PDA

View Full Version : WGA more sinister then we think?



phrostbyte
August 27th, 2007, 02:03 PM
Here is another interesting thing I was thinking about. What if country X and USA go to war? Doesn't the fact that Microsoft an American based company means they can "shut out" other hostile countries? If I was a foreign government official with less then perfect relations with USA I'd be worried about this. It's completely irresponsible to allow a foreign government such control over your nation's infrastructure. On the other side of the coin, what if Microsoft "sells" the ability to control WGA to a foreign government. That would give whatever foreign country huge nearly military-grade control domestically.

In the end of the day, what WGA gives is a backdoor that (on Vista) allows near complete disability of the given operating system. It's basically means that you are giving a 3rd party control over the functionality of your computing infrastructure. The implications of this is huge, I think.

Dark Star
August 27th, 2007, 02:06 PM
There is some problem with MS activation.. btw WGA sucks so as MS and its OS :lol:

phrostbyte
August 27th, 2007, 03:48 PM
There is some problem with MS activation.. btw WGA sucks so as MS and its OS :lol:

This has big implications. WGA could be a threat to the national security and sovereignty of hundreds of nations. It seems really outlandish but it really isn't. What WGA is doing basically, is entrusting remote control of the functionality of all the world's Windows computers to a 3rd party. All in the name of "anti-piracy"? Please.

The implications of this is huge. After the recent WGA fiasco that shows that Microsoft themselves don't have a handle on the situation, it's not something to be taken lightly. An international worldwide disaster as caused by WGA is not out of possibility, we have seen.

Lord Illidan
August 27th, 2007, 03:58 PM
It is a serious problem. If a sufficiently large number of pcs are disabled, the loss of productivity throughout the world could lead to a stockmarket crash for example!

phrostbyte
August 27th, 2007, 04:06 PM
It is a serious problem. If a sufficiently large number of pcs are disabled, the loss of productivity throughout the world could lead to a stockmarket crash for example!

All kinds of stuff could happen, and it can only get worse if Vista uptake increases. Since in Vista, which you fail WGA, nearly all functions of the OS will ultimately become disabled. And "reinstalling Windows" would not help if the WGA servers are down or set to deny all authorizations, so in some ways is significantly worse then a worldwide computer virus epidemic.

marco123
August 27th, 2007, 04:07 PM
Here is another interesting thing I was thinking about. What if country X and USA go to war? Doesn't the fact that Microsoft an American based company means they can "shut out" other hostile countries? If I was a foreign government official with less then perfect relations with USA I'd be worried about this. It's completely irresponsible to allow a foreign government such control over your nation's infrastructure. On the other side of the coin, what if Microsoft "sells" the ability to control WGA to a foreign government. That would give whatever foreign country huge nearly military-grade control domestically.

In the end of the day, what WGA gives is a backdoor that (on Vista) allows near complete disability of the given operating system. It's basically means that you are giving a 3rd party control over the functionality of your computing infrastructure. The implications of this is huge, I think.

Surely countries aren't stupid enough to use windows on important computer systems/infrastructures? It's their own fault if they are, and they deserve everything they get. It would be an important lesson to them that there are secure operating systems out there - and windows isn't one of them.

phrostbyte
August 27th, 2007, 04:10 PM
Surely countries aren't stupid enough to use windows on important computer systems/infrastructures? It's their own fault if they are, and they deserve everything they get. It would be an important lesson to them that there are secure operating systems out there - and windows isn't one of them.

I would rather them learn their lesson the easy way then the hard way. Even if Windows is not used on critical systems, the fact that Windows is used on millions of non-critical systems can cripple a nation's ability to operate.

marco123
August 27th, 2007, 04:15 PM
I would rather them learn their lesson the easy way then the hard way. Even if Windows is not used on critical systems, the fact that Windows is used on millions of non-critical systems can cripple a nation's ability to operate.

The easy way is just to do some research on the internet. All the information is out there waiting to be read, it hasn't made a difference yet. A good scare would do people good. (and kill windows:) )

cmat
August 27th, 2007, 04:16 PM
WGA and DRM are the reason 19 of 20 people I know will never switch to Vista and are clueless about what to do when they are forced to upgrade. Heck WGA in XP machines may cripple the systems if they wanted to ultimately push for Vista.

marco123
August 27th, 2007, 04:22 PM
The sad reality about WGA is that all it does is punish legit users. The pirates just laugh and download the latest crack and have trouble free computing.

Dragonbite
August 27th, 2007, 04:23 PM
This is an interesting concept. Somebody should write a sci-fi book where this happens and the course of events, including the skyrocket of Ubuntu Linux since RedHat and Novell/SuSE would be caught in the anti-American computer industry umbrella Microsoft would bring down upon all of the US.

marco123
August 27th, 2007, 04:31 PM
This is an interesting concept. Somebody should write a sci-fi book where this happens and the course of events, including the skyrocket of Ubuntu Linux since RedHat and Novell/SuSE would be caught in the anti-American computer industry umbrella Microsoft would bring down upon all of the US.

Imagine the good it would do if it was really well written and became a bestseller. :)

cmat
August 27th, 2007, 04:32 PM
I was thinking of dubbing WGA in every time Skynet is mentioned in terminator 2 and 3. And Cyberdyne is microsoft.