingerprint" that could be used to match a document created by a word
processing or spreadsheet program with a particular computer.
On Thursday, after further studying the "registration wizard" -- the
software module that enables customers to register their copies of Windows
98 operating system for support and updates -- Mr. Smith discovered that
the number, known as a Globally Unique Identifier, was being transmitted
to Microsoft as part of a list of registration information that generally
includes the owner's name, address, phone number and other demographic
information as well as details about the hardware and software on or
attached to the user's computer.
"Microsoft never asked me if it was O.K. to send in this number, and they
never said it was being sent," Mr. Smith said. "They are apparently
building a data base that relates Ethernet adapter addresses to personal
information."
Ethernet adapters are cards inserted in a personal computer that enable it
to connect to high-speed networks within organizations and through them to
the Internet. 
The controversy erupted just weeks after Intel, maker of the most widely
used processors for machines that use the Windows operating system, agreed
to make it possible for computer manufacturers to set its new Pentium III
computer chip so that a serial number on the chip would not be recorded
without the computer user's permission.
Privacy activists have been attacking both companies, arguing that
identification numbers can be easily misused to create electronic
monitoring systems. Such systems could track a computer user's behavior in
cyberspace or create dossiers of personal information about individuals.
The issue has sparked a heated debate over the fundamental technology of
modern computer networks and software systems, which routinely employ
serial numbers to identify individual computers and software modules,
known as "objects," that can be shared by a number of programs.
But the Intel number only identified a computer. The Windows number
identifies a person. And because the Windows number created a potential
linkage between individuals and confidential documents they created,
privacy advocates said they were outraged.
"I think this is horrendous," said Jason Catlett, president of
Junkbusters, a consumer privacy organization based in Greenbrook, N.J. 
"They're tattooing a number into each file. Think of the implications. If
some whistle blower sends a file, it can be traced back to the person
himself. It's an extremely dangerous feature. Why did they do it?"
Privacy groups have long warned about the dangers of centralized
information and of monitoring electronic behavior. The groups have been
discussing the implications of the serial number on the Pentium III with
Intel, and while some privacy advocates acknowledge that the number can
play an important role in protecting both privacy and security, others
have called for a boycott of Intel, arguing that the likelihood of misuse
of the number outweighs its benefits.
Beyond the fear of a centralized Big Brother, they add that the rise of
the Internet has made it possible for individual companies to freely use
detailed personal information for commercial ends.
"The problem is the absence of legal rules that limit the collection and
use of personal information," said Marc Rotenberg, director of the
Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington.
"It's clear to me that large Internet companies such as Microsoft, AOL and
Netscape will try to squeeze out privacy."
Microsoft executives said on Friday evening that they had developed the
feature for technical reasons related to the need to distinguish between
millions of different hardware and software objects on the Internet. They
said they had never considered the privacy implications.
According to Microsoft software engineers, the roots of the company's
numbering system go back to a system developed by computer researchers at
the Open Software Foundation in Cambridge in the early 1990's.
In an effort to develop technology that would enable computer systems to
communicate across a network, a numbering system known as a Universally
Unique Identifier, or UUID, was established as part of a software standard
known as the Distributed Computing Environment, or DCE. Microsoft relied
on this standard when it developed a remote computing capability for
Windows known as Object Linking and Embedding, or OLE.
The company's designers changed UUID to GUID, for Globally Unique
Identifier, and that term is now widely used by software applications.
For example, the GUID is used in setting "cookies" -- files that World
Wide Web sites send to a visitor's hard drive to identify the user later
and to track his or her travels through the Web. 
<END REPORT>
Ciao e scusate il post lungo, ma sufficientemente esaustivo...
	Gundam