Microsoft's Palladium project and the Wild West mentality on the Internet

Copyright 2002 - World Tech Tribune.com ^ | June 28, 2002 | Scott McCollum

[Scott McCollum]

A clip:

“Regardless of what some leftist self-appointed libertarian Internet watchdogs and privacy advocates will try to say, the citizens living in the nineteenth century are nowhere close to being as 'free' as those fortunate enough to be alive now. The privacy advocates are right about Microsoft’s vision of Palladium; it is a technology that wants to turn the Internet from lawless Wild West into an orderly suburban neighborhood. You know, gated communities much like those hypocritical privacy advocates live in.”

[dheretic]

the citizens living in the nineteenth century are nowhere close to being as 'free' as those fortunate enough to be alive now.

Spoken like a true Socialist. Here's a small list of things they didn't have to deal with back then:

1. Paying up to 50% of their income to a government that has a tax code so complicated it takes trained professionals to be able to explain it to you.
2. Get a license to own a gun in any part of the US.
3. Bribe a federal agency to allow a drug onto the market because while the agency says it isn't dangerous, the agency just doesn't think it "does enough to be on the market."
4. Worry about hyper-moralist a$$holes that try to the system up so that you have to get government permission to research any new scientific frontier because the resulting "moral consequences" might be "bad." Back then a scientific research team could also hire private security, arm them with military-grade weaponry and order them to defend their labs at all costs. Now they have to rely on whatever police protection they are granted which is next to none if their research isn't a big tax revenue generator and is controversial.
5. Copyright laws that threaten a $600B/year industry to protect the assets of two industries worth a combined total of little more than 5% of that industry.
6. Justifying to the government why they should be allowed the "privelege" of homeschooling their kids.

[Psycho_Bunny]

I mean the cracks for getting around whatever they're going to do will be developed and available at Warez sites before the final version of their software is released.

The same way the XP security keys were cracked before Office and Windows XP were shipped.

[dheretic]

Free healthcare?

Go get your guns boys! We have some rogue charity clinics to shut down.

[B Knotts]

Making your own music?

Report immediately to the reeducation camp, citizen.

[dheretic]

Report immediately to the reeducation camp, citizen.

That should be "citizen" :)

[Jhoffa_]

I don't know much about the software issue..

But the comparison of "Wild West" to a "Surburban Neighborhood" sounds more like the whining of a pencil-necked control freak than anything resembling a legitimate argument.

Give me the Wild West Please!

And PS, maybe we need to do something to "secure" our "wild west" and keep these pansy control freaks out!

[steve-b]

And this is why hardware security is a bad idea for the mass market, unless Microsoft has invented some way for you to download new patch chips from the Internet.

[Redcloak]

Has anyone noticed that Scotty hasn't been back to defend his thesis?

[steve-b]

As far as I can tell, all Scotty ever does here is post (usually broken) links to his blogsite.

[Scott McCollum]

If I thought you actually read the columns at World Tech Tribune.com rather than the teaser clips posted here, maybe I'd reply here...

I realize you'd rather just have a cut-and-paste of the whole copyrighted article here at FR, but that is illegal (illegal via a court ruling - regardless of what your personal opinions on copyright are).

Plus, why respond to the parroted remarks first heard by Richard Stallman 30 years ago? You know, the "we are the only freedom fighters - we are the only samizat - we are the only ones who stand against oppression - it's all a big conspiracy" cult chants heard here or at ZDNet, CNet, TechTV, CMP or any of the other mainstream tech media sites?

Hey, if you want to get me fired, it would be better to post all the evidence that I'm lying about all this on World Tech Tribune.com's forum or emailing my publisher so-- Oooh, no - wait! I forgot... Posting on that website is part of the conspiracy to silence the freedom fighters' samizat.

Forget I said anything. Return to your basements/garages and wait for the encrypted all clear message from Alan Cox. Remember: "The condor flies at midnight."

[steve-b]

Dude, try decaf.

[steve-b]

If I thought you actually read the columns at World Tech Tribune.com rather than the teaser clips posted here, maybe I'd reply here...

Hokay; I'll click on the link and read the whole thing:

The page cannot be displayed

There is a problem with the page you are trying to reach and it cannot be displayed.

Please try the following:
Open the worldtechtribune.com home page, and then look for links to the information you want.
Click the Refresh button, or try again later.

HTTP 403.2 - Forbidden: Read Access Forbidden
Internet Information Services

Technical Information (for support personnel)

Background:
This error can be caused if there is no default page available and directory browsing has not been enabled for the directory, or if you are trying to display an HTML page that resides in a directory marked for Execute or Script permissions only.

More information:
Microsoft Support

Well, that was certainly enlightening....

[Scott McCollum]

You can't get to a webpage visited by web-savvy International readers every day? That doesn't sound like kind of problem-solving genius associated with an "IT professional," hotshot programmer or Unix admin with a low-six figure salary.

The link will work on the evil Internet Explorer browser, which comes standard with any copy of Windows since 1995, but is available for Mac OS and the good commercially-available flavors of Unix like Sun Solaris.

If you haven't quit yet, try using IE rather than viewing the page in some third-rate open source app with all the adherence to today's web standards and functionality of a tweleve year-old version of Nexus running on NeXT.

[Scott McCollum]

XP product activation keys were not cracked.

ISO images containing the corporate OEM versions of Office/Windows XP were posted on multiple newsgroups and P2P sites by open source cultists working for Dell Computers in Austin, Texas.

Thanks to the anonymity afforded by the Internet and so valued by cyber libertarians, no prosecutions or arrests were made. Dell employees and England's The Register all know the pre-activated copies of XP products on the Internet were leaked by open source cultists at Dell.

[Psycho_Bunny]

lolololol.

Dude, I run cracks on all my XP software so, keep telling me how it's a myth...

(But the software is all legal. I just refuse to let MS "approve" my installations.)

[steve-b]

LOL! Like I'm going to jump through hoops to visit your silly little blog.