Instructif........

Windows XP Update May Be Classified As "Spyware"

Greetings. There have been some murmurs about this in other forums, but
since I've now independently verified I figured I'd better report here.

A recent Microsoft update to Windows XP, which modifies the tool that
verifies the "validity" of XP installations to insure that they are not
illicit, may itself be considered to be spyware under commonly accepted
definitions.

The new version of the "Microsoft Genuine Advantage" tool reportedly
will repeatedly nag users of systems it declares to be invalid, and will
then apparently deny such users various "non-critical" updates.
Apparently various parties have already found ways to bypass this tool,
though the effects of this on later updating capabilities remain to be seen.

However, I've noted a much more serious issue on local XP systems, all
of which are legit and pass the MS validity tests with flying colors. It
appears that even on such systems, the MS tool will now attempt to
contact Microsoft over the Internet every time that you boot. At least,
I'm seeing these contacts on every boot after the tool update so far,
and I've allowed them to proceed to completion each time. Perhaps it
stops after some number of boots, but there's no indication of such a
limit so far. The connections occur even if you do not have Windows
"automatic update" enabled.

I do not know what data is being sent to MS or is being received during
these connections. I cannot locate any information in the MS
descriptions to indicate that the tool would notify MS each time I
booted a valid system. I fail to see where Microsoft has a "need to
know" for this data after a system's validity has already been
established, and there may clearly be organizations with security
concerns regarding the communication of boot-time information.

I'll leave it to the spyware experts to make a formal determination as
to whether this behavior actually qualifies the tool as spyware.

For now, you can block the tool's connection attempts via firewalls such
as ZoneAlarm, though the long-term ramifications of doing this are
unclear. I do not know if it's possible to block this behavior using the
internal XP firewall system.

This situation is potentially a very disturbing development.

Blog Update (June 6, 2006): Please see this entry for a discussion of
Microsoft's response regarding this issue.