[ale] M$ watching you

[jeff_hubbs at mcgraw-hill.com]

Yes, I have pretty much made up my mind that Intel won't get my business the
next time I set up a machine for my own use.  I find the whole thing rather
onerous.

- Jeff






"Glenn R. Stone" <gstone at mediaone.net> on 05/12/99 09:41:35 PM

To:   ALE mailing list <ale at ale.org>
cc:    (bcc: Jeff Hubbs/Tower)

Subject:  Re: [ale] M$ watching you




Bob wrote:
<snip>
> For the next experiment, you'll need to look at a Word 97 document in text
> mode.  You can't do this with Word.  If you have Quick View Plus (plain
> Quick View won't do), open a Word doc in QVP, go to the View menu and pick
> View as Text.  Or make a small Word doc, save it and rename it to a .txt
> extension and open it in Notepad.  Now search for the string PID.  You
> should find _PID_ GUID and shortly afterwards, a long hex string inside
> braces such as {F96EB3B9-C9F1-11D2-95EB-0060089BB2DA}. Those 12 hex digits
> at the end will be your MAC.  Yup, every Word doc, every Excel spreadsheet
> and every Power Point presentation is branded with an identifier showing
> the PC it came from.  If your boss has a Word memo you sent her and a copy
> of the anonymous whistle blowing attachment you sent to the Feds, she
> could determine they were made on the same machine.  (Of course, if you
> aren't careful, the document includes an author name and if any
> corrections were made, it may say who made the corrections.  Within the
> next few days, Microsoft expects to post a white paper on all the
> 'metadata'; embedded in Office documents).
<snip>
> It's interesting about credibility.  There was also an Intel slip reported
> recently that they claimed was inadvertent.  Apparently some mobile
> Pentium II's shipped with hardware IDs even though these were only
> announced for Pentium III's. Intel's explanation is that they experimented
> with this feature in the manufacturing process for the mobile Pentium II
> but it was supposed to be disabled before shipping.  One line
> inadvertently didn't do the disabling.  Intel's credibility is such that
> I'm willing to accept their claim of inadvertence here.

Does anyone now wonder why THIS privacy nut runs Linux on AMD hardware?
I don't trust Gates OR Intel as far as I can throw the city of Redmond.

warp eight bot