Who do you want to spy on today?

At first I truly didn't believe this was real. In fact, it looked outright fake. After looking into it, it certainly appears to be legitimate, and if so, the implications are rather frightening. Microsoft aided in the creation of a new bill before the Oklahoma State House called the Computer Spyware Protection Act (H.B. 2083). Designed ostensibly to protect consumers from malicious spyware and viruses, the bill contains some other interesting clauses. According Ben Fenwick at the Oklahoma Gazette:

"...the proposed law would allow any company from whom you bought upgradable software the freedom to come onto your computer for 'detection or prevention of the unauthorized use of or fraudulent or other illegal activities in connection with a network, service, or computer software, including scanning for and removing computer software prescribed under this act.”

Essentially, under this act, any company from whom a customer purchases software can scan that customer's system for pirated versions of their software, erase software or mine for data and pass along anything they find to whomever they please with complete freedom - legally.

This is a disgusting abuse of privacy, and more so, of the EULA system. It fully takes advantage of the practice of 'just clicking accept' to install software without fully reading the EULA in order to enable what are essentially 'warrantless searches.' What's even more sickening is that it's been given such an innocuous, hard to hate name in order to disguise its contents. I for one hope that someone with a backbone stands up to this and shuts it down before it spreads nationwide.

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Microsoft, Oklahoma, Politics, Technology, Tech, HB 2083, Spyware, Privacy

Happy Easter!