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Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA), Microsoft's controversial online validation system, has a formidable new opponent in the shape of Beijing University student Lu Feng. The WGA Notification program validates the copy of the Windows operating system against the hardware you are using, by downloading an ActiveX control which decides whether or not it is counterfeit, before letting you have access to services such as non-critical updates. It then stores a special licence file on your PC. Those with copies of Windows WGA doesn't like, get persistent messages telling them they are using pirated software. Microsoft has caught and sued a number of companies who were selling unlicensed copies to unsuspecting users. WGA is a requirement for use of automatic updates, although Microsoft themselves admit it is perfectly legal to run XP or Vista without it. Every user, even with unvalidated Windows, receives critical security updates. In its original form, WGA phoned Microsoft every day, and checked for updated configuration files. Widely disliked, WGA has been the subject of a number of lawsuits involving invasion of privacy and local anti-spyware legislation, and Microsoft has been steadily toning down its more invasive characteristics with each successive release -although with Vista, it has begun disable features of systems it believes to be counterfeit. However, WGA is not only heavy-handed, but also not particularly accurate, with even Microsoft admitting that one percent of honest users -and that's a fair few millions- return “false positives” identifying them as pirates; while some press estimates put the number of false positives as high as 22 percent. Believing that WGA Notification program violated the safety of his personal information as well as his privacy, Lu Feng is suing both Microsoft Corporation and Microsoft (China) Company Ltd. The First Intermediate People's Court of Beijing has accepted the case. Lu Feng fears that Microsoft could use WGA Notification to gather both information about his computer and personal information and data, which “posed a great threat to the information safety of his computer and his privacy and prevented users from exercising their property rights toward their computers,” according to a report by the China Internet Information Center. Moreover, in the process of installing the program, Microsoft “excluded his legal rights through a formal contract and failed in their duty to inform him, therefore impinging upon the legal rights and interests enjoyed by the consumers and end users”. Lu Feng wants Microsoft to delete the computer information and personal information they have obtained from him, provide an unload tool to get rid of the WGA Notification program, make an apology in a national newspaper, and pay 1,350 yuan (US$88.28) in compensation. Microsoft is so far making no comment on the case. Microsoft is however blaming human error - loading the wrong software onto the live WGA Notification servers - for an incident in late August which led to around 12,000 legitimate Vista and XP owners being told they had pirate copies. This was particularly hard on luckless Vista users, who had features such as the Aero graphical interface and Readyboost disabled. Nick Langley Sep 13, 2007 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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