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MS Passport: "All Your Bits Are Belong To Us"
One of the key questions is what Microsoft means by "associated services." The terms of use agreement applies to "the Microsoft Passport Web Site" which they redefine in the first sentence to mean "a Web site and its associated services."
Later in the terms, they explicitly say:
"The Passport Web Site may contain bulletin board services, chat areas, news groups, forums, communities, personal web pages, group calendars, electronic mail postings and/or other message or communication facilities designed to enable you to communicate with the public at large or with a group (collectively, 'Communication Services')..."
That doesn't sound like a simple site for password- and personal-data-storage to me.
The really big thing that everyone seems to be worried about is, how is Hotmail email affected by this? Here's the Hotmail Terms of Use. So is Hotmail an "associated service"? How would we know? Passport is listed as one of Hotmail's "additional Microsoft web sites and/or services"; what does that mean? If Hotmail is associated with Passport, does that mean Passport is associated with Hotmail? (Is "association" associative?)
And the fact that any access of www.hotmail.com redirects me to a machine at hotmail.passport.com worries me a lot. How could these sites not be considered "associated"?
Some more tidbits...
Don't forget that Passport is a TRUSTe licensee. TRUSTe stands 100% behind their privacy statement, so you can really, really trust that All Your Bits Are Belong To Us. (The joke is that TRUSTe doesn't actually guarantee you any privacy. It supposedly guarantees that, if you can wade through the legal mumbo-jumbo, you'll find yourself being screwed in precisely the way that the lawyers tell you you're being screwed.)
Here's a directory of the sites that use Passport for single-sign-in or purchasing.
You read it here first. Slashdot predicted this eight months ago. "Microsoft Passport And Your Privacy," July 29, 2000: "...I'm sure Microsoft uses it as a user-tracking system more than anything else." Go read Joel's article, from eight months ago, in which he explains how Passport "eliminates the last line of defense protecting your privacy" and how Microsoft will "create a massive consumer information database."
An article in the Daily Aardvark points out that Netscape users have a hard time reading Passport Q&A.
Bryan Smith has a thoughtful rant about what this would mean for open-source software. Dual copyright? Hmmmm. Here's your link, Bryan: "Dual-copyright/licensing" of your IP withOUT your permission.
A RISKS submitter calls it "highway robbery."
Don't forget that Passport is the website for which Microsoft forgot to pay its $35 domain registration fee, back around Christmas '99. This is the company you want to entrust your passwords to?
And finally, All Your Bits may be hard to retrieve once they Belong To Us. jasonjwwilliams writes "After reading about the new Hailstorm.net initiative by Microsoft, and how once integrated with Passport.com, any communcations sent in conjuction with the service in any manner becomes the property of Microsoft, I asked Passport.com to remove me. The response: we don't do that, wait 12 months to be auto-removed. After three e-mails here's the bottom line I received:
"Due to security reasons we do not allow nor do we have a feature to delete Passport accounts. Rest assured that if you do not access your account within 12 months our system will automatically delete your account."
"I don't know about anyone else, but I think this is a completely lame response and as far as I understand against the law. Anyone know who to get a hold of? This is arrogance gone too far."
The T&C statement says that they can modify and publish anything you send through their system. So in other words, they can legally take a statement of yours and change it to be something wildly imflammatory or even illegal in some places, and publish it, attributed to you. Don't bother telling me this would be libel; imagine the pain they could cause people with this. Agreeing to these terms is handing a company with no morals whatsoever a very, VERY big stick.
You guys are so lame; you bitch about MS being able to "steal your ideas" via their TOS and sit by while a two-bit writer like Katz make $$ off of you.
You know, I used to look at the old "Fatbrain" book ads (you know the one, "When Your IQ is Bigger than your Weight..") and think, "who the hell would fall for that?". My reply to it was "When Your IQ is Big But You're Still Susceptible to Advertising". You're falling for the propaganda of the OpenSource movement with such zeal that you cannot see the faults that exist in the same way that during the Cold War everything Soviet was bad and everything American was good.
Well, you've totally gotten sucked into the "We're Always Right, They're Always Wrong" mentality in regards to MS vs OpenSource and that is a dangerous place to be because, for one, you stop asking questions and, two, you get paranoid. You are, in effect, falling victim to the FUD-machine of MS but looking for it in every crevice of a press-release or news article.
Anyhow, that's all I have to say. I would've posted this with my nick but I'd get mod'ed down so hard I'd not be able to post from this IP address for a week...
What is Passport's policy on data storage, use, and ownership? What does Microsoft do with user data?
Passport's policy is that users own their own data. Sensitive data is stored in an encrypted format and is not accessible even to the operations personnel that maintain the Passport system. Participating Passport sites may market to users who sign in to their sites (with user consent). Microsoft requires all participating sites to have privacy policies and to follow industry-accepted standards.
Microsoft does not store any information other than the information Passport users store in their profiles and wallets. A two-day transaction log is kept for security and troubleshooting purposes; however, this rolling log is erased every two days.
(end quote)
In the interest of saving valuable server space lets just summarize all the M$ zealot posts
Sure it's slimy, illegal as hell and completely self-serving but pure marketing genius!
You should know better than to send important shit through hotmail
Sure it says all our bit belong to them but we can trust Bill not to actually try it.
God I'm tired of you Linux zealots constantly bashing Microsoft, this doesn't really mean what it says. We can trust them.
Oh god yes, yes, give it to me Bill. No not THERE. OUCH, that HURTS. FUCKIN ASSHOLE, where's my vaseline?
Is there one honest M$ zealot out there who can admit this is pure umitigated bullshit? Didn't think so...
Details here.
To top it all off, you checked for earlier /. stories, determined this to be a different story than the one eight months ago, but posted that story's link for those who wanted the original /. take on things.
You could have stopped at the first paragraph, and just posted the story as it stood, but you didn't. Applause all around, it's good work by you and my hat's off!
(...and to the usual crew, if yer gonna bitch when they mess up, give 'em a pat on the back and a round when they do well. It's just right.)
And yes, I did this a few years ago. It works.
--
WolfSkunks for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.keenspace.com";
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
What is confusing you is this: 'transfer'. There is no transfer, because you are not _giving_ _up_ your own copyrights. You still keep them and have full rights to them. This is not that difficult to understand. It'd be very much another story if MS were trying to _take_ your own rights away from you so you can't have them. They are shrewd enough not to attempt this. Instead, your rights become nonexclusive because MS gets total permission to do whatever it likes with the copyrighted materials- anything that is not actually a _transfer_. There is no transfer because you keep rights too. It's an assignment of rights, a licensing. There is loads and loads of precedent that you can do this in a nonexclusive way on the web with only a click-through- or not even that, in the case of mp3.com's new terms, when the previous terms included securing your automatic agreement to new terms after a time period, with or without your knowledge or consent.
I Am Not A Lawyer either- but I am more of a not-lawyer than you ;) honestly, where does 'transfer' even enter into it? You get a grip yourself- this is perfectly real.
