WHAT IS MICROSOFT M$ UP TO? 10/30/06

In the process of waiting for a super-techie from Micro$oft call me to fix the botched job that InternetExplorer did on my main computer, I discovered several potentially alarming indicators of the way that Micro$oftie appears to be heading.

A staffer from CNet noted back on July 30, 2006 that M$ was going to begin charging consumers who wish to experience the wonders of the 2007 Beta Version of MS Office a buck fifty to try using it off-line. The excuse was that the servers had five thousand more downloads already since anticipated. Thus, Bill G. & co. need our finances to help their finances.
See: http://news.com.com/Microsoft+to+charge+for+Office+beta/2100-1012_3-6099987.html

Additionally, the company has come up with a way to enforce the DRMA-- Digital Restriction Media Access [or Digital Rights Media Act for those in favor thereof-- meaning chiefly Big Companies, the misinformed public which by and large think of filesharers as criminals, and a few musicians who don't realize that they will not be benefitting via increased revenue or generated fines]. With the release of Windows VISTA os comes some restrictions. Users will only be able to install VISTA on the same machine twice before having to go out and re-buy VISTA in a box. Any users who need to re-format their computers more than once are simply SOL. See the following sources:
http://operalover.tntluoma.com/news/desperately_seeking_revenue_microsoft_not_me/
[details on a broken download and a strongly-worded M$ suggestion to employ an out-sourced downloader both lead me to suspect that Micro$oft plans on charging for use of said downloader in order to avoid interruptions. But wait, there's more...]
http://www.techweb.com/wire/software/193300234 [VISTA can be reassigned to another device once and only once before the user would have to purchase another VISTA license...thus any user to has to reformat their machine more than once has to shell out more dough.]


Goto http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/security/default.mspx
for a bunch of articles related to the work M$ is doing to promote security on the internet-- including Sender ID e-mail [shades of Big Brother] and the M$ traveling security show. Also, Microsoft's refusal to release code to developers so that the developers can iron out glitches between their programs and VISTA in spite of touting VISTA compatibility with non-M$ apps.

Unfortunately, I could not find any references in any of the M$ sites I looked through supporting blocking of copyright-protected downloads nor Validation Check Failures. The existence of numerous white papers on the Micro$oft sites was pointless since I did not have the required validation code for Office 2003 in order to download them and read them. There are however numerous references in various blogs and a few newsarticles to the idea that VISTA will block one's computer from playing any media which lacks the proper DRM protection mark; and to the idea that when a copy of VISTA fails the validation check, that copy will then have limited functionality for one hour at a time. A few of them are cited below:
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35057

http://weblog.infoworld.com/gripeline/archives/2006/10/a_vista_of_lice.html

http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2006/8/25/0391/26494

http://weblog.infoworld.com/techwatch/archives/008540.html

http://weblogs.asp.net/pwilson/archive/2006/09/27/Vista-will-NOT-support-Developers.aspx

http://blog.lobby4linux.com/index.php?/archives/
71-MS-Assaults-Customers-with-First-Wave-of-Attacks.html

http://www.techweb.com/wire/software/167101037

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=119757

http://www.drmblog.com/

The upshot is that we are rapidly seeing the dissolution of the days when the average kid was able to download songs from the radio and share homemade tapes [CDs] of varied content with friends. Starting with the advent of Sony's rootkits, proceeding through the illegalization of two or more people being able to even discuss how one might defeat DRM [DRMA] "protections"
and the extention of copyright protections to the forbidding of backwards engineering, onward to the build-in dictates of how one can use their computer by the VISTA os. M$ is annoying in its' inherent belief that users are not capable of navigating around their computers. To add insult to injury, now it seems that we users must be protected from ourselves.

Considering my recent really bad experience with IE7 mucking up the main computer, I am not going to upgrade to VISTA's big brother like protection. I'm switching to Linux.

radical sapphoq

PS In case ya haven't heard, the VISTA kernel has already been broken!!!