Well, whaddaya know; apparently this latest Microsoft privacy "issue" is really starting to ruffle a few feathers. We speak, of course, of the way in which Microsoft Office reportedly "stamps" every document a user creates with a special "GUID" code which allows the document to be traced back to a specific installation of Office on a specific computer. It made the news when the media found out that this GUID information, which includes the unique Ethernet hardware address of the machine in question, was being sent back to Microsoft when Windows 98 users ran the "Registration Wizard" to register their software. Microsoft calls this a "bug," is working on a patch to Windows 98 to prevent this from happening in the future, and claims that the hardware info is "most likely" not being stored anywhere when it gets sent to Redmond. Bill Gates also has some nice, sunny Florida swampland to sell you, if you're interested.

So a scant two days ago, we at AtAT publicly wondered if the Mac version of Office 98 was also stamping documents with this identifying tag, and it appears that the answer to that question is a resounding "yes." MacInTouch, for example, claims to be getting a ton of email from Office users who are poking around their documents and finding all kinds of interesting stuff in the binary data. Yes, the GUID is there, and yes, it includes the Mac's Ethernet hardware address, so in theory a given document could be traced to a specific computer. Spooky. Even spookier is how one MacInTouch reader claims that a Xerox representative "bragged" to him about how they had worked with Microsoft on a way to "'encode' anonymous printed surveys with hidden ID numbers... linked to a detailed profile in Microsoft's (or another company's) database." In other words, Microsoft seems to be spending an awful lot of time working on ways to circumvent potential anonymity. You may think they don't know who you are, but they do.

So is Microsoft in fact building a huge database of user profiles tied to those users' computers by Ethernet addresses? If so, for what purpose? We're thinking, either government overthrow or some kind of virtual tagging and testing system like the smallpox vaccination tissue samples on The X-Files. Remember, Microsoft doesn't have to be part of a global consortium-- they are a global consortium. Suppose they're setting us up and cutting a deal with some aliens, who rely on computer hosts to survive? When colonization comes, the computers in Redmond will be spared in exchange for Microsoft's compliance; they'll hand over the databases and every computer running Microsoft software will be assimilated. Trust no one.