ARTS & FARCES internet

Just as PC vendors began shipping systems configured with Intel‘s Pentium III processor, The Center for Democracy and Technology, Consumer Action, and Privacy Rights Clearinghouse filed a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charging the chip manufacturer with unfair and deceptive trade practices. The privacy and consumer advocacy groups’ complaint asks that the FTC prevent Intel from continuing to ship processors that contain a unique identification number.

The unique identification number, embedded within the chip, makes it easy to track Internet users’ activities, according to the advocacy groups.

The groups also requested the trade regulation agency to investigate Intel’s decision to use the technology and to stop any PC vendors that ship computers that contain the Pentium III processor.

Intel misled consumers, according to the complaint, by marketing the identification technology as a security feature while failing to disclose that the technology undermines personal privacy.

Earlier, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Junkbusters, and Privacy International instituted a boycott of Intel. Intel subsequently announced plans to disable the identification technology and securing the switch that activates the technology. German hackers have publicly stated that they have been able to compromise Intel’s “secured” identification switch.

Ironically, some Macintosh computers also are uniquely identifiable, but for some reason this isn’t receiving attention from privacy and consumer advocates. To see if your Macintosh is identifiable:

1. From the Apple menu, select the Apple System Profiler.
2. Click the System Profile Tab.
3. Click the last tip-down item, Production Information. If your Macintosh is uniquely identifiable, it will be reported in the Serial number field.

Within weeks of the Intel imbroglio, Microsoft acknowledged to the New York Times that it had built a similar unique identifying technology into its Windows 98 operating system and its Office productivity suite. In Microsoft’s case, the use of the identifying technology is especially disturbing: the company acknowledged that it had used the information to compile a large database of personal information about computer users.

Microsoft’s identification system, which is part of its Registration Wizard, was discovered by Richard Smith, president of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Phar Lap Software.

While Intel’s chip serial number identifies a unique computer, Microsoft’s technology—known as a Globally Unique Identifier (GUID)—identifies a unique individual by name, Ethernet adapter address, and other personal information including demographics. Because the information Microsoft collects can be pinned to an identifiable individual, it’s possible to accurately trace an individual’s movements across computer networks.

Since the Globally Unique Identifier also appears in documents users create within Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel, it’s possible to trace the authors of individual documents. The Globally Unique Identifier is stored in the Windows registry and can also be embedded in other documents, including Web-browser cookies, according to Smith.

Microsoft has promised to change the way the technology works in the next release of Windows 98 and will purge improperly collected information from its databases. Unfortunately the problem is that the GUID is already embedded within uncountable documents worldwide, and Microsoft says the next maintenance release of Windows 98 is scheduled for Summer 1999. Based on Microsoft’s corporate behavior during its 1999 antitrust trial, the company should be required to submit to an independent audit of all its corporate databases.

In early March 1999, Jason Catlett, president of Junkbusters, published a report charging Microsoft with planning a sort of ongoing subscription fee—or annuity—coupled with mandatory registration for its Windows 2000 operating system. Catlett bases his charges on documents released during the Microsoft antitrust trial. A system like the one apparently under consideration at Microsoft would seriously undermine personal privacy and have a chilling effect on Microsoft’s ecommerce competitors.

Catlett’s report cites a December 1997 Microsoft memo, entitled “License for Limited Time and Create Annuity Business.” The internal memo includes a passage that links the license with mandatory registration: “This is the best thing long-term but it might disrupt end-user operations and could require end-user registration.”

Mandatory registration—especially when tied to the company’s Globally Unique Identifier technology—would give Microsoft both an unfair competitive advantage in a free market economy and a data warehouse of unprecedented size on its customers’ personal information.