Microsoft - the ultimate Big Brother?

[zulu9812]

Just read an article in this month's PC Format about the new security systems Microsoft wants to implement in the next Windows. Some choice cuts:

So if you were to buy an album from, say, Sony, this is what would happen: firstly Palladium tells Sony that your PC is trustworthy, then Sony send you the encrypted album along with a key to Palladium can use to decrypt it. But if you try ti run the album through a non-Palladium-certified player - say, in order to make a copy - Palladium won't decrypt it. Worse, it could fire off a telltale message informing Sony that you're trying to copy an album.

Big Brother, anyone? 1984?

Then there's Mandatory Access Control, which would enable organizations to issue their own certificate that would, for example, make it impossible for you to read a Word document or a web page created on a certified PC, and which could in theory enable the powers that be to instantly censor something they'd really rather you weren't looking at. Yikes.

Say goodbye to your MP3 collection - in order to placate the angry media giants, it's almost inevitable that Palladium will prevent you from playing MP3s and force you to pay for approved media formats instead. You'd better keep an old PC around as an MP3 jukebox, just in case.

Another (perhaps paranoid) scenario: Microsoft are in partnership with Adobe. A rival firm comes up with a new PDF format and makes authoring capabilities cheaply available to users. Sales of Acrobat plummet. In response, MS and Adobe make Palladium only recognise Adobe's PDF format, and not that of the rival firm - thus sending it out of business. Unfair business practices? Well, the technology exists.

So, you'd rather use cheaper shareware software than full-price applications? Make the most of it while you can. Palladium could very well sound the death knell for products such as Paint Shop Pro and StarOffice, forcing you to fork out for Photoshop and MS Office instead.

I'd like to point out that Palladium will be opt-out technology. But you can bet your bottom dollar that Microsoft will do everything in it's power to make sure software made by itself and other corporate giants (like Adobe) will only run on Palladium-certified systems.

Store all your eggs in one Palladium-shaped basket and you could find you can't access them if you switch to another PC. What use are back-ups if the only machine your Word documents will open on is the one that's just gone up the spout?

Also, check out this excellent FAQ on TCPA technology - http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html

 

[zulu9812]

C'mon guys! We're talking about the future of the free world here!

 

[BlueMonday]

That's why I just got Red Hat.

 

[Sanaz]

I think this is a good direction (maybe the best). Microsoft is alienating so many of its customers that it will start losing ground to the real OSes, and the monopoly can be broken. The best thing about egocentric, myopic companies (and people) is that they ruin themselves in ways that government sanctions never could.

 

[gonzo_for_civ]

Palladium is crap. Hopefully, the people will speak out by keeping their pocketbooks closed and force Microsoft to drop it. I'd encourage anyone who strongly opposes it to drop friendly e-mails to Microsoft at least 5 times a week about it.

 

[Richard III]

Originally posted by Sanaz
I think this is a good direction (maybe the best). Microsoft is alienating so many of its customers that it will start losing ground to the real OSes, and the monopoly can be broken. The best thing about egocentric, myopic companies (and people) is that they ruin themselves in ways that government sanctions never could.

If a monopoly can be broken by the market, then its not a monopoly.

R.III

 

[zulu9812]

who was it who thought Palladium is a great idea??? Post your thoughts, please.

 

[starlifter]

If a monopoly can be broken by the market, then its not a monopoly.

That is totally not true, even if someone tried to Clintonize the definiton in a court document.




Every person on the planet that uses XP and/r MSN is directly participating in the "Alpha" testing of MS's plan to control your machine, and put any software maker on the planet out of business with the click of a mouse in Redmond.

People are bending over, spreading their cheeks, and telling MS to have at it by supporting their efforts. MSN is the database proving ground for ultra-large scale, real time contol in rea time. It has had lots of problems, because they are trying to use MS NT flavors to run it. In house, they have found that Unix and Linux can do the job, but they think it is bad PR for MS to run Linux to control the world's PCs from MS. Internally, however, they use Linux extensively to actually develop the NT (Win2000 & XP) kernal, LOL. Their own MS programs are about 70% slower, according to people I know at MS that do it.





