Microsoft will build software for managing identities into Windows in order to beef up security by giving users more control over their personal information, the world’s largest software maker said on Tuesday.
Microsoft Working on New ID System for Windows
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We are developing a new and “better” licensing scheme.
“We’re trying to make the end-user experience as simple as possible,” Stephenson said, adding that Microsoft’s “goal is to make sure that this is as broadly accessible as possible.”
Isn’t this how or why Windows got into being a security nightmare to begin with?
At least with the digital IDs, Microsoft will now have the mechanism to track down all those Windows pirates. You don’t actually think you’ll be in control, do you?
Furthermore we will be making sure that Windows clients will be incompatible and uninteroperable with Linux and other Unix like servers.
“incompatible and uninteroperable”? Maybe inexistant. And any opensource project intending to change that will be filed for patent infringment.
And that’s why MS gives away Services for Unix for free?
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu/
And that’s why MS gives away Services for Unix for free?
It gets even better than that: http://www.interopsystems.com/tools/warehouse.htm A repository full of …gasp… open source ported to SFU.
In fact if you fire up the hex editor you will find a lot of the SFU utilities are from OpenBSD …EEEEKK!!!!
Come on people.
This isn’t slashdot, there isn’t an expectation that you have to defame microsoft at every chance you get.
This seems like not a bad system.
This one’s already been discredited.
So Windows can operate with UNIX with this package. Big deal. Interoperability goes both way. The day that they will open their protocols to assure the opposite (e.g. UNIX clients talking to Windows servers) is the day that I will trust their words on their efforts.
In other words, contact me once they release a Services for Windows for UNIX, even if it’s not for free.
Isn’t that what Samba is for?
the problem isn’y any mechanism for authentication or indeed any other mechanism for managing data ,.,, its the fact that windows itself is very badly engineered. no matter what you build on top of it … it’ll be bypassed.
i wouldn’t let windows near any of my businesses.
They will build it, it will be hacked, they will have to explain away/apologize/spread FUD until they finally have to pull the product. Easier not to do it in the first place. Seriously, MS should back off any sensitive data apps, there are just too many hackers gunning for them.
“Come on people. This isn’t slashdot, there isn’t an expectation that you have to defame microsoft at every chance you get. This seems like not a bad system.”
Maybe it doesn’t SEEM to be a bad system, until you finally realize that it’s nothing more than a hard-disk version of Hailstorm/Passport, which they couldn’t get adopted by any standards or industry group because it’s fundamentally flawed.
This is not defamation. This is reality.
>> Jesse McNelis: Come on people. This isn’t slashdot, there isn’t an expectation that you have to defame microsoft at every chance you get.
Sure they do. You can’t reasonably expect people like this to behave in a mature, rational, and congenial fashion when they’re commenting on things of a proprietary nature. They are suffering from open source zealotry disease. Symptoms include bulging veins, wild-eyed appearance, and foaming at the mouths when the word Microsoft is mentioned.
The only known treatment is repeated exposure to images of penguins, little red demons, and occasionally ducks masquerading as little red demons. Chanting gee p.l. and freebeer have been known to have a similarly restorative effect on the victims, who will normally try to counter this by repeatedly screaming Microsoft.
Luckily, OSZ isn’t terminal, but as yet there’s been no word on a cure.
Open source advocacy by contrast seems innocuous, and preliminary tests have shown a possible correleation between advocates and clear, positive thinking.
Sounds like we need Derrida again…..
One of the big criticisms of Hailstorm was that Microsoft (or any other big company you might name) couldn’t be trusted to safeguard your personal data, preferences, and purchasing history without exploiting it for commercial advantage. So it’s not sufficient to say that the hard disk ID is “another Hailstorm, which has already been discredited.”
That said, the history of malware on Windows XP doesn’t give me much confidence that the hard disk ID can be adequately protected. SP2 is a big improvement, but attackers need only one hole, and not all of them will make it obvious they’ve taken over your system the way the adware crooks have. Even if the ID is password encrypted, it can be copied and attacked offline using techniques that exploit the tendencies of people to use weak passwords.
Im so sick of flames on MS… no you havent proven anything will fail or is a bad idea or that, no ones seen the damn technology or an example of it and its being bashed already!!! Give it a break maybe it’ll be an rfid chip with a password on it wow thats so horid… maybe it’ll be u scan u’re new biometric passport and it allows you onto your computer
A couple of thoughts:
1. I don’t need to “flame” Microsoft to hate this idea. MS Apologists, you need to understand that Microsoft EARNED this reputation. Over a decade of breaking the law, stealing small company IP, using lock-ins, have made consumers and professionals not trust the company. You may disagree, but you can at least see WHY people think this way.
2. Given the years of security holes in Microsoft products, I would never, ever, put my critical information in a Microsoft repository.
3. Given the decade old policy of using proprietary formats to lock-in customers, I will not risk having my information unavailable if I chose not to use a MS product. Anyone who wanted to switch away from Outlook understands how painful and violating it is to have a big company hold your personal information hostage.
I hate to say it, but given MS’s history of paying people to post on boards, a practice going back to spamming hate messages about OS/2, I always turn a cynical eye when people show up here apologizing for Microsoft. I guess I just don’t understand how anyone can be loyal to such a morally devoid company.
