Microsoft seen softening WGA

WHILE LAST WEEK the shy and retiring CEO of Microsoft Steve Ballmer whispered that he was going to turn up Windows Genuine Advantage's anti-piracy measures, there is evidence that he has ordered the complete opposite.

According to Arstechnica, the Vole has decided to soften WGA so instead of sorting sheep from goats, it now identifies some users as potential pirates.

These potentials set off some, but not all of WGA's undisclosed piracy-detection functionality. Their installs will be labelled as "not sure."

It seems that Vole was getting a bit concerned about the negative publicity that WGA was generating. While it was good at catching pirates, it was also identifying huge numbers of customers as bad guys when they were totally innocent. Arstechnica thinks that as many as one in five PCs were failing WGA checks. µ

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