The main thrust of this is, if you are doing business with anyone using Passport, _you_ must also sign up, or be prohibited from using the materials. Basically it's leverage on people using it in a business setting: if you get sent materials or business stuff through Passport and make use of it without yourself being a member (this would include email, and certainly would cover anything like free web hosting space), you are a criminal and can be prosecuted even if the person sending the information intended for you to use it. They retain a copyright of their own on the material so you're not 'infringing on the copyright' but you never consented to Microsoft's terms for use of materials transferred via Passport, so you'd be sued basically for abuse of the service (taking advantage of it without signing up). This will hold up a lot better in the case of a web hosting service- it'd be a little insane applied to e-mail.
You agree that no joint venture, partnership, employment, or agency relationship exists between you and Microsoft as a result of this agreement or use of the Passport Web Site or service.
This one's easy: if not for this clause it could be argued that Microsoft, for being legally allowed to entirely control communications between people, may be acting as an 'agent' or employer. Basically, it's not so unusual for an entity to provide the communications channels between someone and someone else, even including the ability to harshly control the sort of communications permitted. If you were an author and needed someone to be the communications between you and book publishers, you'd get an agent, who would be the go-between and may have other protections like restricting your ability to simultaneously do other submissions (I'm not up on that part really). Microsoft is taking a role of a communications middleman and asserting controls and limits on the means of communicating, asserting exclusivity, so they are an agent. The reason the clause specifically says you agree that they're NOT an agent is because presumably agents have rules they have to follow, and Microsoft wishes to be able to assert the rights of an agent without suffering any of the limitations.
King County, Washington, U.S.A.
Conspiracy theories are all very fun but I suspect this is simply the nearest court to Microsoft HQ. So, if you sue, then _you_ have to travel, and the Microsoft lawyers only have to stroll down the street a few blocks. Perhaps they'll build a little bunker right by the court for comfort and convenience! :)
With me so far? Good, here's the kicker. Under the Passport Terms of Service, if you are the sole author of something that's open source and you're contributing it to someone else under the GPL or any other license... well, MS can deny that the person has a right to use the 'means of transmission' (Passport) without signing up. They cannot 'un-GPL' something you GPLed, or take away people's rights under that license...
BUT! If you are the sole author, and thus legally able to assign licenses and dual-license your stuff, YOU are giving Microsoft their own special license to that GPLed code, which is subject to NONE of the restrictions you intended to place upon it. They don't get access to further development- but the other development does not get access to whatever MS does to it, because effectively YOU gave them a special license with no restrictions or obligations. This exists alongside the GPL license you originally intended.
If I'm not mistaken, this can only take place if you're the sole author and legally able to do such sublicensing- if I download all of Debian, I don't become the original copyright holder, and though the licensing allows me carte blanche it doesn't let me do special sublicenses for stuff that's not mine. But if you are the sole author, you do have the capacity to simultaneously use different licenses and that is the sort of person who would be hosed completely by this trick.
So- just by using Passport it doesn't give you the power to give Microsoft stuff that is not yours to dual-license, and that emphatically includes GPL stuff that _cannot_ be dual-licensed except by the original author (once it's out there it stays GPL, that fork remains uncorruptable). But if _you_ introduce stuff that you are the original copyright holder, and use Passport- you cannot enforce that the code is GPL, because you're simultaneously giving MS its own distinct license, which they have total freedom to do anything they want with it AND to license the result as restrictively as they want. Your use of GPL _does_ _not_ affect MS's license of the stuff sent through Passport.
The question on my mind is: can a router be made to be part of Passport? If my ISP ended up forced to run stuff through Passport and signed something that said 'all your users are belong to us', would this end up binding me even though I didn't willingly sign up?
It's not a _sensible_ argument. It's a potential _lawyer_ argument. As such, I think it's intentional, and they do plan to be able to obfuscate things in that way, so it'd be well to be ready for it.
So- you're finally suing Microsoft. You found they used GPLed code in something- or you're not GPL but they used your code anyway- or for that matter you're an ambulance chaser and you're just suing them because you think you can get a jury to think they stole your code. Whatever. Your argument is, "This == my code, that == Microsoft's product, thus == pay me lots of money for stealing my IP."
Here is the Microsoft defense's response:
"PROVE you did not ever transmit this code over a Passport property!"
Chew on that one for a while. And remember, these are the people who forged evidence in Jackson's court despite a blaze of publicity and sharp government lawyers! Now, what would they need to buttress their case that you had at some point sent the code/art/property through Passport? A server log, a user name, a password. Now, attend closely: WHOSE servers are these that they would need to find this evidence on? Of course they are.
This is a _damned_ impressive potential legal roadblock to suing Microsoft over IP, and it emphatically addresses the open source problem: basically, no matter who you are, Microsoft can use your code in proprietary software and _if_ you figure it out and sue them, it becomes your problem to prove that you have never used Passport and sent the code over it: and who owns the servers that would contain the evidence you'd done just that? One guess. The Microsoft lawyers now have a terrific defense against any such charges: they'll make you the defendant. If you insist you never used Passport- "Well, then, do these server logs imply that you used our service CRIMINALLY, violating our terms of service?".
The possibilities here are so evil and cunning that even I am impressed, and they don't usually impress me- but then they don't usually manage anything with this degree of subtlety either.
Just be warned. The "You must have used Passport" defense needs to be taken into consideration.
DCMonkey
Or maybe Microsoft really IS the evil empire?
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Their excuse was that they needed those terms to be able to deliver the user's content on their hardware as it existed or might exist in the future, plus do things like back it up. Somehow, when the uproar got too loud, they figured out a way to change it.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
You know, I read the TOS too, and it's pretty clear that they're talking about forum posts and the like:
The Passport Web Site may contain bulletin board services, chat areas, news groups, forums, communities, personal web pages, group calendars, electronic mail postings and/or other message or communication facilities designed to enable you to communicate with the public at large or with a group collectively, ("Communication Services"), you agree to use the Communication Services only to post, send and receive messages and material that are proper and related to the particular Communication Service.
conspicuously absent from the list are communications between individuals.
One issue often overlooked in these things is the problem that plagues some publishers and causes them to reject unsolicited submissions: what the hell do you do when somebody hands you the outline for something very similar to a project you have under development? If you accept it, then you risk accusations later that you're a thief. ("Man, I said last year they oughta' put spellcheck into Explorer! Them bastards stole my idea!") Alternatively, if you simply state that you can use any ideas posted in the forum, then you've covered that possibility and maybe avoided a nuisance suit.
Now if the Reg had bothered to go to Hotmail itself, they might have found this:
It is Hotmail's policy to respect the privacy of its users. Therefore, Hotmail will not monitor, edit, or disclose the contents of a user's private communications unless required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to: (1) conform to the edicts of the law or comply with legal process served on Hotmail; (2) protect and defend the rights or property of Hotmail; or (3) act under exigent circumstances to protect the personal safety of its users or the public.
not ironclad, but probably as good as the ISP through whom they're being accessed.
However, you could poison the data, i.e. make a lot of invalid entries - like creating new account on Hotmail each time you need to lookup something on MSDN, etc. As signal-to-noise ratio goes down M$ would end up with huge database, most of data in which is outdated and therefore useles for most Evil Purposes(TM).
As for secure trusted email the best I've seen is Lokmail - they support standart PGP.
Opinions are mine only and could change without notice.
Obama 2012: our incompetent asshole is slightly less of an incompetent asshole than the other incompetent asshole !
If I recall correctly, both Hotmail and Passport are free services provided by Microsoft. Therefore, Microsoft owns the service(s), and is not "selling" the user anything. Last time I checked, when you own something, you can pretty much do what you want with it.
Why should a user expect any privacy from Hotmail or Passport? I don't see why its a big deal. You don't HAVE to use their services! I've been on the Internet for 5 years now, and I'm yet to be compelled to sign up for a @hotmail.com email address or use Passport. It isn't like this is some cornerstone of the Internet.
The only people that use Hotmail are spammers, kids, and AOL-type users. Anyone with a legitimate business, or anyone transmitting private information, should be using a real mail service, and not passing around important information on a free account.
As for Passport, the whole idea of the system is flawed, and anyone who is stupid enough to trust a single web site with all your passwords and credit cards DESERVES to get exploited and taken blatant advantage of.
Just my two cents worth,
Michael Merritt
michael@miklm.com
you may not modify, copy, distribute, transmit, display, perform, reproduce, publish, license, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell any information, software, products or services obtained from through the Passport Web Site and service.
Does this mean if you buy a product from some retailer that uses passport that you can resell it (on say eBay)?
For some things from them, you have to have a Passport account before they'll let you download.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Thousands, nay millions, of technically ignorant users and managers. How do you think Microsoft got 90% of the desktop market anyhow? They market towards the desires ("I want a computer I don't have to think about to use") and fantasies ("I want enterprise-level computer systems that don't require that I hire a lot of those irritating techies who think they're smarter than I am (I'm your manager, so I obviously have to be smarter than you) and who command a salary that's an irritatingly large percentage of my own (how do you maintain a culture of managerial superiority when your underlings make more than you do?)" of technically ignorant people who are nevertheless in a position to control computer purchases.
Not that Microsoft ever really delivers on these things, but the mere fact that they dangle the carrot out there gets a lot of people following
Hey kids! Mail copyrighted Scientology works to yourself via HotMail!
Let's test Mickeysoft's claims that all work posted to their services is magically impervious to copyright law!
Watch the Church of $cientology's wave of trial lawyers hit Redmond in a style not seen since D-Day!
Watch M$ hit back!
Watch each side bleed torrents of cash!
And don't forget to laugh your ass off in the process.
.sig a .sog, .sig out loud, .sig out .strog"
".sig,
".sig,
Numerous people have independantly noticed this: I saw it first in Risks Digest.
davecb@spamcop.net
> Due to security reasons we do not allow nor
> do we have a feature to delete Passport
>accounts. Rest assured that if you do not access
>your account within 12 months our system will
>automatically delete your account
> In the mean time, we look forward to reading
> your incoming emails for the next year, good
> day!
Why so cynical? They certainly need to keep the details of accounts around for about 12 months so they can investigate impersonation charges. After all, if they want the service to become used, it must be trusted. It is not hard to believe it was just to much hassle to setup an achival system for deleted accounts - slashcode is much simpler and they didn't want to mess with adding the ability to delete accounts.
But oddly, you don't compain about not being able to delete your slashdot account. So just do what you would do to end your slashdot account: change your password to 12 random characters.
It seems that Bill or his lawyers read history. If time were in a position to honour anything, we would be considering a time-honoured practice here.
The exact same method was used to acquire enormous power by the Medievel Church. They worked very hard to become confessors to important people, then used or sold the information confessed for even further political entrenchment. Of course, if someone became too much of an obstacle, they could always be bumped off their perch.
So... Microsoft are taken to court, and then one day a judge finds an email in his inbox with copies of emails to and from his son's Hotmail account - concerning specific indiscretions - attached; or copies of an email conversation between him and a particular woman; or whatever. I'm sure you get the idea.
Suddenly, having Microsoft lose a case seems an exceptionally bad idea to the judge. Meanwhile, the other judges are seeing rising pressure from friends and relatives (many of whom, it seems, also have Hotmail/Passport accounts), which combined with another astroturf movement might be enough to throw the case.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
It's been my experience that the likelihood of your hard drive being reformatted without warning increased with sustained use of Microsoft products.
Microsoft haven't actually explained how they intend to implement remote software disabling.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
As I read it, you don't lose copyright on material sent though Passport-related sites, but The Borg gets copyright (and other things) on it as well.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Get your local Dewey, Cheetum and Howe to pen them a letter.
Dear Sirs, our client, Joe Leenooksyuhzur, has continually asked to be removed from your database, and, due to some 'rule' you say you are unable to. By this letter you are hereby instructed to remove all information reguarding Mr Leenooksyuhzur from your system by midnight on the 21st, or we intend to persue this in a court of law.
Signed
Dewey, Cheetum, and Howe, Attorneys at Law
Not true. The Hotmail user who recieved the mail is the one who agreed to the Hotmail TOS. The Linux developers never made any agreement with Hotmail. Thus, MS would have no grounds to appropriate IP belonging to the kernel developers. Even if the TOS gave them that right, the person who agreed to the TOS had no authority to grant them that right, anymore than I can sign a paper authorizing you to give away free copies of Windows.
Similarly, if a kernel-dev mail came from a Hotmail account, even under the craziest readings of the Hotmail TOS, the only IP which MS could appropriate is that belonging to person who sent it through Hotmail, not the entire kernel, because the sender doesn't own the rights to the entire kernel. Still, unraveling a mess like that could be ugly.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" -Salvor Hardin
No, but if you were to email a new kernel patch for XYZ hardware, then it would be feasable that this would apply.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
I used it once to order a new Dell back in December. They had a special deal where you got 20% refund (I think) if you used Passport to submit your info. Made no sense why, but I got a $500 check shortly thereafter.
Jason
"FORMAT C:" - Kills bugs dead!
You are wrong. The computer I ordered doesn't have Passport information on it at all. The computer I placed the order from did, but it has since been formatted.
"FORMAT C:" - Kills bugs dead!
Actually, something like this burned some people with an airline promotion some time back. The details are probably in RISKS Digest. IIRC, what happened was that there was a deal where if you went somewhere on business, you got to take your spouse for free. Some people took their girlfriends instead, but in their wife's name. Later, the airline sent out a thank-you letter addressed to the spouse...
While I do understand the implications of MS's move to own all our bases, the license everyone is so upset about specifically states, "personal and non-commerical use only". So, at worst, doesn't that mean MS will know I'm going to Cancun, my girlfriend's name is Sarah, and we aren't renting a car?
I guess my major disconnect here is I can't imagine anyone in their right mind trusting their company to an open service like this. It baffles me.
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
Ok people. You have been warned. You are being warned. And you will be being warned for a while.
However I doubt that 80% of you will care for this. Because Passport eases your lives. Because you don't have to remember, write on your hand or repeatedly type lots and lots of info about you, your family and something else. Of course you think that you can pass over it, that your freedoms will never be endangered. And maybe you think your children can pass through it too. Maybe even your nephews, grandsons and grand-grandsons may also pass it through... But that day may happen when some John Doe Jr Jr Jr will realise that he has nothing more than his body as ownership. And maybe he will not even have the right to own it.
You may think that these small underminings of civil rights are an easy price to pay. In late Roman Empire there was also a similar process that lasted nearly 200 years. It was the formation of what became known as latifunds, large pieces of land belonging to one person. That was also the base for the creation of feudalism and the beginning of the Middle Age. People offered by little their freedom for the protection of their belongings. There are several examples of this early process of feudalisation in letters from what is now Romania, France, Spain and Austria. Besides the protectors basically were not our "analphabet, rough, barbars" of History books but usually proeminent figures of the Empire, usually military ones. It were they who laid the foundation for the New Order. It were they who destroyed the last remains of Rome and wiped completely the cultural basis of that time. There is a certain Boecius who wrote a little about this exactly on the last years of Rome.
Why I am telling about this. Because you are doing a similar thing. You are giving away your rights, your identity, your ownership for the ease of a click. And a day may come when you can only get these things back if someone allows you to click. Or else you are nothing, a dropout, an alien, an abortion thrown over the sideways of the Information Highway.
You had one guy that loved too much to play with funny inventions. I believe that God gave him a chance not getting fried because he was also a big thinker. And once he warned that if someone gives a little bit of his freedom for security he has no right for being free. Confort is somehow also a bit of security. We should note that Mr. Franklin spoke about freedom in the society of very rich people who exactly care about confort as a part of their security. Today a larger segment of Americans can feel a little bit more of it. So remember that crazy founding father of yours. He was also a genius of Philosophy.
Oooooooh. I forgot, you Americans fell quite DISCONFORTABLE with Philosophy...
By "inputting data ... or engaging in any other form of communication with or through the Passport Web Site" -- or any of its "associated services" -- you grant Microsoft the rights to "use, modify, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, publish, sublicense, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell any such communication"
That's like the phone company claiming the profits to a stock transaction that was called in.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
You want to sign up for a Microsoft seminar (like their upcoming J2EE vs. .NET offering)? Gotta get a Passport. Guess I won't be going.
So let's say I'm discussing something techie via e-mail or a discussion forum using the Passport site and by way of example I include a snippet of GPL'd code. My reading of MS's Passport terms tells me that they now have the right to use that snippet of GPL code, create derivative products, etc. Doesn't that collide with the GPL? Sounds like a lawyer's wet dream...
It does not collide with the GPL, because the GPL is the license under which you release your (implicitly) copyrighted work.
The Passport Terms of Service is an attempt to re-hack the copyright issue in their favor by saying that, when you use their service, you are agreeing to give them a free (an is no-compenstation) unlimited license to do whatever they want with any copyrighted material that passes through any Passport-"affiliated" service. (Note the section labeled "License to Microsoft" to see what I mean.)
So in essence, your code could be considered to be under two licenses; the GPL and the MS-specific "AYBABTU" license. (Hey, I like that name...)
Dual-licensing is possible -- IIRC, Mozilla is offered under both the MPL and the GPL now. And I believe Troll Tech still offers Qt under the GPL and the QPL.
Jay (=
... it's a big enough mess as it is.
Hey come on! What better way to steal^H^H^H^H^Hinnovate ideas by letting the end user sign a waiver that relieves him of ownership. Miscrosoft is saving the end-user money that way by avoiding the need to sue the property away from said person. They already own it! Thank you microsoft, thank you. Ow bugger... my win2k is having that bug^H^H^Hinsect-like behaviour again... gotta reboot!
</sarcasm>
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Slashdot didn't accept your submission? hackerheaven.org will!
Anyone reading the plane English of this license cannot help but see that, very clearly, the end user is required to grant Microsoft any and every right to their ideas, their work, even their patents, just by processing their information through a piece of software which happens to use Passport as an authentication mechanism. This could, in the future, include any document written by Micosoft Word (using passport to authenticate the author or encrypt the file as a new feature, etc.), sent through a Microsoft mail server, or served from a Microsoft Web server.
Microsoft has a well documented history of stealing other peoples work (and getting sued for it, and being required by the court to make appropriate reparations to the aggrieved parties). This isnt about avoiding frivolous lawsuits, this is about legalizing a reprehensible tactic they already engage in: theft from their customers, their competitors, and anyone else whose idea they like.
There is, however, a silver lining to this dark cloud. Two states have already, very foolishly, passed UCITA legislation, giving this sort of EULA the force of law. One would hope the courts would overturn such an onerous condition, particularly in light of the fact that nearly every party to this agreement has no idea what theyve agreed to, but one cannot assume reason will always prevail.
If it doesnt, it wouldnt be too terribly difficult for the authors of Apache, sendmail, various USENET and chat servers, and so forth, to add a clause to their respective licenses reading something like this:
This would be a potent weapon indeed for the Free Software community to strike a possibly leathal blow to copyright and patent law, once and for all (until such a time as another court rethinks this kind of thing, or a law is passed making such onerous and unreasonable property grabs illegal). Much of the very infrastructure of the Internet is powered by free software of one sort or another. If the courts should uphold this kind of behavior, we as a Community are in a position to use it in liberating far more knowledge and intellectual property, doing the Copyright and Patent Barons far more damage (and correspondingly far more good for free science and free software) than they could ever do to us. We arent compelled to use their software, but if they are using the internet at all, they are almost certainly using ours.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I like Slashdot's rule: "Comments are owned by the Poster." Much better.
Sounds good, but didnt Katz use a bunch of them, without permission or payment?
Yes, indeed that did happen. Nice example of
--
Delphis
Delphis
What self-respecting Linux developer would use Hotmail at all? I mean really. Not that I'm condoning such snobbishness, just pointing out that it ought to exist.
Bite the hand.
Only some of these are owned by M$: http://www.passport.com/directory/default.asp
"All your top-secret spy plane are belong to us."
For great justice, take off every 'MiG'.
C-X C-S
Which non-Microsoft online businesses require you to have a Passport account?
Cheers,
All that you linked to are a list of sites which are capable of using Passport and its wallet feature. This means that if you have a Passport account, you can use it with those sites. That does not mean that you have to have a Passport account to buy things from them. I know this because I've bought things online from Buy.com, CDW, and Office Depot, all of whom are on that list, and none of them force you to use a Passport account to buy things from them.
