Windows 95 and the corporate espionage
Zenon Fortuna
was placed in the comp.risks:
>Date: Wed, 17 May 95 13:44:40 EDT
>From: cnor...@tecnet1.jcte.jcs.mil
>Subject: Microsoft plans corporate espionage
>
> Microsoft officials confirm that beta versions of Windows 95 include a
> small viral routine called Registration Wizard. It interrogates every
> system on a network gathering intelligence on what software is being run
> on which machine. It then creates a complete listing of both Microsoft's
> and competitors' products by machine, which it reports to Microsoft when
> customers sign up for Microsoft's Network Services, due for launch later
> this year.
>
>"In Short" column, page 88, _Information Week_ magazine, May 22, 1995
>
>The implications of this action, and the attitude of Microsoft to plan
>such action, beggars the imagination.
>
>Chris Norloff cnor...@tecnet1.jcte.jcs.mil
Note, that this *digest-ed* info was quoted as coming from the "jcs.mil",
which is the Joint Chiefs of Staff group at the Pentagon.
Zenon
Larry Hastings
>Just for you info, Linux brothers (and sisters) ... the following info
>was placed in the comp.risks:
>> Microsoft officials confirm that beta versions of Windows 95 include a
>> small viral routine called Registration Wizard. It interrogates every
>> system on a network gathering intelligence on what software is being run
>> on which machine. It then creates a complete listing of both Microsoft's
>> and competitors' products by machine, which it reports to Microsoft when
>> customers sign up for Microsoft's Network Services, due for launch later
>> this year.
>>
>>"In Short" column, page 88, _Information Week_ magazine, May 22, 1995
When I read this, I became pretty alarmed. I thought Microsoft would
have to be NUTS to try something like this--weren't they paying attention
during the Prodigy newsfest? So I went and checked it out for myself,
in a nice fresh build of Windows 95. Guess what--Information Week doesn't
know what it's talking about.
In modern Microsoft parlance, a "Wizard" is a bit of software that helps
you with a difficult task by suggesting defaults and presenting easy-to-use
(but lengthy) dialog boxes. (For instance, there's a Wizard in Microsoft
Excel that helps you make your spreadsheets look pretty. You have to wade
through about a dozen dialog boxes to do it, but it's real easy to use;
it's designed for people who use that function once in a blue moon. There's
faster ways to do it, if you know what you are doing, that don't require
the Wizard.)
The Registration Wizard, therefore, is the wizard that steps you through
filling out an electronic registration card. It prompts you for your name,
your address, your first born (just kidding), and so on. It then asks
you if you'd like to enclose your hardware description with the registration;
you have the option of saying no.
Here's the salient part. It will also optionally search your hard drive
for Microsoft software, and send the results in with your registration;
the dialog box says this is so they can "send you product information
tailored to the types of products you use." Here again, you have the
option of saying no.
As far as I can tell, Registration Wizard does NOT:
* search your network
* search for competitors' products (although I'm not 100% sure on this)
* send the information without you knowing it
Note that I've never actually gotten Registration Wizard to _do_ this
part. So far, I've only gotten Registration Wizard to do the normal
name, address, and hardware information parts. It's never even asked
me about product information. The information I've presented here
is based on examining
* all text strings in REGWIZ.EXE
* the resource data of REGWIZ.EXE (string tables & dialogs, mostly)
* the output of REGWIZ.EXE (the files it touched), which contained
blanks for the product information
If Microsoft does something outrageous like Information Week suggests,
you can bet that I'll be marching on Redmond like everybody else. But
from what I can discern, Information Week wrote their press item based
on confusion and apprehension, not on factual data. I expect to see
a retraction from Information Week about that blurb in the near future.
--
larry hastings, the galactic funkster, funk...@hyperion.com
"Your BRAIN is like a COMPUTER of WRONGNESS!" --P. Hartman "Models Amalgamated"
<a href="http://www.hyperion.com/~funkster">My WWW homepage</a>
Joe Sloan
Larry Hastings <funk...@spud.Hyperion.COM> wrote:
>
>When I read this, I became pretty alarmed. I thought Microsoft would
>have to be NUTS to try something like this--weren't they paying attention
>during the Prodigy newsfest? So I went and checked it out for myself,
>in a nice fresh build of Windows 95. Guess what--Information Week doesn't
>know what it's talking about.
I guess you didn't read the posting from the guy that hooked up a packet
sniffer to his windows 95 machine and saw what was going on....
--
Joe Sloan | "UNIX - Live free or die!"
College of Engineering | j...@wintermute.ucr.edu
University Of California | http://neuromancer.ucr.edu/~jjs