How Microsoft plans to make computers less functional & kill p2p in the process!

[SA_Dave]

I just read this article about TCPA/Palladium. It's a proposed 'security' system due to be implemented (and in fact XP's activation feature is a hint of what's to come) in both hardware (ie. Intel) & software (ie. Windwoes), which'll be uncrackable. It'll also turn the internet (an even more successful Open-source project than Linux, FreeBSD or Apache) into a microsoft-controlled domain, effectively shutting out alternative platforms & making the GNU and tcp/ip obsolete!

It's better to be a little slow on the uptake than to miss it altogether!
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20020627.html
This week's article is also interesting (so much for Service Pack 1 allowing you to install third-party apps!)

I thought these points from the FAQ were the most worrisome :

Its obvious application is to embed digital rights management (DRM) technology in the PC. The less obvious implications include making it easier for application software vendors to lock in their users.

But there are much deeper problems. The fundamental issue is that whoever controls the Fritz chips will acquire a huge amount of power. There are many ways in which this power could be abused, and Intel has refused to answer questions on the governance of the TCPA consortium.

One of the worries is censorship. An application enabled for TCPA, such as a media player or word processor, will typically have its security policy administered remotely by a server. This is so that content owners can react to new piracy techniques. However, the mechanisms might also be used for censorship.

And there are many other political issues -- the transparency of processing of personal data enshrined in the EU data protection directive; the sovereignty issue, of whether copyright regulations will be written by national governments, as at present, or an application developer in Portland or Redmond; whether TCPA will be used by Microsoft as a means of killing off competitors such as Apache; and whether people will be comfortable about the idea of having their PCs operated, in effect, under remote control -- control that could be usurped by courts or government agencies without their knowledge.

The question is: security for whom? The average user might prefer not to have to worry about viruses, but TCPA won't fix that: viruses exploit the way software applications (such as Microsoft Office) use scripting. He might be worried about privacy, but TCPA won't fix that; almost all privacy violations result from the abuse of authorised access, often obtained by coercing consent. If anything, by entrenching and expanding monopolies, TCPA will increase the incentives to price discriminate and thus to harvest personal data for profiling.

What are the benefits then? I don't know how they expect to get away with this, but it isn't surprising considering some of the other "laws" being passed or proposed in the U.S. at the moment. My own government (South Africa) recently decided that they wanted to control all local internet domain allocations, which means that they might easily be swayed by M$'s propoganda. Let's just hope that TCPA/Palladium isn't successful!

[snowman]

I have had many conversations about this with colleagues.

My solution which I started to implement about 4 months ago was not to buy any more MS software or Operating System Upgrades and convert my hardware to Mac's OS X.

I am just not going to pay for this stupidity anymore.

[JackSpratts]

when freedom is outlawed, only outlaws will have freedom. of course, after the elections, all of the boys and girls who voted in those abhorent laws will enjoy plenty of FREE TIME!!!

- js.

[SA_Dave]

People need to embrace open-source & alternative platforms. AMD, Intel, Microsoft, Adobe and other mega-corporations shouldn't be able to create this scenario. And although Apple isn't nearly as bad, I'd be worried that they might similarly abuse their power if Macs became more popular & affordable as a result. They threatened lawsuits against the people who developed Linux for the Mac, as their hardware is proprietary too.

If this proposal does go through as planned, perhaps there'll be a boom in the second-hand pc & niche hardware-developer's market. Then again, does the average consumer even know what's going on? M$ is a masterful marketing & spin-doctoring corporation. The ability to use Win & Office has become entrenched as a necessary requirement in today's job market. What other company requires you to pay them vast sums of money to learn how to troubleshoot design flaws in their products, then when you start working for them they further milk your wallet for operators licenses & commissions. All this to have the title MCSE behind your name! No thanks! Bleah! Yet people still get excited about the prospect. It's sometimes worse in developing nations such as my own, where freedom of information and choice are often luxuries or fairly new concepts & M$ cements their stranglehold on the world market because their competitors are even scarcer!

The world needs to wake up & stop buying into the bull that closed-source is more secure & hassle-free. Far from it, proprietary formats/apps are hazardous because they're so secretive. Hence the spyware boom, the virus/trojan dangers, the various security exploits & the buggy software which is released at a certain date just because it was announced it would be. Some people may find Linux difficult to use, but have they ever installed windows from scratch? And the documentation is one of its great features. Now if only it could appeal more to gamers & engineers. Open DirectX?

[ssj4_android]

We need an easy to use/set up linux. Not as easy as windows, but closer to it. But of course don't force everyone to use something simpple.

[hda12]

The ease of installation is not the problem for current distributions like Red Hat or Suse, the problem is rather the lack of applications especially in the areas multimedia, graphic and P2P.

[ssj4_android]

What about ease of use? Anyways, wine is good. BTW, I don't use linux .

[twinspan]

me just waiting for Open BeOS to finish.

if Microsoft, Intel, the U.S. govt. and the rest of the usual suspects think my computing future is going to be one where they might allow me to lease permission to operate one of their workstations in my home, my response will consist of two words (prolly a combination of "Off" and "F#ck") and the speedy embrace of free (as in speech) hardware and software no matter what the lack of 'features'.

A program with an 'End-User License Agreement' is bad enough... a PC with an End-User License Agreement is the beginning of the end... for them.

[dzejmsbond]

edited by jackspratts

reaction by dzb (now i kno)

[Mowzer]

Yeah micrsoft has gone to far with Palladium.

Some of the technologies they have developed are good, and I like.

Things like Palladium are only counter active to all that.
Hopefully people will refuse to buy Palladium versions of windows.

Thats the only real way i could see it stopping. With no dollars in new pc sales, m$'s friends such as HP will turn back towards m$ and force a re think.

Microsoft wants to change into the services as a subscription model, which from a business point isnt a bad idea. But subscription services should'nt end up costing an end users freedom.

Palladium might be good for a server or a corporate agency, but not a end user. Is it really so hard to spend a little time comming up with strong security that wont limit freedoms? I dunno, but with the resources m$ has it should be easy.

You know who is to blame? All those whiny drones of the RIAA. For years they have bitched about copyrights and computer users being pirates. One or two RIAA execs must be in bed with some Redmondions for them to even have filled an idea like this on paper as something to try out.

Microsoft though if it goes on with Palladium will try to enforce it by bleeding out older windows versions. People will be sitting around using xp to play solitare because theres no other software that will work with it any more. One word m$... Linux.

Ever see the movie Total recall or the TV series Total Recall 2070? Both were crapy, but in the Total Recall world, everything is run by one large consortium. Microsoft i think wants us to all live in that kinda high tech world, run by one big company "Microsoft"