So again, which non-Microsoft online businesses require you to have a Passport account? Are there even any at all (there may well be, but all the ones I've ever used don't require it), or are you and the original poster just blowing smoke up the readers' collective ass?
Cheers,
Jamie, out of curiosity, why didn't you ever try contacting Microsoft/Passport? Journalism is a little more than cutting and pasting a plagiarizing other people's comments about something. I saw eleven or twelve question marks in what you wrote, so is there any reason in particular why you didn't get off your ass and try to add something original to all those links you posted, like, say, a response from Microsoft?
Cheers,
Or, depending on your point of view, he charges you extra for not filling it out.
When the grocery stores started using those "discount" cards, they increased their prices. So the non-card price became higher than the pre-card price, and the card price became about the same as the pre-card price.
You can never come out ahead.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
NO! Only the original copyright holder on software can give his/her copyright to Microsoft. God, my article is getting out of hand!
I'm putting up a new version (with the INcorrect statement about "license revocation" removed).
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
If I'm reading that correctly, Yahoo's license to publish your stuff terminates as soon as you remove it from the system. I think that they may need that kind of license on the temporary basis that they claim it for.
And if you elect to publicly publish is, then it seems that you have made it available for public distribution. So that's fair.
I'm not too thrilled about the "sublicense, perpetual, and irrevocable" parts, however. Still, that only applies to stuff that you publish publically.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I remember the days when Slashdot would break major computing stories a few hours before CNN and Time and Newsweek. Now they usually squeak in there three or four days later. All your sellouts are belong to us.
It appears that it has not been modded down, but that this user has been modded down so much that they are automatically posting at this score. (I could be wrong, maybe /. changed it so you can't see the moderation totals just by clicking the link for the post.)
However, it should have been modded down anyway just for being offtopic. If this was an article about Bill Gates giving away money, or any other topic addressed in the post, then it would be reasonable to mod it up.
(Personally, I have a number of disagreements with the contents of the post, but moderation is supposed to be about quality, not about agreement.)
--LeBleu
If you're reading this you're part of the mass hallucination that is Kevin the Blue.
This adds fuel to the first of the Microsoft Antitrust appeal doesn't it?
No. The facts of the case are those presented at trial. It's very difficult to get an appeals court to consider new facts that didn't come out at trial. That is sometimes grounds for a new trial, but often it is not.
The appeal will be decided based on the facts in the court record.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
The concern is that patches that a developer might write (and thus holds a copyright interest in) and submit to LKML from a Hotmail account might be seen as being licensed to Microsoft/Hotmail. The license allows MS to use this code. It does not assign the copyright in the code to Hotmail which is what would be required if MS were to use it to restrict distribution (which they couldn't do anyway because of the GPL.) Assignments of copyright *must* be made in writing to be legal.
Just anyone mailing pieces of source code around would have no effect if they have no copyright in the code.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Someone posted a message to the Linux Kernel Mailing List telling people not to use Hotmail for patches to the kernel.
It may be an overreaction, but it's probably still a good idea. It would be a messy court fight if it ever came to that.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
There's actually no reason Microsoft couldn't use XNS in place of their Passport authentication (and users would definitely benefit from the increased control over their information) -- unless they really aren't concerned about their users' privacy.
Maybe if enough people pushed for it...
"Cause there's 40 different shades of black, so many fortresses and ways to attack, so why you complainin'?"
Why is this modded down? This is a legitimate point of view. A money-grubbing toady apologist point of view sure, but legitimate.
Ignorance is the root of all evil.
...is that anyone is surprised by this. Why shouldn't they do this? It's not like they've ever been given a serious disincentive before. And the current administration gives every indication that they will ENCOURAGE behavior like this! How many press releases about the anti-trust lawsuit have you seen recently?
Expect more of the same in the future. We, and the government that is supposed to represent us, have given them no reason to stop.
Ignorance is the root of all evil.
Also, anyone else remember that MS documents have codes embedded in them that relate to the machine the document originated on?
Firewall
Even the guys at the Register are wise to this-- ISTR Kieran writing to say that Slashdot thought they were `too tabloidy or something'; not sure where this impression came from, but they've noticed a grudge. Would be nice if the Slashdot staff would occasionally step forward and engage with their readership a bit; seems like they take themselves way too seriously these days.
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
So, does this also mean that if we send "illegal" material, such as the DeCSS code, through it that Microsoft then owns it - and would therefore be in violation of the law?
-- Windows security? Sure, which ONE would you like? -me
And then we dropped a bomb on his head. All your incinerated ashes are belong to us!!!
And don't mess with Texas.
-=Gargoyle_sNake
-=-=-=-
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
What is this "inux" you speak of? Does it have better network card drivers than Linux?
If so, count me in!
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
Hotmail is not free mail.
By using the service, you are giving Microsoft the right to use your mail.
I would be VERY suprised if there were not some sort of data harvesting software behind hotmail (and other passport sites) that is looking for keywords, extracting useful stock tips, marketing data (eg what the kids are into this week) and so on and so forth.
--
The net is now a legitimate medium, in that it is neither rare nor well done.
> All your top-secret spy plane are belong to us.
Who needs spy planes, when you have Cisco and Microsoft?
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Could someone explain when the Copyright Laws were amended? I don't remember the term "dual-copyright" *ever* being mentioned by anyone.
I don't believe that copyright can be assigned without explicit written permission, and I'm almost sure there is no such thing as dual-copyright. Copyright belongs to the author, and it can be licensed, but dual-ownership is, as far as I can tell, not mentioned.
No actually.. I didn't...
Well.. the original phrase is 'All your base are belong to us'... but of course, base was supposed to be plurall.. it should mean 'we have conquered all your bases!' or some such thing.
o rm statement, it should read 'all your bit are belong to us!'
SO in order for the title to fit with this mis-translated-yet-somehow-taking-the-world-by-st
Does that mean that everyone signed up will have to explicitly agree to the new TOS once it's enacted? Or does it automatically come into effect?
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
Look down the bottom of the page:
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2001 OSDN.
Sounds like the boilerplate used on about every website on earth. I don't think they'll "publicly perform" your password.
Lowmag.net
And? Why are you responding to my post with the title "plagarism!"? I don't even read the register.
Lowmag.net
Here's my take on the subject, which I received in an e-mail a couple of years ago:
Toddler Property Laws
1. If I like it, it's mine.
2. If it's in my hand, it's mine.
3. If I can take it from you, it's mine.
4. If I had it a little while ago, it's mine.
5. If it's mine, it must never appear to be yours in any way.
6. If I'm doing or building something, all the pieces are mine.
7. If it looks just like mine, it's mine.
8. If I think it's mine, it's mine.
9. If it's yours and I steal it, it's mine.
10. If I... Whoops! Sorry! I goofed! Instead of reading the Toddler Property Laws, I've been reading Microsoft's Business Plan.
'Nuff said?
I disagree with your interpretation of the Hotmail TOS.