It is coming. If you run XP, you already have your first Operating System with involuntary spyware installed... unless you have the special spyware-free corporate version, since most smart Corporations refuse to have an OS that spys on them and can do MS's bidding.



MS is not going to market this as "We control you. We control your machine. We control all software worldwide." So you with your heads in the sand, pull your heads out and understand.

Also, your current machine does not have MS spyware embedded in CPUs... yet. But Intel have agreed to do it, designed the extra 2 spy and control sections, and now has working chips. your future machines will have CPUs that will determine what you can and cannot do. If MS does not want you to play an MP3, no amount of cursing and mouse clicking will do it.

I suspect most of you will no longer be able to play MP3s, because you cannot make them anyomre (the software will not work), you cannot play ones you have (MS will not let you), and most of you will not pay $1.00 to $5.00 per MP3{/b] that RIAA and MS will validate as legit for your machine to play.



Let me tell you this. MS will not turn on these control devices at first. After a couple three years, when PCs are faster and most people have the silently awating Spy-CPU patiently awaiting the word from the MS Master to plunge the knife into your back, then MS will start activating things, and your PC will do less and less, unless you start paying MS whatever it wants for whatever it demands.

Every PC in every home will be MS eyes and ears. If you do not have permission from MS to run your PC, it will not run. Your OS will spy on you and report to MS whatever it wants, whenver MS wants. The choice is not yours, unless you physically destroy your machine.



This is not a "possible" future. It is history. It is already DONE. It has HAPPENED. The full spyware and control functions were supposed to be in XP, and released this past summer. Bad performance of the Prototype databases that you MSN users are helping MS to improve, plus XP delays, caused MS to scale back the scope, and so the full spyware and control is not embedded in XP. But MS can halt your machine, if you are running XP, and this has already happend to several hundred thousand people. You have to call MS to beg permission and a special code to activate XP again.



Right now, you can simply use Windows 9x/ME or NT/Win2K to avoid the spyware XP "Operating" System. Your own PC is not yet the eyes and ears of MS, at the Motherboard and CPU level. But it will be soon, it is a done deal.

And it is vile, despicable, and evil. But most of you probably don't mind yet, because you simply don't "want" to know .

 

[zulu9812]

Well said.

 

[Richard III]

Originally posted by starlifter
That is totally not true, even if someone tried to Clintonize the definiton in a court document.

Spend a year studying the economics of monopolies and the history of monopolies law, and then we'll talk.

It IS totally true.

By definition, a monopoly is "fixed," or it isn't a monopoly, since for the monopoly to be effective, it has to literally both be able to prevent competition and be actively succeeding in doing so, whether or not any competition actually exists.

Since Linux is clearly growing by leaps and bounds (as evidenced at the very least by support for it on this forum), then MS's monopoly is clearly ineffective; consumers are capable of making a different market choice when the market leader no longer suits their needs. So, MS is not a monopoly but simply a market leader.

And btw, I was the one who thought it was a good idea. I think it's a good idea because I'm happy to let Microsoft spy on my computer if it helps them in any way to win the war against the idiot hackers, pirates and self-indulgent, greasy, overprivileged whiners who are in a hurry to destroy an economic system that I know, love and depend on to make a living.

I, unlike many Microsoft bashers, have seen s*** in the world that's far more serious than a company using software to monitor my behavior. And on balance, Microsoft has made the world a better place, not a worse one, and I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt over a bunch of guys who think Bill Gates is worth killing for some mysterious reason.

If the fact that Windows sells a lot of copies and MS gets updates from your software is you're big beef with the world, well, you're missing the world, fellas.

