>>>I think Office will imbed the MAC address of the machine in a document for proof-of-ownership purposes (and - I believe - this can be turned off). I think this was how they traced the originator of the Melissa virus.

>>Oh, good, I see we're already working on how to "beat it" :)

>No, it's already beat. Let's say I put a Pentium III in a computer with an ethernet adapter (for a cable modem, say), connect to the internet and hack into the Pentagon. Even if the DoD is wise enough to capture those numbers (the P3 s/n and my XNS/MAC address) they can't prove it was ME who did the hacking, just someone using my computer (or someone _pretending_ to use my computer).

>Can Amazon.com track my buying habits via the P3 s/n? Sure.
>Does it do them any good? No.
>Why? 'Cause it could be my wife (who's not into Douglas Adams) or my 7 year old girl (who's not into Heinlein) visiting the site and not me.

Here's the info on Microsoft Office:
http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/Articles/privacy.htm
Patches are at the bottom of the page.