They are providing a link to the terms of service of other associated M$ sites. Nowhere does it say explicitly that other TOS's apply. You are inferring that they apply, but I don't believe they do.
I would like to believe that M$ as a corporation will abide by their subsidiary's TOS's. Legally, they have to. Nevertheless, you have to recognize the inherent risk in storing confidential information on publicly accessible servers.
A dyslexic man walks into a bra.
Why would anyone use this 'service'?
Because they perceive it as convenient.
Because it's integrated into MSN and they have a WebTV box.
Because they got a $50 gift certificate to some online store (e.g. Crutchfield) for joining Passport.
Because they couldn't care less if Microsoft owns their forum posts.
I'm not going to use, sure. For the same reason you aren't.
However, for you to believe that everyone--or even a majority--of people share our technologist values and priorities is silly.
Any time I need to post or give out my email address or do anything that might result in me getting spam I use my Hotmail account. And once a month I delete EVERYTHING. If Microsoft wants that, they can have it. Hell, sometimes I randomly reply to spam to get my self taken of thier list.
If you mail a warez crack, DeCSS, kiddie porn, or something similar to yourself using a Hotmail account, does this mean Microsoft can be held legally accountable. :)
This could have possibilities, if we can dig up a few kamikaze mailers....
-TBHiX-
All my comment are belong to me. You have no need to agree make your dissent. For great amusement!
I'm sure my companies legal department will love this. Think I'll drop 'em a line....
Enjoy your job, make lots of money, work within the law. Choose any two.
I clicked on your URL. And actually, I was thankfully surprised. It didn't require that you already have a Microsoft Passport account in order to read the Terms of Use. Isn't that downright friendly of them?
Microsoft has been in the news a lot lately and in the past about whether the NSA has backdoors in windows code or not. They may not have a technical backdoor to your passwords, but it sure sounds like they have a legal one now.
The next site to slashdot will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and start slashdotting it early!
So let's say I'm discussing something techie via e-mail or a discussion forum using the Passport site and by way of example I include a snippet of GPL'd code. My reading of MS's Passport terms tells me that they now have the right to use that snippet of GPL code, create derivative products, etc. Doesn't that collide with the GPL? Sounds like a lawyer's wet dream...
When will this bullshit anti-Register stuff quit? The Reg came out with this story ages ago (see http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/18002.html) , even with the "All Your..." lead. This is nothing but a re-hash.
It happens so frequently. Interesting story on Slashdot, frighteningly similar to recent Reg story, sans any quote of the Reg or link to their story. In fact, Slashdot seems to _never_ post Reg links any more, and seems to enjoy taking shots at them (witness them being described as 'scare mongerers' during the CPRM debacle).
S'not cos El Reg gets better stories and funnier content is it? And while we're on the subject, what's up with not linking to BeSpot?? Huh???
"Elmo knows where you live!" - The Simpsons
Here's the most constructive way to deal with it.
Here is the way to protest this.
.Net initative is all about I will be watching very closely to see where it goes. I had thought that SOAP might be something very useful which would help to open them up a bit but after reading this license it's clear to me that all that .Net and Hailstorm are going to be is just another sad example of "embrace and extend".
1 04.htm#_new_copyright http://www.troubleshooters.com/tpromag/200104/2001 04.htm#_three_articles
A pril/011248.html
Copied below (because black text on black background doesn't work - at least in Konqueror)....
Microsoft should be feared and despised!
After taking the time to read the Microsoft Passport Web Site Terms of Use and Notices I have had a belly full of them. The potential damage they can do with this license is staggering. I encourage everyone to take the time to read it, particularly the section entitled "LICENSE TO MICROSOFT". If you've ever had any doubts about the nature of that company reading that section should put them to rest for good and all!
I don't know how many times I've heard Microsoft described as "evil" by Linux zealots and open source supporters (which I am both) and thought, "They're losing it... Microsoft is just a company!" but now I'm forced to agree with them. This license is heinous, and more, it's frightening because I know that some people won't read it and will lose the rights to their own data/content without knowing. Add that to the fact that the license is clearly attempting to gain the rights to *ALL CONTENT WHICH PASSES OVER ANY SERVICE THEY PROVIDE*. For example... this article could be copied by someone and sent to someone else who uses the hotmail email service. According to the license Microsoft would then own the rights to this article! Unbelieveable you say? Go read it and see for yourself.
Most of the time when confronted with things like this I may rage for a while but I usually conclude that there is little that I can do to cause the policy to change so why bother doing anything at all but not this time!
Effective with this posting the following blocks are in place against email inbound to MoonGroup.com or any of it's domains. If you truly understand what their license means you will do the same on your mail server.
msn.com 550 Microsoft licenses are unacceptable. No mail from their services will be accepted.
msn.net 550 Microsoft licenses are unacceptable. No mail from their services will be accepted.
microsoft.com 550 Microsoft licenses are unacceptable. No mail from their services will be accepted.
microsoft.net 550 Microsoft licenses are unacceptable. No mail from their services will be accepted.
hotmail.com 550 Microsoft licenses are unacceptable. No mail from their services will be accepted.
hotmail.net 550 Microsoft licenses are unacceptable. No mail from their services will be accepted.
As this is clearly a pre-cursor of what Microsoft's
I fear them for what they are doing! I despise them for doing it!
Good luck to all of us... we're going to need it!
Here are some related links:
The Register.COM article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/18002.html
Troubleshooters.COM new copyright and other articles: http://www.troubleshooters.com/cpyright.htm http://www.troubleshooters.com/tpromag/200104/200
LEAP Thread (first article in thread): http://lists.leap-cf.org/pipermail/leaplist/2001-
By Chuck Mead on Monday April 02 2001 @ 11:55PM EDT
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
heehee - Konqueror has no trouble, assuming this is the page in quo. IIRC that's yet another old Netscape stylesheet bug, where a missing sheet makes an awful mess instead of just being ignored.
Good Christ this is insanity. I say all the passport users out there file a class action agains the bastards. Lets bring some attention to all this people. Its ourageous
With reguard to the bottom line that an account cannot be deleted. Microsoft is not the only site that does this. AT&T does the same thing with their online access to credit cards. If you create an account and forget your password, the account just stays there untouched, you cannot retrieve the password and you cannot delete the account, even if you call them up.
It's not a troll (though it is sarcastic). You missed the point.
Much of the language that people are rampaging about in the aforementioned Microsoft TOS (and the Yahoo TOS last year) is:
(a) Also presented out of context in just about every media representation of the TOS, including the original Slashdot story. In fact, the brouhaha over Yahoo a year ago was actually over clause nearly identical to that in the OSDN TOS . . . and was as equally out of context given the rest of the Yahoo TOS.
(b) not significantly uncommon language, and, in fact, most of it is fairly standard boilerplate licensing language for any web service.
(c) whether the TOS is originating at Yahoo, Microsoft, or OSDN, it is subject to knee-jerk misinterpretations by a bunch of amateurs who have no experience drafting or understanding the legal vernacular of service contracts.