R.III

 

[zulu9812]

Originally posted by Richard III
By definition, a monopoly is "fixed," or it isn't a monopoly, since for the monopoly to be effective, it has to literally both be able to prevent competition and be actively succeeding in doing so, whether or not any competition actually exists.

Since Linux is clearly growing by leaps and bounds (as evidenced at the very least by support for it on this forum), then MS's monopoly is clearly ineffective; consumers are capable of making a different market choice when the market leader no longer suits their needs. So, MS is not a monopoly but simply a market leader.

Let's look at one of the 'benefits' of Palladium. Developers say that TCPA will stop all viruses because it only allows programs to run if they're on an authorised list. But you don't set this list: Microsoft do. So MS will be able to control what programs and file extensions you work with on your computer. Once millions of ppl have been duped into using Palladium, how long until only MS products will be allowed to run on Palldium-certified machines? That is certainly an attempt at both monopolising and artificially controlling the market, I don't know what the law on monopolies is in America but since you're English, Richard III, you must know that the Competition Commission (previously the Monopolies & Mergers Commission) will surely want to look into this.

As far as Linux goes: since Palladium will ship with Windows and not as a seperate product, this puts a lot of pressure on other O/S's. For a start, Palladium isn't compatible with Linux and any software not TCPA-compatible will certainly find itself marginalised. Also, think back to the furor over MS bundling Internet Explorer with Windows and then think of the implications of bundled software like this.

And btw, I was the one who thought it was a good idea. I think it's a good idea because I'm happy to let Microsoft spy on my computer if it helps them in any way to win the war against the idiot hackers, pirates and self-indulgent, greasy, overprivileged whiners who are in a hurry to destroy an economic system that I know, love and depend on to make a living.

And what about freeware/shareware developers? Microsoft can quite easily squeeze them out simply by keeping their software off the authorised list. If a kid in his bedroom writes a database program, shorter on features than Access but much cheaper and ultimately better value for money, and Microsoft won't certify it because it's competition for their own software? What if MS charge companies to put their programs on the authorised list? The lone developer/programmer won't be able to afford that. TCPA will see a sharp drop in the number of freeware progs available, mark my words.

I, unlike many Microsoft bashers, have seen s*** in the world that's far more serious than a company using software to monitor my behavior. And on balance, Microsoft has made the world a better place, not a worse one, and I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt over a bunch of guys who think Bill Gates is worth killing for some mysterious reason.

Aren't Microsoft wondeful? Try this quote from ZDNet.com:

What makes me really nervous is when the corporates doing the policing are themselves guilty of criminal acts. Should we really trust Microsoft, which has been found guilty in the highest court in the U.S. of breaking laws in a way that harmed consumers, to build a 'trusted platform' for us? This is the very same Microsoft, remember, which now stands accused infringing 11 patents belonging to InterTrust in 144 separate claims. I am not suggesting that Microsoft is guilty; merely that it is less than suitable as a candidate to police laws or to develop technology that can be used to police laws. I'd rather trust my trusted platform to Nobby the Weasel who sells counterfeit cologne in the Star and Garter.

Why should Microsoft be the gatekeeper to all this control of information and privileges?

 

[Richard III]

Originally posted by zulu9812
Why should Microsoft be the gatekeeper to all this control of information and privileges?

Maybe you're missing something.

1) I'm Canadian. The only antitrust law that matters is American. That's what I'm talking about.

2) I don't think you understand: as a happy consumer of MS products, the day they start to permit MS programs exclusively is the day I become unhappy and tell MS so. But until that happens, nothing about the above strikes me as a big problem. As for excluding MP3 formats, well, good! If it makes billions of illegally traded files unreadable, hell, that's mardi gras as far as I'm concerned. One good involuntary expropriation deserves another. Oh, how terrible, too, that a company could actually lock its own MS Word files!! It's "censorship" for them to try to protect their own work!! Shocking!!!

