I don't think AD or any SS wares phone home with key info do they?
as it would be easy to stop that with a firewall so essentially useless
I ask beacause I have 2 computer in the house which stay on all the time and both boot up with AD running, although I actually only use it per se on my new PC the dual core
I just haven't gotten to un-install on the old pc or even updated it and is always asking to let it update LOL