Tag: Microsoft

I bought a new laptop a couple days ago, and have experienced the same thing Dave Winer writes about — everytime you reboot XP puts in a plug urging you to get a Passport ID. Plus MS uses language that might lead technically unsophisticated users to think they need a Passport ID in order to have some basic functionality. (This is something new, btw — this didn’t happen at all when I bought another XP-loaded laptop last Summer).

The other really annoying aspect of moving everyting over to the new laptop was having to call Uncle Bill’s tech support to beg for permission to install my copy of Office XP on the new laptop. In total it took about 15 minutes for me to accomplish this — I’d hate to think how much time I’d waste if all the 40-50 applications I use required me to spend 15 minutes just obtaining permission to use software I already paid quite a bit of money for.

And, frankly, I found it very insulting to have some stranger asking me to explain why I needed to install Office XP a second time. I assume that now until forever there will be a database at Microsoft which knows I bought a new laptop last week.

I didn’t really follow the whole Palladium disclosures from Microsoft until a coworker asked me about it the other day. My current take on it is that buying a Palladium-enabled computer would be a bit like drinking Kool Aid at Jonestown(1). They’ll try to tell you it tastes sweet, but the whole thing is pure poison.

Cryptome.Org has mirrored the long press release that Steven Levy wrote about Palladium for Newsweek. Levy buys into Microsoft’s hype that the Internet is on the verge of collapse (or something like that) due to the preponderance of e-mail viruses (thanks largely due to Microsoft’s e-mail client), viruses (thanks in part to bug-ridden versions of MS Windows) and file sharing (no thanks to MS, apparently).

Microsoft’s solution — “Trust us — we’ll control what goes in and out of your computer and you’ll never have another problem ever.” Just drink the Kool Aid and ever-lasting bliss is yours.

But, like cyanide-laced drinks, Microsoft’s solution is much, much worse than the problem. Here’s one of Palladium’s proposed features,

Palladium is all about deciding whatÂ’s trustworthy. It not only lets your computer know that youÂ’re you, but also can limit what arrives (and runs on) your computer, verifying where it comes from and who created it.

Notice that it is not you, the user, who gets to decided what does and does not run on your computer, but rather Microsoft. Load a music file onto your computer that doesn’t have all the right permissions? Sorry, Palladium will decide you can’t run it. Control of your computer no longer resides with you, but with Microsoft who is far more interested in pleasing large corporations than it is in helping end users.

The reality is that for every single use that Microsoft offers as legitimate for this sort of technology, there are already plenty of ways to achieve the end result without such a scheme. Dealing with spam, getting rid of viruses, ensuring that e-mail communications are private — all of these things can be done without handing control of your computer over to Microsoft.

Palladium is simply the latest proposal in a growing trend to turn the personal computer into a high-powered television-like device where what users can do with their machines is highly circumscribed and limited.

I don’t think Palladium will succeed, but it should be a big wakeup call that such a system is even being proposed. In the early late 1970s, the personal PC revolution began. Microsoft, Sony, the RIAA, and others are now actively trying to bring out a counter-revolution to slam the lid on the Pandora’s Box that is the PC.

1. Yes, I know Jim Jones was so cheap that his followers died drinking the knockoff Flavor-Aid.

ZDNet’s coverage of a Gateway executives testimony about Microsoft’s post-settlement business practices is awe inspiring. It is simply amazing how cutthroat one company can be while still trying to fit its practices within the letter, though definitely not the spirit, of the law (Microsoft might just hold the record for having the most egocetric executives award).

What I would love to see is a documentary about the anti-trust lawsuit filmed like one of those nature documentaries. See how Microsoft lays still, luring its OEM prey closer and closer until it suddenly lashes out and swallows it whole.