Should contracts be more clear to the common man? Certainly. Are they? Nope. Which means before people jump to conclusions they should do the research necessary to understand exactly what the legalese *actually* means in a legal context, NOT in the context of their hatred for corporate giants.
Vocal people who see conspiracy in everything they don't understand are bound to generate a bunch of misinformed hype. What's more unfortunate is that frequently columnists and media outlets -- with no more knowledge about how these contracts are created or what the language means in a legal context -- pump up the paranoia with equally uninformed diatribes passed off as actual journalism.
All your base are belong to Slash!!!
Check out the TOS from the Open Source Development Network, the Slashdot parent owned by VA Linux. The TOS is available at http://www.osdn.com/terms.shtml.
Of particular interest would be the clause in Section 4 of the OSDN Terms of Service: "the submitting user grants OSDN the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive and fully sublicensable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed"!
Slashdot owns my intellectual property! Oh, the horror!!
Sigh.
So what should we learn from this? We should learn to put our paranoia in check and consult a lawyer before we open our mouths.
This clause is in virtually every TOS for any web service and is designed to protect service providers from litigious jerks who do things like sue service providers because their web page appeared in a marketing brochure for the service provider or (even worse) litigious twits who do dumb things like claim "They've infringed upon my copyright because they're keeping a 'copy' of my work on their servers!!"
These standard clauses are NOT designed (nor would they legally allow) the service provider to claim legal ownership of the content in question.
This same old tired shit hit the fan a year ago when Yahoo bought Geocities and someone noticed a clause in the TOS (that had been probably been there before but just not gotten any press). See the Wired story, the Wired follow-up, and the obligatory Slashdot reference from last year.
Yahoo caved to the PR blitz and rampant public ignorance and slightly modified their TOS to make it more clear. Microsoft probably won't . . . simply because they're Microsoft and they don't need to.
Maybe the angry hordes ought to jump down OSDN/Slashdot's throat now, eh? I bet they could get OSDN to cave and change their TOS, right?
Or maybe they should just take a deep breath, get a grip, and wise up.
Actually maybe everyone should sign up for three or four accounts...and fill them with all the spam they can sign up for. I've already done my part, but perhaps this could be automated. I wonder how many pedabytes their whole system could really hold? I mean I just need 3-4 hundred thousand accounts full of pr0n mail.
this sig is deprecated
It would be far more likely that the reverse would happen - if they've ever dodged responsibility, then use this defense when they claim ownership. Less satisfying.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
This also brings to mind that 'one apple ruins the bunch' - or however that saying goes. This type of devious behavior has likely not simply started with the advent of passport, and is more than likely simply a revenue through which to do it "legally." I mean, seriously here - what's to say that MS hasn't been secretly selling, using, etc information that passes through their systems? Everyone who's ever used a notmail (did I say that?) account since the MS takeover gets craploads of spam each day, even if it's a new address.
The way things are now, MS is simply a more efficient, more respected Big Brother than the government, and possibly slightly less informed. The loyalty shown to MS is also much more substantial to that shown towards the government, increasing the 'scare factor' of the situation.
-------
CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Concur. I generally regard TRUST-E as a warning label. Just like meatspace business that tout their association with the BBB, I find that generally those with the most to be ashamed about are the loudest in proclaiming their association with one of these organizations.
I learned in graduate school that if you copy one person, it's plagiarism, but if you copy many, it's research.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Jon Postel, of course. IANA, to the rest of you. RIP; all those people who criticised him while he was alive and doing the job by himself should look at how much worse it's being done by an expensive, unaccountable beaurocracy now he's dead.
Had a beer with Jon in Geneva, six months before he died...
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Win2K installs everything (including the kitchen sink), with no option to leave out whatever crap (accessibility options, NetMeeting, etc.) that you don't want. That and numerous glitches and incompatibilities sent me back to Win98. I just reinstalled Win98 SE (conflicting CD-burning programs nuked each other and maybe some system-level stuff as well), and I left Outlook Express out both in the initial install and the upgrade to IE 5.5. (For mail and news, I ssh into my Linux server and use mutt and trn...when Windows eats itself, I don't have to worry about losing my mail.)
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
As I recall, he tried to. The firesorm that incident sparked is what caused /.'s rules to come into place.
GPL made simple: What was my stuff is now our stuff. If you improve our stuff, please keep it our stuff.
You HAVE to give out passwords to servers, and they HAVE to store them somewhere, otherwise how are they going to authenticate you?
Female Prison Rape in NY
Who Cares?
Who in their right mind would expect reliability, security, and privacy from anything Microsoft does?
Since when has Microsoft demostrated the corporate ethics and programing capability needed to handle the responsibility? And who would place their personal files and other sensitive information on the net under the control of Microsoft?
I do archive sensitive stuff and save it in various web sites. It is encrypted with the highest level Blowfish allows, and there are no links or any indication of the contents.
So who needs what Microsoft has to offer?
It should be "All your bit are belong to us!"
It's the singular/plural thing that's part of the joke.
Just use GnuPG or PGP, your problems will be solved. They don't say that you can't encrypt stuff, I'm sure.
---BEGIN SARCASM BLOCK (VER 1.0)---
Or, better yet, they could offer to automagically decrypt stuff for you, using a web-stored private key!
---END SARCASM BLOCK---
...I signed up for my hotmail account before passport even came around (ie, before hotmail made it supergay)?
Makes perfect sense. Passport is a data aggregator - since all your bits are belong to Passport, Passport can resell that data to marketers to provide you with spam, telemarketing calls, and junk snail mail.
Bill just got tired of the fact that nobody fills out warranty registration cards because they hate junk mail, so he paid you to fill it out.
The assumption here, of course, is that Joe Sixpack will continue to use the machine as shipped by Dell, and Passport can continue to accumulate information on Joe Sixpack's profile, thereby increasing the value of that data to multiple customers beyond the $500 check he sent you.
Of course, if you reformat the hard drive and install Linux, you come out ahead of the game by about $500 minus the cost of the Windoze license you bought with the Dell box.
> but I got a $500 check shortly thereafter.
Sir, I would like to give you "props" for such a poignant and thought provoking post. I am about to re-read it, at which time I shall retire to my study to mull over your musings and perhaps come back and add my thoughts to your statements.
Kudos sir!
Remember it, write it down, take a picture, I dont give a fsck!
Coming soon to your wallet, Microsoft Universal Citizen Id Cards. Well, not yet but read this: http://www.osopinion.com/perl/story/8563.html
After reading up on the Microsoft Hailstorm crap I'm beginning to believe it.
Scary stuff huh?
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
When I try to login to Hotmail (which I never use, but have anyway) I get the following message:
"Our records show that you are under 13 years of age. As a result, a new law requires us to get your parent's permission before you can continue to use Hotmail. We use Kids Passport to get permission from your parent so you can start using Hotmail again right away! To get started, answer the question below.