If this is a big privacy issue - which I would have some sympathy with, than I suggest you write your congressman and tell him to stop dawdling on decent, enforceable private-sector privacy laws. I know that the law I helped to draft, when passed here in Ontario, will force MS to report what info they are collecting and what it is used for before it gets used. So I'm protected .

3) As for Microsoft being the gatekeeper, I AM HAPPIER TO have them keep the gate than Linus Torvalds and a bunch of frickin open-source geeks, or some company created by DOJ intervention into the market. As Sanaz wisely noted, if Palladium is so offensive, no one will buy MS anymore. So much for "the Monopoly." But in contrast, if Stallman and his clan had had his way all along, we still wouldn't even have a GUI, because that would have been too user-friendly and not as important as "cool code."

Stop trying to convince me. You won't. Bill Gates is a credit to society, and a great American. Yes, he can be an aggressive competitor. There are worse sins.

R.III

 

[BlueMonday]

"Wherever there is knowledge, there is power."


So long as there are educated computer people who don't work for the Evil Empire, this type of technology will never get off the ground floor. Everyone who knows about this constitutionally profane piece of rectal filth of an idea absolutely hates it. The only people who want this technology are Microsoft, the RIAA, the MPAA, and mentally inept sheep of computer users.

Hear me now and listen to me later: If this goes into effect you can kiss the companies that support it good-bye. Most people can log onto the net or read a newpaper and learn how truly stupifyingly horrific this technology is. When people know, people will walk. If Microsoft pushes this technology I will never buy MS products (I won't even bother stealing them anymore). If Intel supports it, f*** Intel too. Any company that jumps on the bandwagon will never do business with me again. And I don't think I'm alone in that notion.

Suddenly Lindows, Red Hat, AMD, and the rest who oppose the Evil Empire and all it's notions of computer control will be doing grand. Sell your MS stock now, cause it fill fail.

And on balance, Microsoft has made the world a better place, not a worse one, and I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt over a bunch of guys who think Bill Gates is worth killing for some mysterious reason.

I can't recall any sane person ever saying that Emporer Bill should be killed. Punished for his crimes, yes. Murdered in the street like we'll do to Bin Laden, no. That aside, I don't know why you trust these money demons. I know I wouldn't trust these jackasses to drive a bicycle, let alone design a critical peice of software. They've been jakking the computer industry for a decade now, but have been tolerated. But now, but now...

 

[zulu9812]

I'm in shock. Richard III, you seem to be a well educated and knowledgeable chap. But you've completely failed to grasp the concept here. In fact, you've missed by quite some margin.

Originally posted by Richard III
I'm Canadian. The only antitrust law that matters is American. That's what I'm talking about.

I found this particularly crass and insulting. To whom does American law matter? Europeans? Canadians? How on earth could American anti-trust laws affect product distribution in the European Union? Or Canada, for that matter?

I don't think you understand: as a happy consumer of MS products, the day they start to permit MS programs exclusively is the day I become unhappy and tell MS so. But until that happens, nothing about the above strikes me as a big problem.

Ah, I see. So, regardless of the fact that Palladium gives Microsoft the capability and legal right to invade privacy, restrict access, block competition and establish a monopoly, if they say they're gonna be nice, that's okay? You'd take their word for it? Well I won't. It doesn't matter what Microsoft say they're going to do with the technology. What's to stop Microsoft creating the worst-case scenario (of total IT control and dominance, over both the market and individuals) when they are legally allowed to do so? More importantly, why should they not? They'll certainly make a hell of a lot more money if they do. If the gamble doesn't pay off (and MS need to establish dominance to make sure it does) they'll have lost a hell of a lot of money. Just waiting until Microsoft use the technology for ill is waiting until it's too late. This needs to be stopped NOW.

As for excluding MP3 formats, well, good! If it makes billions of illegally traded files unreadable, hell, that's mardi gras as far as I'm concerned. One good involuntary expropriation deserves another. Oh, how terrible, too, that a company could actually lock its own MS Word files!! It's "censorship" for them to try to protect their own work!! Shocking!!!

