Correct me if I am wrong, but I am under the impression he was caught because of a string of code, undocumented, added to every word/excel document that takes a user's registration code and system settings and generates a unique id which is then sent out with everything he writes!
Close enough for Microsoft work. According to the news story cited in last week's/. Melissa coverage, the actual tracing was done by comparing the MAC address (a unique identifier on every network card, necessary for networking to work) which was embedded in two documents -- the Melissa virus's host document, and some documents on this guy's web site.
So, the information being inserted by Microsoft Office into your documents is your MAC address (a.k.a. your NIC address, or your ethernet address, or "those funny numbers that your network driver displays when it starts up").
Yes, this is a legitimate privacy issue. If you value your privacy, then perhaps you should not use Microsoft Office.
Countersue MS because of how he was caught? (Score:1)
Correct me if I am wrong, but I am under the impression he was caught because of a string of code, undocumented, added to every word/excel document that takes a user's registration code and system settings and generates a unique id which is then sent out with everything he writes!
Close enough for Microsoft work. According to the news story cited in last week's /. Melissa coverage, the actual tracing was done by comparing the MAC address (a unique identifier on every network card, necessary for networking to work) which was embedded in two documents -- the Melissa virus's host document, and some documents on this guy's web site.
So, the information being inserted by Microsoft Office into your documents is your MAC address (a.k.a. your NIC address, or your ethernet address, or "those funny numbers that your network driver displays when it starts up").
Yes, this is a legitimate privacy issue. If you value your privacy, then perhaps you should not use Microsoft Office.