One of the technologies I am waiting for would allow me to effect transactions without giving over vast quantities of personal data. After all, what companies really need to know are: can I pay, and do I have the necessary qualities (age, residence) I claim to have. They don’t need to know a vast range of irrelevant *details* about me.
Such a system exists; it’s called U-Prove:
Summary: A new push for the Web browser ballot to be deployed on all Windows installers/OEM PCs; other abuses of Microsoft in Europe
ECIS, which shed light on Microsoft’s crimes last year (scroll down to the appendix and also see this summary of crimes against Netscape in another appendix), has just suggested that Microsoft should take its biased ballot [1, 2] to countries outside Europe. Suffice to say, Microsoft boosters including Microsoft Emil and Mary Jo Foley are whining. They are of course hostile towards the idea.
mke2fs /dev/sda1deltree /y \C:\ONGRTLNS.W95No, Windows is not a virus. Here’s what viruses do:
- They replicate quickly – okay, Windows does that.
- Viruses use up valuable system resources, slowing down the system as they do so – okay, Windows does that.
- Viruses will, from time to time, trash your hard disk – okay, Windows does that too.
- Viruses are usually carried, unknown to the user, along with valuable programs and systems. Sigh… Windows does that, too.
- Viruses will occasionally make the user suspect their system is too slow (see 2.) and the user will buy new hardware. Yup, that’s with Windows, too.
Until now it seems Windows is a virus but there are fundamental differences:
Viruses are well supported by their authors, are running on most systems, their program code is fast, compact and efficient and they tend to become more sophisticated as they mature.
So Windows is not a virus. It’s a bug.
C:\>There is power in authority.
Microsoft’s strategy against open source uses authority. It ties up institutions that are authoritative, that have power over professions, creating a benefit for the institution that ties its members to proprietary Microsoft tools.
I have covered this extensively at ZDNet Healthcare regarding products like Amalga and Healthvault, but here is an example that goes beyond medicine and is specifically about open source.
Summary: Prostitution, orgies, drug use, and other shocking details about life at Microsoft
TWO years ago, Microsoft was visited by the authorities under unusual circumstances:
Microsoft Building Searched By Feds Investigating High-Priced Hookers
[...]
Federal investigators executed a search warrant at Microsoft’s Mountain View, Calif., offices earlier this month as part of an investigation into a high-priced call girl ring similar to the one used by former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer.
Last week, David Coursey reported that Microsoft entertainment and devices boss Robbie Bach made the prediction in an analyst briefing that Linux on mobile will lose. Why? It’s choice is a bad thing for customers and that there is too much Linux in the mobile marketplace
By Bach’s count there are 17 variants of Linux available on mobile phones. He sees this as a bad thing for customers. We, unsurprisingly, see this as a bad thing for Microsoft.
Technology markets are shaped by momentum. When a company bets on a technology, it’s not a one-time decision. They must live with that choice for years. Ecosystems around technology are as important as the technology itself, since you need partners and developers to actually make something of it. This is why I take issue with his pronouncement that Linux will not do as well as Microsoft mobile. He may have a point that individual variants of Linux may come and go. We will likely see moves both up and down for specific versions of a mobile OS using Linux. We’ve seen it in the enterprise distribution market.
Read more at The LInux Foundation
Microsoft isn’t having an easy time of it these days. In addition to the unpatched hole in Internet Explorer, a now published hole in Windows allows users with restricted access to escalate their privileges to system level – and this is believed to be possible on all 32-bit versions of Windows from Windows NT 3.1 up to, and including Windows 7. While the vulnerability is likely to affect home users in only a minor way, the administrators of corporate networks will probably have their hands full this week.
The problem is caused by flaws in the Virtual DOS Machine (VDM) introduced in 1993 to support 16-bit applications (real mode applications for 8086). VDM is based on the Virtual 8086 Mode (VM86) in 80386 processors and, among other things, intercepts hardware routines such as BIOS calls.
Two interesting tidbits of news about Microsoft today. First is that the company is to make it legal to rent both Windows and Office. The second is an analysis on how slates will affect the Redmond giant’s bottom line. Both are interesting reading, but both also are indications of the problems that Microsoft is likely to encounter over the coming years.
See, when zealots debate the old “Windows vs. Mac vs. Linux” argument, it’s a widely held belief within the Mac and Linux camp that it is one of these platforms that represent the greatest threat to Microsoft’s dominance.