Windows anti-piracy tool phones home

The new “tool” called Windows Genuine Advantage from Microsoft has been found calling home daily to check for shutdown messages. It collects basic information, such as the computer manufactor, language and locale settings. Microsoft has stated that these checks should be made every two weeks instead of daily, but in my opinion, it does not matter if it is done daily or monthly — The pure fact that it is done, is really upsetting, especially since it is not mentioned in the EULA. The tool description even states that the software will run once.

Apart from the privacy problem, there is an annoyance factor attached to this tool as well, since it will sometimes label legitimate copies of Ms Windows as being pirated versions. There is a lot more information available about this issue on the internet at this point.

So, what to do? If you have the possibility, do run another operating system, such as Ubuntu. If you feel paranoid, you can of course block the Microsoft subnet in your router altogether. It is 207.46.0.0/16.