Microsoft admits 1% false positives rate by WGA checks

Microsoft recently published updated figures about their Windows Genuine Advantage  protection that tries to hinder users of illegal versions of Microsoft Windows to update their system with some of the software that can be downloaded from the microsoft homepage. Software like the new Internet Explorer 7 or the Windows Media Player can only be downloaded after a successful WGA check. The download and installation will be denied if a check fails.

It was always known that there would be false positives and the new figures give us a clearer picture on the scale of the false positive rate. About 114 million systems failed the WGA check since the introduction of those checks and Microsoft admitted that 1% of those were false positives meaning that legit Windows systems failed the WGA check.

While under 1% does not seem that much it it does look much in absolute figures: 1% of 114 million checks means that 1.14 million systems failed the check although this should not have happened. I can’t figure out how the source comes to the conclusion that the absolute number would be 5 million false positives because you clearly have to use the failed checks for the figure and not the total amount of checks which is 500 million.

It is nevertheless a huge number and Microsoft should do everything to reduce it by optimizing the script that performs the checks.