Is Microsoft Vista “Police-ware”?

Let’s rephrase it: Vista violates your rights, damages the environment, creates a monopoly. But although Microsoft will do its utmost to make you believe otherwise, its new VISTA operating system is actually disempowering the user. You no longer decide what can be done with your “Personal Computer”, VISTA (ie Microsoft) decides. Not convinced? Let me give you a couple of url’s to relevant articles.

In “Dude, where’s my data?” Computerworld’s Jon Espenschied quickly found out that users are no longer in control of their data. Like in Microsofts Viral DRM embedded in its Zune musicplayer (using an on the fly DRM ’share 3 times max” wrapping around personal files that you own, made and are perfectly allowed to share without limitations) Vista is the incarnation of (watch out, PR new-speak) “Trusted computing”, a highly controversial strategy. Quote: “The term is taken from the field of trusted systems and has a specialized meaning. In this technical sense, “trusted” does not necessarily mean the same as “trustworthy” from a user’s perspective. Rather, “trusted computing” means that the computer can be trusted by its designers and other software writers not to run unauthorized programs.”

And for Microsoft, “unauthorized” doesn’t mean “illegal”, it simply means anything they don’t like running on ‘their’ OS.

Yes, ‘their OS’, not yours. Read the EULA: buying Vista is like buying a car at full retail price, without ever owning it, with the provision that MSFT decides who the passengers are. And if they don’t like the way you drive, they just stall the engine, even if you are going 120 km/h on the freeway. And don’t start whining: you agreed to it: Surprises inside Microsoft Vista’s EULA
Quote: “It’s bad, ain’t it? Real bad. I mean, previous EULAs weren’t anything great – either as reading material or in terms of rights granted to end users – but the Vista EULA is horrendous.”

And that’s just the start. If you read through MSDN you will find countless examples of how VISTA will enforce the “Trusted computing” concept – limiting your choice on your own hardware.

Like Jon Espenschied, one day you will be surprised how much control you lost, when VISTA politely informs you that “these files can no longer be accessed” or your brand new High Definition content DVD is set to blury, low resolution because Vista doesn’t like the connection to your HD TV.

Microsoft chose to get in bed with the recording studios and Hollywood because of lucrative future partnership deals that they can jointly cash in on and split the profits. They also have the same ethos when it comes to DRM.

What do you think would have happened if Microsoft simply had said no?

Long term, it makes sense, the next step will be to lock down on what hardware can be used in the name of enforcing DRM. Unsigned drivers will become a thing of the past. After that, it’s time for the motherboard and BIOS to get DRM built in,
and only run signed code to ensure there is no violations ground up. If those BIOSes happen to only boot into signed bootloaders, well, so much the more secure we all are, at least until you decide you want to run something other then Microsoft software.

In other words, Microsoft is looking at Apple and copying their propriety approach to hardware, oddly enough, at the same time as Apple is opening up.

“Hey Dude, where’s my data?” is no joke. It’s real. Get scared.

Choosing Linux might prove tricky: in a recent statement on Nov 16 in Seattle, Microsoft’s Steve Balmer contended that MSFT owned several “patents” on technology currently used in open-source ‘enemy’ Linux. Novel recently payed MSFT 40 million $ to prevent its corporate Suse Linux users getting sued by Microsoft, just in case…

Get real scared now. Even better: avoid Windows Vista – although I haven’t got a clue where you still can find a viable alternative…