Microsoft becoming 'software police,'

[BoyOfDestiny]

I believe this one is appropriate for Community Cafe, rather than OS specific section (mods feel free to move it though.)

"August 06, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Microsoft Corp. last week slammed the door on a free utility out of Australia that outflanked one of the company's touted security features in Windows Vista, by having the program's digital certificate revoked.

Users took Microsoft to task for the move, noting the slippery slope the company was walking on, with some blasting the vendor for playing "software police."

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=windows&articleId=9029161&taxonomyId=125

Definitely a slippery slope. The bottom line is Microsoft can decide what you can install and run. if you don't like it, you either need new hardware, or use something else. Because they can just stop it from functioning.

In this case, the 'naughty' software let's you install unsigned drivers. Do these certificates really prevent workarounds, or can a company just pay the fee for the cert?

You can see the same level of control in regard to ssl certs.
http://www.proper.com/root-cert-problem/
Again workarounds should be possible.

I'm not a fan of this.

[blithen]

Sorry I didn't really understand.

Basically Mircrosoft can shut down your hardware if you don't use Windows?

[BoyOfDestiny]

Sorry I didn't really understand.

Basically Mircrosoft can shut down your hardware if you don't use Windows?

No thank goodness.

Basically let's say you try to install an unsigned driver for some piece of hardware. For example, you move to Vista 64, you try an install an old driver (this article used one signed driver to load unsigned) Then you can use the hardware.

In this case, they just disabled the cert, and the hardware could no longer be used (no driver for it, it's being rejected)

If one day there is a signed driver for your hardware then you can run it. Otherwise, out of luck.

[smoker]

basically it means that microsoft owns your computer and can decide whether it will allow you to install something or not. still, the more draconian measures they introduce, the more custom they will drive away!

[blithen]

Yeah really. What the crap. Why would Microsoft do something so stupid? That would make MORE people go to Linux.
Microsoft=Monkeys
Windows > Linux

[BoyOfDestiny]

Yeah really. What the crap. Why would Microsoft do something so stupid? That would make MORE people go to Linux.
Microsoft=Monkeys
Windows > Linux

I'm not 100% sure. I think they think some people can't leave windows. They may be right (I can only imagine how fun things will get if WINE goes 1.0, or more companies port their software to Linux)

If you look at what MS is currently up to, you'll see subscription based, pay per use, etc. For this they need a control mechanism to disable/enable functionality. DRM etc allows them to do so.
My opinion, but here are some links to back up my view.

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/54166/Microsoft-Works-goes-free-with-ad-support

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=445

Looking at some of their patent applications also lean toward it.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070717-microsoft-patents-the-mother-of-all-adware-systems.html

Anyway, it's that kind of stuff that drove me faster towards Linux. Heck, I'd kept an XP box on for 90 days without a crash... Fortunately I do like the Linux way better. But I think more people will consider a switch with this stuff. Others may not care if they don't run into it...

Oh well... :) Quite a rant on my part.

[popch]

Sorry I didn't really understand.

Basically Mircrosoft can shut down your hardware if you don't use Windows?

No. They shut down some of the hardware when you do use Windows. What else is new?

:lolflag: