Imagine if your car nagged you at every turn of the key because you installed an unapproved radiator. Imagine if your iPhone’s huge screen nagged you because you replaced its dead battery with an unofficial, more powerful one.
We’re getting closer to that reality, thanks to the locals at Microsoft further blurring the line between ownership and licensing.
This morning, Microsoft announced a new phone-home authentication system for Windows 7. Called Windows Activation Technologies (WAT), the update will roll out as a voluntary download on February 16.
Microsoft describes the anti-piracy update as such: Every 90 days, WAT will phone home to check that your copy of Windows 7 is legit. If it’s not, your screen background will turn black, and nag messages will frequently pop up, yet otherwise, “the customer will see no reduced functionality in their copy of Windows.”
Uh, really? There’s at least one catch, according to Internet privacy advocate Lauren Weinstein:
Systems that are considered to be non-genuine also have only limited access to other Microsoft updates of any kind (e.g., access to high priority security updates, but not anything else, may be permitted).
In spite of Microsoft’s attempt at full disclosure, their statement leaves that fact out. Not reassuring.
The biggie here is that the update is “voluntary”—an interesting word choice, as Windows 7, by default, auto-installs updates that are labeled “critical” and “important,” and WAT ranks as the latter. (I just took this opportunity to review my Windows 7 settings, and—hey now!–”important” updates were set to auto-install. Unchecked.)
So who cares? It’s optional for us privacy/tweak freaks, and honest novices won’t care, right? Not so fast. Let’s consider the two likeliest situations in which WAT would kick in:
1) You pirate a copy of Windows 7, and you forget to turn off automatic “important” updates. Windows 7 nags you within a day or two of your install. You sigh, wipe your hard drive clean, and install your pirated copy again.
2) You purchase a Windows machine from somebody on Craigslist, or a refurbished one from a dealer, and you connect it to the Internet, installing all updates with no worries. Your copy of Windows 7 gets labeled “non-genuine” and immediately nags you by taking the high road, indicating that your copy of Windows 7 could be loaded with “malware, viruses, and Trojans.”
The first example proves that WAT is not a true anti-piracy measure; more troubling, the second example proves that it’s not a legitimate anti-malware solution, either. It is, quite elegantly, a means of placing the burden of criminality on the end of a purchase chain. Though WAT does not report user-specific info to Microsoft, leading the FBI to your doorstep, it chooses to auto-cripple Windows 7 before offering constructive info on how to, say, report offending sellers. Even to that extent, it forces innocent users into a “report or else” corner.
And the worst part? MS’s call to statistics—”32% [of pirated copies of Windows 7 obtained online] contained malicious code“—does not disclose their definition of “malicious.” Is there room for interpretation? See, I have downloaded “performance editions” of Windows XP before, which streamlined the older, bloated OS to run faster on my aging, licensed laptop so that I didn’t have to make the tweaks myself. Would a “performance edition” of Windows 7, even with a legit, paid-for product key, get flagged the same way? Without MS’s disclosure of what they mean by “malicious,” I can’t be sure.
What a dumb move, Microsoft. Pirates will laugh it off, blindsided victims will hate it, and the rest of us will read these articles and shake our heads. Worse, the ordeal is another reminder that Microsoft doesn’t sell Windows 7 but licenses it. They deign purchasers worthy of its use, so long as users abide by the legalese that blows past with every click of an “accept” button at the install screen.
