Good article, and I see another problem in the future, who says a user with Linux would find a way to create a worm that could possibly disable the WGA just like the anti virus and firewall can be disabled under such nefarious worms and viruses.
I did download the WGA myself, but it came out on one of those "security patch Tuesdays" and I decided to at first decline the option of downloading WGA (while downloading the other patches), upon further reading of the download I decided to let it go ahead and download to my machine, it hasn't become an issue I just have a pop up via firewall that asks me if I want my computer to be allowed to contact Microsoft from time to time. Knowing what I have read in this article I will likely probe my sniffer records to see if it holds true that they track IP addresses and such.
I have one question to the author (if it can be answered) will Microsoft be able to track the original IP address if one relies on a proxy server? (and not one provided by their ISP) Also for so called users who know very little about computers, could this create issues by blocking their ability to download updates not only from Microsoft but also anti virus support and updated firewall support?

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Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/columns/409/33770#33770