And what about other file types that MS will ban? What about the Microsoft/Adobe scenario I outlined in my first post?

If this is a big privacy issue - which I would have some sympathy with, than I suggest you write your congressman and tell him to stop dawdling on decent, enforceable private-sector privacy laws. I know that the law I helped to draft, when passed here in Ontario, will force MS to report what info they are collecting and what it is used for before it gets used. So I'm protected .

Precisely. I would encourage everyone to write to their local politicians (as well as Members of the European Parliament) in protest at this situation. Write to human rights groups as well. I cannot stress this enough: we must take action NOW.

As for Microsoft being the gatekeeper, I AM HAPPIER TO have them keep the gate than Linus Torvalds and a bunch of frickin open-source geeks, or some company created by DOJ intervention into the market. As Sanaz wisely noted, if Palladium is so offensive, no one will buy MS anymore. So much for "the Monopoly." But in contrast, if Stallman and his clan had had his way all along, we still wouldn't even have a GUI, because that would have been too user-friendly and not as important as "cool code."

Good point on the 'people will vote with their feet'. However, most new PC buyers don't know jack about this sort of thing. Do you think Microsoft will publicize this? Of course they won't. They'll dress it up as a new security initiative that's essential for their computing 'XPerience'. And millions of people will blindly follow like sheep.

About the 'open source geeks': don't be obtuse. The General Public License (GPL) is an example of the great benefits of opens-source. The GPL is designed to prevent the fruits of communal voluntary labour being hijacked by private companies for profit. Anyone can use and modify software distributed under this licence, but if you distribute a modified copy, you must make it available to the world, together with the source code so that other people can make subsequent modifications of their own. Under TCPA, you can kiss that goodbye. The bedrock of innovation in software has always been the lonely freeware/shareware programmer. Clearly, you think these people are useless and not worthy of your time. Obviously, only big corporations can develop good software. Obviously, they're the only ones you should get your software from. That's crazy.

This Palladium system will not make your computer more secure. It will not stop ad companies using cookies to glean information from you. It will not stop spam e-mail (the spammers just need to send the mail from Palladium machine). It will not make the Net a safer place. Palladium will allow 3rd parties to gain remote access and control to/over your PC. Palladium will report your activities to Microsoft: if they don't like it, they'll shut your PC down. It needn't be piracy that you were doing either: it could be as simple as making a backup image of your hard drive (i.e. backing up files for copy-protected software). Palladium will control what programs you can run on your computer, and thus control the software market. All traffic and trade will go through Microsoft. Nothing will be done without their permission. You will only perform tasks on your PC that Microsoft want you to do. And all this will go on for as long as the Palladium system exists.

So much for a new dawn in the ages of man. So much for freedom of information. Microsoft want to have the capability to take all that away from us. Regardless of what they say now, somewhere down the line they will use this technology to it's fullest, most evil potential. We must not allow this to happen.

EDIT: I updated the first post to include the proper link to that excellent FAQ. Sorry about that. In fact, here it is again - http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html

 

[Richard III]

Well argued, anyhow. But still:

Originally posted by zulu9812
I'm in shock. Richard III, you seem to be a well educated and knowledgeable chap.

Been awhile since I've been called a "chap," but okay!

I found this particularly crass and insulting. To whom does American law matter? Europeans? Canadians? How on earth could American anti-trust laws affect product distribution in the European Union? Or Canada, for that matter?

Um, it matters to Canadians because our antitrust unit (The Competition Bureau of Canada) is useless, even by my standards. It matters re: Microsoft because the most important market for them is the U.S.. It matters to Europeans because the Europeans will follow any antitrust actions launched in the U.S. against a U.S. corporation with their own copycat actions. It matters to everyone else because, well...

