U.S. last week granted Microsoft's motion that some documents be sealed in a two-year-old lawsuit that accuses the company of when it updated its Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) antipiracy software via its Windows Update service.

In a deposition filed with Jones three weeks ago, , the director of Microsoft's Genuine Windows group, said that revealing sensitive sections of the WGA software development kit (SDK) would give hackers a field day.

"Public release of the WGA SDK Integration Specifications information would allow hackers to defeat the WGA Validation function by causing WGA to generate false results indicating that the system being tested is genuine, thereby creating great risk of harm to both Microsoft and users of Microsoft's software," Kochis asserted.

By deciphering WGA's error codes and its test protocols, attackers would be able to sidestep the validation process that the technology uses to determine whether a copy of Windows is legitimate, Kochis said.

In turn, that would put users in danger, he said. " users would be at risk because pirated copies of Windows XP often contain unauthorized software that pirates have added to copies of Windows XP that can lead to a corrupted system, a loss of data, or even identity theft," Kochis said.