Final note: I hope MS truly locks this down. The first crack of this data will do more damage to the company then they understand. If I were them I wouldn’t touch this with a 1000 foot pole.
To the folks who say we haven’t seen the tech yet:
It doesn’t matter.
It’s not just the technology, it’s the company behind the technology.
Anyone who bought a Tivo to skip ads who now have to watch them anyhow since Tivo “upgraded” their service with new ad features understands it’s not just the technology which you have to evaluate, it’s the company behind it.
This is getting more and more important and more of our lives tie into technology. A bad company can “upgrade” their software, most at any time, and you are stuck with whatever the company has chosen to do. Tivo customers are now stuck with more ads because the company needed the money.
So, yes, when MS comes out with a new technology which will be a repository of personal information, people will react, and react negatively.
And there is no one to blame for this but Microsoft. THEIR actions–yes, years of illegal and immoral behavior–built this brand impression.
Sounds like a glorified MS Wallet to me. That sure was a hit.
I doubt I’ll use this. I wouldn’t use this kind of software from any company. My personal information is where I need it most and where its safe – in my head.
Of course that does not mean its a bad idea and for some people it just might work out if the software is designed right. Just not for me.
They launch and launch new projects untill the few promising can’t keep up with the annonced release shedules.
Competition with linux for Microsoft is always a good factor. At least Microsoft will start lisenting to there customers. In short, rise of linux will eventually give us a Better Windows OS.
rise of linux will eventually give us a Better Windows OS.
Depends on your defenition of a better Windows OS.Generally more features result in more code which results inevetably in more bugs regardless of the OS.
My defenition of a better Windows OS would be:
1)Has less bugs,flaws per 1000 lines of code
2)Has less systemwide over privileged system files/calls
3)Has better protected config files/register
.
.
.
Unfortunately a lot of what’s going on relevant in this case is dictated at large by what is visable to the customer so it can be marketed.So i’m very sceptic wether the rise of opensource/linux will actually result in a better Windows OS.But than again it’s not an exclusive MS problem either.
You can’t possibly be stupid enough to believe that ad-free television can exist with the current market structure. As ad revenues decline due to people using PVRs, monthly cable fees will increase. And if you are using a free/OSS solution like Myth TV, you are just leaching off the rest of us.
And no, I don’t like the market structure, either. What’s the point of paying for 300+ channels if the few channels you want to watch are laden with ads?
The only thing that I said was that there is a difference between open source zealots, who almost never post anything but endless variations of “MS screwed me, that’s all they’ll ever do,” and open source advocates, who try to post something intelligent.
When their spamming spree is interrupted, the former are like six-year-olds who cry, kick, and scream all the way through the mall and all the way home.
Reposting the same comments over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again (and still more) makes them worthwhile reading. If I had wanted to wade through crap, I’d have gotten a job working in the sewers.
I don’t work for MS and never have. I don’t even work in IT, period; I’m a computer enthusiast and a self-taught programmer. The fact that you feel it necessary to make such insinuations to back up your irrelevant argument is evidence that you are doing nothing but trolling here.
Go do something useful with your life, like contributing to a worthwile OSS project. At the very least, you could write up a Why Microsoft Is Bad wiki and spam links to it instead of the current regurgitative spamming.
As ad revenues decline due to people using PVRs, monthly cable fees will increase. And if you are using a free/OSS solution like Myth TV, you are just leaching off the rest of us.
Well i have to disagree.I don’t know the legal status in the USA but here in The Netherlands it’s legal to watch TV by means of a TV-card.And i don’t see why it can’t be ad-free as well.Excuse me but i rather don’t fancy to see ladies bandages coming by every 5 mins,or anti- downdraft pills commercials.Unfortunately ther’re no ad-free channels at an higher fee.Untill then i see it perfectly legimate an ethically to make use of any tool that prevent you from unnecesary braindamage,(better watch no TV at all 🙂
the key word is “will” in “Microsoft will build software…”.
Until it is available, what Microsoft says is still more vaporware….
Frankly I dont want dual auth systems as they’re overly complex and do not fix the main problem with windows security. Security holes. If someone can do a buffer/stack overflow exploit then all the passwords in the world do not stop them.
Brinks does a good job at keeping those I dont want at my pc from messing with it.
I was responding to retro’s expectation that TiVo could have survived without forcing viewers to see ads. That’s silly. The word leaching in my post had nothing to do with ethics and everything to do with economics.
I also said that I didn’t like the current market structure, and it was quite clear from the wording of my posts that I don’t like that ads, either, so I don’t understand the “Excuse me…” part of your post.
Thanks for your thoughts. A few for you:
1. Lighten up. I don’t know why you would chose to personally attack a person/group of people for participating in a community. It’s what they enjoy to do. And don’t miss the irony of you spewing negative comments at people expressing their opinions, telling them to get a life, and then doing EXACTLY that yourself.
2. Your Tivo rebuttal doesn’t make any sense, sorry. It isn’t that people think TV should be free. No one says that. The point you missed is when someone goes and pay $600+ for a device with functionality, the functionality should not be changed because the company can’t figure out how to make money. There are a million flaws in your argument, but the biggest is the Tivo ad dollars aren’t going to supporting TV, just Tivo. Therefore, call people stupid all you want, but the only person would said TV should be free is you.