Ah, I see. So, regardless of the fact that Palladium gives Microsoft the capability and legal right to invade privacy, restrict access, block competition and establish a monopoly, if they say they're gonna be nice, that's okay? You'd take their word for it? Well I won't. It doesn't matter what Microsoft say they're going to do with the technology. What's to stop Microsoft creating the worst-case scenario (of total IT control and dominance, over both the market and individuals) when they are legally allowed to do so? More importantly, why should they not?

Okay, to be SLIGHTLY more reasonable than I was in my last couple of posts, I will grant you that Palladium may give MS the capability to invade privacy - but don't be naive; as you point out yourself, MS and many others already have that capability, just not so neatly tied up. Just start with cookies - not to mention countless other forms of much more sophisticated software. Computer privacy ends the moment you hook up to a net. There are lots of privacy-invasion enablers out there; are you panicking about those, too? It's just that I don't see MS's efforts here as particularly unique.

As for "the legal right," well, they have the legal right to invade privacy as long as the U.S. fails to regulate it. I am a strong supporter of regulating it, because I see invasions of personal privacy by corporations as corporate theft of IP rights, in addition to seeing it as just plain terrible or annoying. Do they have the legal right to monopolize? Well, no. But just because the tech CAN create a monopoly doesn't mean it does. If we shut down all monopoly-capable techs at inception, then I wouldn't be reading this website on a Navigator browser right now

(that was a joke btw, ha ha)

And what about other file types that MS will ban? What about the Microsoft/Adobe scenario I outlined in my first post?

Granted, if that happens, that could be anticompetitive. But note my point above: capable of anti-competitive and anti-competitive are not the same thing. Virtually any "carrier" industry is capable of anti-competitive behavior at any time.

Good point on the 'people will vote with their feet'. However, most new PC buyers don't know jack about this sort of thing.

I disagree, although I'm not sure you'd be upset why; I think most PC users do know more than you think; I just don't think most of them care, in the same way most don't care about the "bugginess" of MS relative to the awkwardness of Linux, because the "bugginess" is on balance a mere annoyance.

About the 'open source geeks': don't be obtuse. The General Public License (GPL) is an example of the great benefits of opens-source. The GPL is designed to prevent the fruits of communal voluntary labour being hijacked by private companies for profit. Anyone can use and modify software distributed under this licence, but if you distribute a modified copy, you must make it available to the world, together with the source code so that other people can make subsequent modifications of their own...

The bedrock of innovation in software has always been the lonely freeware/shareware programmer. Clearly, you think these people are useless and not worthy of your time. Obviously, only big corporations can develop good software.That's crazy

[I knew it! I knew you had to be one of them! ]

Why can't I be obtuse? Everyone calls MS fascist, so I call the free software movement anarcho-syndicalist. Seems fair. At least I'm not calling them communists...

Hell: listen to Stallman; using bought software is "a betrayal," and an act of oppression. Who's the crazy one here? ME?

And I have to offer up an alternative theory: the bedrock of innovation in software has always been the small to medium sized one-suite/one-program company, not the lonely freeware/shareware programmer, just as the small production house has been the bedrock of film innovation, not the hobbyist with his super-8. I wish MS would bust-up voluntarily, not because it's a terrible monopoly, but because mixing all of those functions in one company is bad economics from the company's perspective.

My father has been a systems analyst and programmer since 1968. The idyllic world where everyone traded files and hides in their rooms that Stallman et al paint of those years is not the reality that either he or I remember. It's precisely because smaller firms and startups are hurt by piracy that I'm such a bastard on the subject (ditto for bands, writers, etc.)

