Microsoft has unzipped there fly and is peeing into a 50 knot wind. In upcoming and currently released service packs you are in for a surprise if you did not read the EULA you have unwittingly agreed to allow Microsoft to make changes to your computers configuration without your knowledge.
People are hoping mad and to think that a company would go this far is amazing what it truly scary is the provision that Microsoft’s DRM (digital rights management) scheme. This built-in XP feature silently downloads and installs “revocation lists.” These lists prevent “revoked” programs from playing DRM-encoded content. [InfoWorld]
I refuse to give in this easily there are some sites that have the info to undue Microsoft’s intrusions. The solution requires manual effort. There are administrative tools to disable each unwanted XP service. A step-by-step tutorial for this is at [Blkviper.com]
ZoneAlarm product manager Jordy Berson explains that the firewalls standard behavior is by design and isn’t necessarily a problem. If you install ZoneAlarm using its quick-start wizard, the XP file named SvcHost.exe is recognized as a standard component of Microsoft’s operating system. Because XP is considered legitimate, and not a Trojan horse, XP features that use SvcHost to connect to the Internet do not trigger warning alerts if ZoneAlarm is set up this way.
By the way… I noticed ZoneAlarm was automatically loading from a location called “Common Startup Group” but after an hour of searching I can’t find this in my registry or anywhere. I didn’t even know there was such a startup group. I checked folders in Windows as well as all the Windows init files and still didn’t find a clue. If ZoneAlarm can automatically load this way then trojans can too. If you find this “Common Startup Group” let me know where it is. I have written to ZoneLabs to ask them but haven’t heard anything back yet