Agent Uprise Posted February 22, 2002 Share Posted February 22, 2002 Agent- Apparently AOLs' winamp does the same. AP- Microsoft's new version of its popular Media Player software is logging the songs and movies that customers play. WASHINGTON - Microsoft's new version of its popular Media Player software is logging the songs and movies that customers play. The company changed its privacy statement Wednesday to notify customers about the technology after inquiries from The Associated Press. The system creates a list on each computer that could be a treasure for marketing companies, lawyers or others. Microsoft says it has no plans to sell the data collected by Media Player 8, which comes free with the Windows XP (news - web sites) operating system. The company said last month it had sold more than 17 million copies of Windows XP. "If you're watching DVDs you don't want your wife to know about, you might not want to give her your password," said David Caulton, Microsoft's lead program manager for Windows Media. The media player has been bundled as a free addition to Windows for several years and allows users to play music CDs, DVD movies and digitally stored songs on their computers. When a CD is played, the player downloads the disc name and titles for each song from a Web site licensed by Microsoft. That information is stored on a small file on each computer in the latest version of the software. The new version released with Windows XP last fall also added the same technology for DVD movies. Microsoft's original privacy statement informed customers that they were downloading the information about CDs but never stated it was being stored in a log file on each computer. The new statement makes clear that information is being downloaded for both DVDs and CDs, but does not explain how users can eliminate or get into the log file. "It definitely could have been clearer and more specific about DVDs," Caulton said. Clearing the list of songs and movie titles would cripple Media Player. Stopping the program from collecting any more information would mean changing the software's settings, but that would disable Internet broadcasts. As part of downloading the information about songs and movies from the Web site, the program also transmits an identifier number unique to each user on the computer. That creates the possibility that user habits could be tracked and sold for marketing purposes. Privacy experts said they feared the log file could be used by investigators, divorce lawyers, snooping family members, marketing companies or others interested in learning about a person's entertainment habits. It also could be used to make sure users have paid for the music or movie, and have not made an illegal copy. "The big picture might be the owners of intellectual property wanting to track access to their property," said Peter Swire, a law professor at Ohio State University. Microsoft said the program creates the log file so a user does not have to download repeatedly the same track, album or movie information. The company said the ID number was created simply to allow Media Players users to have a personal account on the Web site dealing with the software. Neither is sold or shared with others, and no information is collected on Microsoft's servers that would be personally identifiable, officials said. "This is essentially a case where it (the ID) doesn't serve any purpose and it isn't used," Caulton said. Jonathan Usher, another Windows Media executive, said Microsoft has no plans to market aggregate information about its customers' viewing habits, but would not rule it out. "If users tell us that they want the ability to get recommendations, that's something we could look into on the behalf of users," Usher said. In a recent memo, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates (news - web sites) ordered his company to check for privacy and security concerns before adding new features. "Users should be in control of how their data is used," Gates wrote. "Policies for information use should be clear to the user. Users should be in control of when and if they receive information to make best use of their time." Privacy researcher Richard Smith, who researched how Media Player stored and transmitted the information, questioned why the program has to give chapter information for DVDs at all because almost all discs have chapter listings in an interactive menu within the movie. He said the feature seems to conflict with Gates' directive. "You can really see the Microsoft culture coming through that Gates wants to change. These guys are digging in their heels," he said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
REGULATOR Posted February 22, 2002 Share Posted February 22, 2002 doh...now they know about all the porn im watching Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tue skinny Posted February 22, 2002 Share Posted February 22, 2002 dam, i didnt know about that. i have xp so ive been using that shit.thanks for the information. theyve also know of all the porn i have and watched on my computer, dam. i tell you. what next there probly monitering the aim.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