R.III

 

[MajorGeneral2]

In the way of government regulation, keep in mind that governments tend to fail in the vast majority of things they do (outside of basic justice, warfare, and other bread and butter things). Watch one of John Stossel's programs and you'll see what I mean. Airport security, drugs, healthcare, child protection, etc. All have failed (or at least been heavily corrupted). Let industry regulate itself! (for the most part)

 

[BlueMonday]

Originally posted by Richard III
...Okay, to be SLIGHTLY more reasonable than I was in my last couple of posts, I will grant you that Palladium may give MS the capability to invade privacy - but don't be naive; as you point out yourself, MS and many others already have that capability, just not so neatly tied up. Just start with cookies - not to mention countless other forms of much more sophisticated software. Computer privacy ends the moment you hook up to a net. There are lots of privacy-invasion enablers out there; are you panicking about those, too? It's just that I don't see MS's efforts here as particularly unique.

I contend that there is a grave difference between Palladium and other forms of malware. Every single form of malware on the net right now is stoppable if you have the right software. The combination of a firewall, NeoTrace, and the use of my universities proxy servers have enabled me to keep my computer clean of all malicious software. All my traffic is monitored, and if someone does get in I get them right back. I even started using Iolo which can block off entire directories or drives from access over TCP/IP. In this world it doesn't matter how good the malicous software is. I can find it, I can kill it, I can track down who did it.

Palladium on the other hand is unstoppable. Under the Evil Empire's plan the system will be embedded in the ROM. Every keystroke will be logged, every file that you view will have to be approved by Palladium, absolutely everything you do will be monitored by Emporer Bill. And if you tamper with it you'll either have your computer shut down completely if you fail or be prosecuted under felony charges if you succeed. Who knows what Microsoft will say is OK? I don't know what exactly they will allow or not, but I will never entrust the well being of my computer to a bunch of Shylocks.

Moving along, Laissez-Faire is only an applicable market solution when the product is something people understand. In a successful unregulated market informed people will know what is best for them and the economy will thrive because of it. But in this case, Laissez-Faire fails us in all regards. By creating an ambitiously complex system of control and masking it in misinformation the Evil Empire is allowed to fool not only the people it serves, but also the people who should be stopping it.

If, per se, another person were to hack into my computer and log my every keystroke he would be commiting a crime. Why should the Evil Empire be any different? Why should they be allowed to trounce the very rights that are there to protect me? But wait, you're Canadian...things like the Constitution are irrelevant to you, but not to the rest of us.

You say you trust Microsoft to keep your best interests, and I call you a fool becuase of it, for only a fool opens the city gates to the plundering hordes.

 

[starlifter]

MS is a monopoly already. They are eligible, and deserving, of the full remedial punishment under US law... breakup and billions upon billions of dollars in fines and restitution.

Monopoly does not mean 100% market share. It does not even mean industry power. It means using Dominant influence in one area to obtain or exercise in in another. Most people are totally ignorant of how this works in the US, because people kind of "assume" all software is a single industry. It is not, and the courts have held this.


Take an example to help understand. Imagine you are an automaker. 80 to 90% of all cars sold are made by Monocar. Monocar is the overwhelming dominant force in the the car industry.

Is this a monopoly? No. They have not leveraged power into another market they wish to dominate yet. But suppose they want to go into home loans. They make it practically impossible to obtain a car unless the buyer finances or refinanaces through their loan company. This is illegal, and the Execs should all go straight to prison.

MS has done this with their OS power. They have almost destroyed the Internet based market of Browsers by dumping a product (meaning the loss is covered by their power elsewhere, which is illegal in the US) on the market with their OS. Then they lied about it, were convicted (Judge Stanley Sporkin, Fed. Dist. Court), the the Clinton Admin. essentially put it aside forever... only to start a new porsecution 2 years later (in 1998, IIRC).

So MS has earned not only a breakup, but also long term imprisonment for the top 200 or 300 people in the company, or who were part but have now left. No one gets off. And of course, the US Gov't should fine MS about 400 to 500 billion dollars, and probably use part of it as restitution for the evils MS has caused to about 350 competitiors.



MS has almost single-handedly ruined the PC platform. We are stuck in about 1996, in terms of "develpoment". MS actively destroyed competitiors (DR-DOS, PC-DOS, OS/2, Novell DOS, Open DOS, even Apple, who developed and named Windows before MS).

