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  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
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Monday, June 24, 2002
15:23 - What, you thought they were going to stop with .NET?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25843.html

(top) link
I'm not wild about the attitude and tone of this Register article (I'm getting vibes of unpleasantness from lots of their writers lately), but the gist of this article deserves attention.

According to Levy, Palladium is a hardware and software combination that will supposedly seal information from attackers, block viruses and worms, eliminate spam, and allow users to control their personal information even after it leaves their computer. It will also implement Digital Rights Management (DRM) for movies and music to allow users to exercise 'fair use' rights of such products. Palladium will essentially create a proprietary computing environment where Microsoft is the trusted gatekeeper, guard, watchstander, and ruler of all it surveys, thus turning the majority of computing users into unwilling corporate serfs and subjects of the Redmond Regime.

Yeah, and just wait'll Palladium is part of everybody's Windows machine-- and then gets hacked. Because it will. You know it will. Microsoft can't make a piece of rock-solid security software all of a sudden now, when for twenty years they've been unable to do that no matter how hard they've tried. Do you want to be in the vicinity when someone gains access to the desktops and hardware of every single Windows machine on Earth?

What's really frightening is the speed with which Microsoft's ventures in this direction are gaining in audacity and scope. Monopoly convictions or no, they're planting one foot firmly in front of the other and stomping off toward the goal of having Passport membership and Windows usership codified into U.S. law, thereby making Windows the only legal OS to run.

Couple that with the laws as they've been passed lately and the more recent Hollings-esque propositions, and you've got the makings of a world where software makers are liable for damages caused by their software-- a world in which open-source development would be impossible. With customers forbidden from revealing security flaws in software and software makers forced to protect themselves with huge legal defense bodies, soon the only people who can develop software will be the huge corporations. Individual people will be denied the right to publish software they've written themselves, and the egalitarian revolution of software will plummet to earth just as it's beginning to take flight. Meanwhile, who benefits? Why, Microsoft, naturally.

So it's now obvious where Windows will be in five years, and where Bill hopes to take it. Who's willing to stand up and shout in favor of this future? Anybody?

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© Brian Tiemann