and now you choke Posted February 22, 2002 Share Posted February 22, 2002 who's the lying, dirty scumbags? microsoft or the porn viewers? microsoft. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaesthebluntedwonder Posted February 22, 2002 Share Posted February 22, 2002 is microsoft that dumb that they have to track what people watch to see what good porn is out there? sheesh, fuckin bill gates Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest SayOne Posted February 22, 2002 Share Posted February 22, 2002 so is real player Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Some1 Posted February 22, 2002 Share Posted February 22, 2002 Iam proud of my porn :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agent Uprise Posted February 22, 2002 Author Share Posted February 22, 2002 Rich DeMillo, chief security officer for Hewlett-Packard. "If you want a truly secure system, turn the machine off" Anybody using linux here? I tried downloading it a few times from ftp (<- is that the right word?) sites but I couldn't understand what the fuck was goin on!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ASER1NE Posted February 22, 2002 Share Posted February 22, 2002 thats stupid , aint there a way to just delete that file..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest --zeSto-- Posted February 22, 2002 Share Posted February 22, 2002 if winamp can track me... then 'the man' must know that www.sumosound.com is the funkiest stream out there!! fuck with Microsoft.... and this guy will show up at you door! http://www.sumosound.com/images/(((((sumosound)))))_01.gif'> -------------------------------- http://www.sumosound.com/images/(((((sumosound)))))_04.gif'> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
omone Posted February 22, 2002 Share Posted February 22, 2002 666 mark of the beast Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clever Name Posted February 22, 2002 Share Posted February 22, 2002 Golly, they must know about all the Sesame Street reruns I watch when no one's around. I'm fucked for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanity Posted February 23, 2002 Share Posted February 23, 2002 agent, where'd you find this? and if you go to linuxmall.com, they'll send you a linux cd for free (minus shipping). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Dazzle Posted February 23, 2002 Share Posted February 23, 2002 As long as they don't see me whacking off, they can record all the shit they want..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cracked Ass Posted February 23, 2002 Share Posted February 23, 2002 This is nothing new. Microsoft has been using trackers for a long time, in software as innocuous as Word. MS Word looks at every file you open in it and sends a record of it back to the company (assuming you're online). A hacker discovered this because he had a hub set up and was monitoring the stream of incoming and outgoing info. (I don't know all the technical details but I trust my source.) He noticed some blips of outgoing data when he was in MS Word but not doing anything that would create outgoing data. Long story short, he found that MS tracer, sending back snapshots of everyone's documents to the company, presumably for demographics and target marketing purposes. Microsoft sucks. Their products suck and their tactics suck. (They built a delay into loading times for Hotmail inboxes if you're using a non-IE browser. Notice how it takes longer to get your hotmail using Netscape.) I wouldn't be surprised if they inserted code into Windows which slowly corrupts non-IE browsers to make you want to switch to IE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElectricitySucks Posted February 23, 2002 Share Posted February 23, 2002 u think bill gates and friends are actualy going to care about what you view...has anyone called yor house about what your viewing...i honestly dont think they give a shit caue 90% of the movies are probly porn anyway...haha w/e Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tue skinny Posted February 23, 2002 Share Posted February 23, 2002 whats next thats gonnna be monitered. seriously it could be our instant messengers or whatever you have( aol, aim, yahoo, msn) hell anyone see enemy of the state. after watching that i torn apart my room and shoes . thats scary though. i dont want people watching me masterbate. or scratch my ass. you know there are people on your computer right now doing things while your reading this. yes its true Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest SayOne Posted February 23, 2002 Share Posted February 23, 2002 Originally posted by tue skinny i dont want people watching me masterbate. :lol: :lol: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kr430n5_666 Posted February 23, 2002 Share Posted February 23, 2002 http://www.netgoth.org.uk/people/8883.jpg'> fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mapo wc Posted February 23, 2002 Share Posted February 23, 2002 Originally posted by Cracked Ass This is nothing new. Microsoft has been using trackers for a long time, in software as innocuous as Word. MS Word looks at every file you open in it and sends a record of it back to the company (assuming you're online). A hacker discovered this because he had a hub set up and was monitoring the stream of incoming and outgoing info. (I don't know all the technical details but I trust my source.) He noticed some blips of outgoing data when he was in MS Word but not doing anything that would create outgoing data. Long story short, he found that MS tracer, sending back snapshots of everyone's documents to the company, presumably for demographics and target marketing purposes. Microsoft sucks. Their products suck and their tactics suck. (They built a delay into loading times for Hotmail inboxes if you're using a non-IE browser. Notice how it takes longer to get your hotmail using Netscape.) I wouldn't be surprised if they inserted code into Windows which slowly corrupts non-IE browsers to make you want to switch to IE. Ive thought that for awhile. Back when I ran Windows 95, Netscape was the ONLY program I had which would consistently crash on me. It got to the point where I couldnt deal with it, and eventually switched to IE. I guess it could be a coincidence, but I dunno.