We see how well a program can run without MS "help" (Opera, e.g.). OpenOffice is also better than MS Office in some ways. MS is always co-opting standards, and stabbing in the back the committes in participates with.

We have been repressed, and most average users don't know it because MS has such an overwhelming monopoly that they exrecise in the Applications Market, and the Browser/Internet Market, and the Server Market.

The world does not need MS... MS needs teh world, and the world is more or less ready to step onto the MS gallows, put it's neck in the noose, and make that final drop with a smile on it's face.

 

[zulu9812]

Right. First of all, Richard III. Regardless of privacy laws, the rules on monopolies in Britain is much stricter than in America. Purely because something works under the American legal system does not mean that it will work here.

As far as being this being no different to what goes on now anyway. Firstly, that shouldn't be allowed either. Secondly, people are pissed about it and those who aren't should be. Thirdly, BlueMonday is correct: this is different. This is hardware and software combined. It will supposedly be uncrackable and give users no choice but to put up with it. That us unacceptable.

And btw - I am not a programmer. I have never made a piece of software before in my life. But I value the contribution these people make. Don't forget how Apple Mac started: two men with an idea. Yes, they turned it into a small startup business. A business with ideas that would change the world. From men who still lived with their mothers The sort of business that Microsoft would plunder today; steal their ideas and shut them down. Even Bill Gates started out as the lowly programmer. But then he decided to stop programming and just plagiarize Apple.

Microsoft have already been found guilty of establishing a monopoly. They have been found guilty of breaking patent laws, of copying ideas. This is not a company with a conscience. These are not good people.

As I've said before: it doesn't matter what Microsoft say they're going to do with the technology. I just don;t want to give them the option. Once you give out power it's very difficult to stop it being misused, and it's even harder to take it back.

This isn't just about Microsoft invading your privacy and getting hold of personal info. This is about Microsoft controlling what you do with your PC, to an extent never seen before. Obviously, what you do on your PC is constrained by the limitations of the software and hardware. But this is different. The software and hardware allow the user more freedom than ever before, but Microsoft want to artificially limit and control you.

They say this will be opt-out technology. What about the disabled? The people who use the Net to shop for groceries. The next gen Internet Explorer could quite easily block certain websites and make you buy your groceries from only one store. What about people with muscle disabilities, who use voice recognition software. Most of the time, this only works with applications from big companies, who have been kind enough to build in voice software support. You can be sure Microsoft will make sure that all big and popular software will run only on Palladium machines. Thus the man with the voice software has to use Palladium. he has no choice. Microsoft, unwittingly or not, will exploit his disability in order to gain control and, ultimately, make more money.

I'm not saying that Bill Gates has some Machiavellian plot to overthrow world governments. All he wants is money: as much as he can get his hands on. If he can make you buy music and software several times over, so much the better. If he has to stomp on your rights in order to get more money, he doesn't care. In fact there is the very real possibility that people's rights, once legal rights enshrined in stone, become electronic PRIVILEGES granted by the corporations. Again, that is unacceptable.

 

[BlueMonday]

Originally posted by starlifter
Take an example to help understand. Imagine you are an automaker. 80 to 90% of all cars sold are made by Monocar. Monocar is the overwhelming dominant force in the the car industry.

Is this a monopoly? No. They have not leveraged power into another market they wish to dominate yet. But suppose they want to go into home loans. They make it practically impossible to obtain a car unless the buyer finances or refinanaces through their loan company. This is illegal, and the Execs should all go straight to prison.

Hey that's a great point, and I didn't even think of that yet. Notably back in the late sixties when Pontiac started selling the GTO it started selling so well that it pushed General Motors market share close to sixty percent. GM knew that if they sold any more cars they'd be split up by the government so they told some of it's automakers to manufacture less cars. Fortuneatly for GM, Ford and Dodge started selling better so they were spared from the chopping block.