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Computing

Microsoft's GUID sparks fears of privacy invasion

windows98

March 8, 1999
Web posted at: 10:09 p.m. EST (0309 GMT)

By San Francisco Bureau Chief Greg Lefevre

(CNN) -- Do you want Bill Gates to know everything on your computer?

That's what critics contend happens with hidden code numbers that your Windows computer sends out with every document.

It works this way:

In Microsoft Word, the software tacks on a serial number, tracking that document everywhere it goes, tracing it back to your software.

Jason Catlett, whose Junkbusters site criticizes what it considers inroads into personal privacy, says Microsoft owes its users an apology.

"I think that everybody was astonished that Microsoft would have the audacity to brand people's private documents with a serial number that they are recording in their databases," he said.

But Microsoft's Rob Bennett emphatically denies that the software company is using the number to track users or their habits.

"It doesn't store any information about the user and is not used by Microsoft at all in any marketing or tracking, etc.," he said.

The serial number, called a GUID or Globally Unique Identifier, is extremely useful in Internet software. It helps the software track versions of a document through links to earlier versions.

"The intent was, if you took a document and moved that document somewhere, (to) be able to clean up those links," Bennett said. "So a specific number called a GUID, a globally unique identifier, is generated so that ... the software knows (how) the document was stored originally and it can go and clean up the link."

But the identifier traces all of its documents back to a certain software on a certain computer.

'It's very serious'

Catlett is concerned that the link would eventually tie any document on the Internet to a specific individual whose computer habits are laid bare for anyone to see.

"It's very serious, because it means that you can't be sure that a document that you've written that you thought was anonymous might not be traced back to you," Catlett said.

"In a world where we're all only a subpoena's breath away from being identified and having private information revealed to the world, this tool of a 'tattooed' serial number is really an investigator's dream," he said.

Others in the industry say there's the potential for developing, without the user's knowledge, a significant amount of information about that user.

Cathryn Baskin, editor-in-chief of PC World Magazine, worries about the potential effects on e-commerce.

"Microsoft has a number of partners. When you look at the Microsoft Network that was just relaunched last week --Microsoft does a lot of e-commerce on that site. If you couple the Windows 98 ID number with all these commerce sites like Expedia and Carpoint and the whole wealth of Microsoft sites, they have the ability to track an awful lot of information about you and use it primarily for marketing purposes or spam or things of that sort," she said.

Although Microsoft denies using the GUID to keep track of users, adding to the concern is the fact that the identifier is hidden in the document's code, to be read only by Microsoft.

Microsoft maintains no one has lost any privacy.

Bennett says Microsoft will delete the feature anyway.

"Microsoft is not interested in tracking anyone's behavior and really it's just a number that is used internally to the software to help track things better," he said.

"It's not used in any way to track user behavior to find out about the user at all," he said.

For current Windows users, Microsoft will post a fix on its Web site.

The serial tracking number is not on any of Microsoft's Macintosh software, nor on Unix or Linux.


SPECIAL REPORT:
Antitrust: Microsoft defends itself

MESSAGE BOARD:
Microsoft on trial
Privacy advocates call for boycott

RELATED STORIES:
Professor, ACLU appeal free speech ruling on software code
March 5, 1999
Opinion: Privacy aside, why chip IDs are a bad idea
February 16, 1999
Windows 98 updates will tackle bug
March 5, 1999
Spot & fix Y2K problems in Windows 9x & NT
February 9, 1999

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