ITinfo: Microsoft To Help Users Remove GUID From Documents

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Microsoft To Help Users Remove GUID From Documents
by Dave Murphy
ISSN 1535-3613

Microsoft will probably offer a patch for the millions of Win98 users who have unknowingly embedded a hidden code that can trace their documents right back to them.

Earlier yesterday, Microsoft offered to modify future copies of Win98 so that the Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) would not be embedded in documents nor transmitted to Microsoft during routine Win98 update procedures.

Later in the day, Microsoft released additional information that indicates they may be responding to pressure from customers to prevent embedding the PC's GUID in Word and Excel files as well as being transmitted to Microsoft.

Separately, the company also acknowledged it may have been collecting the GUID serial numbers from customers, and the customers' names and addresses, even when the customers' had explicitly indicated they didn't want the information disclosed to Microsoft. And Microsoft acknowledged "there are hypothetical scenarios in which this number could be used to learn something about the user's system without his or her knowledge."

Microsoft Corp.

Articles In This Series
Microsoft Documents Secretly Track Author
Microsoft To Help Users Remove GUID From Document
Win98 Security Bug More Serious Than Previously Thought
Microsoft Patches Win98 GUID Privacy Bug

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updated March 9, 1999
http://dgl.com/itinfo/1999/it990309.html