Microsoft Furthers Attempts to Take Over the World

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

cloudimani

Acrobat
Joined
Jan 21, 2002
Messages
483
Location
Ireland
Microsoft's latest anti-competitive plans revealed...

(From Channel 4 News)


'Sea change' in Computing?
Technology

Published: 7 November 2002
Reporter: Julian Rush

Senior Microsoft executives are in Britain on a mission to defuse growing criticism of the corporation's plans for what it describes as a "sea-change" in computing.

The radical new vision is code-named Palladium; the buzz-phrase: 'Trustworty Computing'.

But critics warn that it's the most anti-competitive strategy Microsoft has yet thought up, designed to eliminate increasingly successful - and cheaper - alternatives to its Windows operating system.

In January 2002, Bill Gates writes an email to every one of Microsoft's fifty thousand staff.

"Trustworthy Computing is the highest priority for all the work we are doing. We must lead the industry to a whole new level of Trustworthiness in computing."

In a world of software bugs, viruses and hackers, Bill Gates' vision goes like this:

For the first time, you - the user - will be able to truly trust your computer: the software it runs guaranteed to safely and securely manipulate your most private digital information both on your computer or across the Internet.

Microsoft wants to do this with a project called Palladium, named after the statue of the Greek goddess Pallas Athene that protected Troy.

In a consortium with chip manufacturers like Intel it will re-design the personal computer, with a unique security chip inside every Palladium PC.

A chip Microsoft says puts you in control of security, but which it admits, also allows others to control what you can and can't do with your own computer. Issues like my rights to do what I want to do on my own computer.

Hollywood and the big multimedia corporations are desperate to clamp down on music and video downloaded over the Internet.

They're lobbying governments and computer companies for systems that give them total control - as tight as restricting which individual computer you're permitted to play it on and even the program you use to play it.

It's called DRM - digital rights management - and it's what Palladium was originally designed to do.

Microsoft programmers say they soon realised Palladium can do much more.

They can sell it to users as a way to get the same sort of tight control over their own documents and email.

Microsoft has a near- monopoly. If Palladium becomes widely accepted, critics warn it will freeze out alternatives to Windows - and Microsoft is banking on that.

--------------------------------------------

law suit anyone?
 
Well, get ready for DRM. It's being implemented in all the new Intel / AMD chips above 3.0 GHz.

A sad day, indeed, for computing. An Orwellian nightmare, complete with the fancy-named packaging. I'm likely going to get my AMD 2400+ computer, and, as we all know, as time goes on, one will be forced to probably upgrade into a DRM computer. However, I will, at least, have the old 2400+, which will certainly always be internet capable when I want to actually control my computer.

Melon
 
Last edited:
And 5 minutes after its release, some nice hacker will have a crack for us all to patch this problem with...
 
Back
Top Bottom