🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4094f0$nhf@data.interserv.net>,
William Rini <billman@centcon.com> wrote:
>I am open to considering the possibilities, but I have not seen one
>shred of evidence that supports on the conspiracy theories being
>thrown around this thread.  Here are the facts my friend.
>
>1.  Inter@ctive Week put a sniffer on the line and collected the data
>transmitted.  Nothing out of the ordinary was transmitted during the
>online registration.  This point is avoided by every single one of the
>MS bashers.  And I am sure someone will cut up this post, omit this
>part and continue with wild ramblings about MS and invasions of
>privacy.

They were probably only looking at clear text, and didn't keep checking to
see if the information was ever transmitted later on.  They could have       
encoded the information.  Don't tell me that Inter@ctive understood
exactly what *every* bit sent across the link was.  It's possible to
encode arbitrary data using completely unrelated normal-looking text.     
Just off the top of my head, they could take 100 pieces of legitimate
information and encode about 525 bits of illegitimate information just in
the order that they send the 100 pieces of legitimate information.  Now
imagine that those were 525 yes/no questions that Microsoft wanted the
answers to, or 20 yes/no questions and 10 numbers from 1-100.  And that's
encoded in just a few seconds worth of data.  Now imagine that they
encode a few bits with every single line you type or mouse click or
whatever.

There are so many ways to encode information they would want to send
without your knowledge that you would *never* find it even with a sniffer.
I'm not saying that they are really doing this, but if they were going to 
do that, you don't think they'd be stupid enough to put the unauthorized 
data in there as clear text right along with the stuff you said it was OK 
to send, do you?  Thus this little primitive packet-sniffing "proof" that 
they aren't doing anything is worthless.

--
Steve Kanefsky