Boggled

[unixronin]

The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history.

-- Peter Gutmann

I just got around to reading Peter Gutmann's analysis of the Windows Vista Content Protection specification.  And I'm boggled.  Even when pushed by the paranoid and deluded content industry (read: the MPAA and RIAA), I have a hard time believing even Microsoft, after all the dumb things it's done, could be this stupid.

If there's anything that might choke the great mass of uneducated users enough to make them turn around en masse and tell Microsoft to shove it where the sun don't shine, this may be it, once the word starts getting out that all these mysterious failures and performance problems they're now having aren't bugs -- Vista is SUPPOSED to work that way....

Comments

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

Have you been following the ongoing plot line in The Help Desk comic at Ubersoft.net (http://ubersoft.net/?cat=2) about this? It's hilarious! Ubersoft Inc. is accusing companies who don't upgrade to their Verandas software of being terrorists!

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yup, I have ... I wish it was entirely exaggerating.

(I think it was some executive at Turner who said -- in a nationally-reported press conference -- that if you fast-forward through commercials, or mute the sound, or leave the room to use the bathroom or fetch a beer while the commercials are on, you're stealing from the network. My answer to him is that if it takes me an hour of my time to watch forty minutes of programming because it's interleaved with twenty minutes of commercials advertising crap that I don't want and will never buy anyway, then he's stealing from me.)

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

I think this is the best vendor lock scam in that has ever been conceived. Once you get hardware involved to the proper degree, the only OS that can possibly run is Micro$oft's. This is so much better than "per processor" licensing because the hardware is a boat anchor without their software.

This will also mean the end of linux. No device drivers, mean no running OS. Can't write open source device drivers without specs, and if you reverse engineer the specs, you hit the DMCA tollbooth.

The real question is: Can Micro$oft pull it off? I would hate to bet all on the intelligence and principled response of computer users. My inbox spam volume argues that is a bad bet.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

It's certainly anticompetitive enough to form the grounds for a brand new Microsoft antitrust lawsuit.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

In this case, Micro$oft is contractually obligated to comply. Contract law vs. Anti-Trust Law, an interesting ploy. I wonder who wins.