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest imported_Tesseract Posted February 23, 2002 Share Posted February 23, 2002 Originally posted by ElectricitySucks u think bill gates and friends are actualy going to care about what you view...has anyone called yor house about what your viewing...i honestly dont think they give a shit caue 90% of the movies are probly porn anyway...haha w/e Never underestimate the power of statistics and black lists... Starting with the fact that the NSA controls the WHOLE internet, from one edge to the other you can easily understand that microsoft is like the subsidiary corporation, i'm sure (with out having evidence or the slightest fact) that microsoft designs its software and line of policy in full corporation with intelligent services and provides them a great deal of accessibilty that may seem fractional to you but is a treasure to them. I had this theory that the massive collection of information creates a chaos where everyone could seem suspicious or even guilty, preserving anonymity at the bottom. I still believe this to a point, but things are more frightening than that. Imagine that if for any reason, based on facts or simple coincidence, one becomes a 'target' there's a bunch of info that in combination with an updated law system (especially after 11/9) and the beautifull way media handles infomation can get you into shit you would never imagine. To sum it up, i'd say that the order of things is now reversed. Once you where concidered suspect due to 'actual' reasons and they had to collect info on you in order to move futher. Now you can be victimized in total randomness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MR BOJANGLES Posted February 23, 2002 Share Posted February 23, 2002 now there gonna know about my plans to take over the world.:rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest me IS cool Posted February 23, 2002 Share Posted February 23, 2002 And that's why you kids should use a mac. windows sucks ass and that my friend is invasion of privacy. Fuck microsoft. :mad: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanity Posted February 24, 2002 Share Posted February 24, 2002 Originally posted by me IS cool And that's why you kids should use a mac. windows sucks ass and that my friend is invasion of privacy. Fuck microsoft. :mad: actually, microsoft owns like 30-40% of apple stock. all those mp3 finding programs load about 10 programs to allow companies to track you. kazaa has one called cydoor, which creates a gateway to allow them to continuously upload new programs to your computer, and kazaa wont work, if you uninstall it. and none of this is an invasion of privacy.... when you install the program, there's a privacy statement that you agree to. also, there's tons of cookies that are sent to your comp through websites to track you (most infamous would be from doubleclick.net). porn sites load em up too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cracked Ass Posted February 24, 2002 Share Posted February 24, 2002 There's more...this is a strange story. I don't remember a couple of critical details, but here's what happened. A bunch of highly skilled programmers - possibly those who worked for Microsoft a while back but I forget what their deal was - didn't want this kind of shit to go down on the internet and impact society accordingly, so they designed Gnutella, a system of sharing info on the Net while remaining anonymous. (Read here about the details: http://www.gnutellanews.com/information/wh..._gnutella.shtml .) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agent Uprise Posted February 24, 2002 Author Share Posted February 24, 2002 agent, where'd you find this? I got it off of indymedia.org , it was written by someone from the Associated Press (AP). I wouldn't be surprised if they inserted code into Windows which slowly corrupts non-IE browsers to make you want to switch to IE. I know that when you update your wiondows it comes with the latest version of IE, in addition to addibg all sorts off unwanted shit it also disables or hides programs like netscape. u think bill gates and friends are actualy going to care about what you view ACTUALLY, the marketing information these programs harvest are EXTREMLY valuable to Bill and friends. Im gonna get some more info about micro$oft and start another thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest me IS cool Posted February 24, 2002 Share Posted February 24, 2002 Originally posted by Vanity actually, microsoft owns like 30-40% of apple stock. all those mp3 finding programs load about 10 programs to allow companies to track you. kazaa has one called cydoor, which creates a gateway to allow them to continuously upload new programs to your computer, and kazaa wont work, if you uninstall it. and none of this is an invasion of privacy.... when you install the program, there's a privacy statement that you agree to. also, there's tons of cookies that are sent to your comp through websites to track you (most infamous would be from doubleclick.net). porn sites load em up too NOOOOO!! say it ain't so! Oh fuck it time to move to montana and start a militia cult against microsoft. aha any one wanna join my conquest? :lol: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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