Is your parent with you right now? Y N"
Though it is nice that they are following COPPA, I am 32 yrs old. Answering no to the question brings me to a screen where I enter my parents email address and they send off a note to get permission. Saying yes gets me a screen where I verify that I am the parent of myself, etc.
I don't want to falsify this information, for fear of breaking their agreement, nor do I want to get my mother involved (I am not sure if she would understand that she needs to OK me to access email, and I don't want to get her involved with Microsoft).
I cannot figure out how they know my age (erroneously), except I ruitinely skip that whenever asked.
So, how do I get my spam from my hotmail box without breaking Federal law or Microsoft's aagreement, and at the same time leave my parents out of this.
didnt Katz use a bunch of them, without permission or payment?
yes he did, but at least when the masses shouted "foul" slashdot fessed up to it, went out and tried to track down as many of the posters as they could, and tried to get their permission in re-printing the posts.
As far as payment...I don't even see how this is relevant. Be happier that your voice is being heard and be less concerned about whether your voice is making you money or not. If you post on Slashdot expecting to get rewarded, let alone paid, then you are in for a surprise.
--------
"Counting in octal is just like counting in decimal--if you don't use your thumbs."
Please give your mod points to others, Im at the cap. They will appreciate it more
maybe I used to many big words for you in my post, essentially what I said was (paraphrase)
slashdot did a bad thing.
people said it was bad.
slashdot tried their best to make it all better.
fucking retards - not once did I even mention the word "linux" in my post, nor imply it. go take you bitterness somewhere else where it is appreciated. like aol.
--------
"Counting in octal is just like counting in decimal--if you don't use your thumbs."
Please give your mod points to others, Im at the cap. They will appreciate it more
again, readers with knee jerk reactions. What I said before still applies "If you post on Slashdot expecting to get rewarded, let alone paid, then you are in for a surprise." If I invented something that was substantial, then I wouldn't go posting it publicly so that someone could rip it off. That same logic applies to slashdot.
--------
"Counting in octal is just like counting in decimal--if you don't use your thumbs."
Please give your mod points to others, Im at the cap. They will appreciate it more
Actually, you didn't read it here first... this story was posted on the 30th March on The Register
Although you seem to have researched (or reproduced someone else's) material a little more in depth, this is not new news... I notice even the AYB reference was already used their as well.
"Life is like a sewer - what you get out of it depends on what you put into it" - Tom Lehrer
I also, after the July 29, 2000 article on Password, tried to get Passport to remove my account. The response I got was "we're working on that functionality at this time". Guess they've dropped that project....
Some people take their .sig way too seriously
We all have a lot of non-geeky loved ones who use Hotmail because they heard about it and their friends use it. I've explained to a few of them why they shouldn't use it, but it's a real hastle.
What we need right now is a cannonical "why you shouldn't use Hotmail" website. We could then set an auto-reply on every message from hotmail (or at least the first message from each account) pointing out the URL.
Does anyone feel like setting this up?
(Hotmail is probably a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation)
Fixing copyright
So if I use my Hotmail account to mail my manuscript to my publisher, I've granted Microsoft the copyright to my work?
http://drteknikal.blogspot.com/
not to be trusted, but mainstream lusers think they're the best thing since sliced bread (despite the continuous crashes and the shitty software). While we resolve to keep our information to ourselves (who the hell needs to store their documents on other people's systems? you don't trust yourself?), mainstream lusers will make the service indispensable to themselves, thus giving microsoft the same dominance in that area (in the same way) as all the other areas it's gained dominance. It's not Microsoft that must be stopped....it's the idiot lusers.
People can bitch and moan about this invasion of privacy all they like, but (as far as I can see) they don't have a leg to stand on.
If you agree to the terms of use of Microsoft's services, you waive the rights specified in the terms. It's just like an EULA - few people bother reading them, but they're still a binding agreement.
If you don't like it, you don't have to use it but 99.9% of passport users aren't going to care. All thanks to the "it will never happen to me" syndrome.
I thought the United States doesn't recognize dual citizenship. Does anyone know how this works? It seems one or the other must be void.
-_-
Agreed 100%. Further, anyone who's not encrypting "important" and or "personal" email is asking for what they get.
I don't think the sysadmin at my ISP is reading my email, but I know he can read it if he wants to. Just like I can read any mail on the servers I tend. I doubt the admins at Hotmail (or the other free webmail systems) have time to read my email, but I know they can whether or not they're supposed to or not.
Because of that, I encrypt a large chunk of the traffic I send out. If they can't read it, they can't exploit it...
Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...
It could be even dandier if such a virus made the locations of such text notices somewhat random, and had a stock of several different messages to choose from.
A really nice one would be to stick a little executable with some scary splash screen in an obscure directory, and then add a shortcut to the Startup folder or the RunOne key in HKEY/Local Machine/Software/Microsoft/Windows/. The file could delete itself after it ran.
It's too bad that something like is probably illegal, since it's about the only way most people would ever have a chance to clue in to MS's mistakes.
Oh well...
Mozilla
-----------------------
Nicotine free Amish .sig.
-----------------------
Nicotine free Amish .sig.
If you think this is bad, just look at how dot-NET and Passport are tied together. .NET (=Passport) customer!
...and therefore all your IP belong to us!
If you use the new Windows XP, you are automatically a
Boycott XP or be assimilated...
You don't have to use Hotmail or Passport to have MS own EVERYTHING you do. You just have to use Windows XP, which is claiming to be Microsoft's next "gotta have it" OS.
From the Microsoft White Paper on Hailstorm
So talk all you want about using other mail and password services, Micro$oft plans to own all XP users too!
Slashdot really does hate linking to The Register, even though they broke this story last week and have been credited in every other article about it I've seen. They even used the All your Base reference in their original story. There is no mention of any of that here at all.
Geez.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Posted on March 30th - http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/18002.html.
You really need to publish some original news, and make more of an effort to cover up your blatent plaigerism.
1. Suprisingly unsimilar like a fox!
2. A Slashdot editor bitching about poor spelling. That's funny.
Not that I'd ever accuse a slashdot editor of plagiarism.
So maybe this would be a good reason to get M$ back in court, this is far more serious I would have thought than tieing a user into Windows and IE.....
Seems a shame when you consider the point of Hotmail in the first place
*sigh*
Regards
Dave
----
The plot has been lost if found return to the greenhouse...
A monkey in every office....
s when they wrote that licensing agreement.
Deal with it.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
I don't use passport, and now I won't. I don't care if it helps me achieve something I need; I'll find a different way.
This has come up before--I've given up some online business because they required me to have a passport account; I've written the vendor and told them why I will not threaten my own privacy for any reason.
The best we can do is not to use these services, and intelligently evangelize more privacy-friendly alternatives.
SteveThis is going to get moderated down to troll, but...
Passport is a "free" service provided by a company with decades of sleazy history. People should know better than to trust them from the start. We all saw Micro$oft screw one company after another. We saw what they did to Dr DOS and Stacker. We watched them show forged evidence to a federal court in their own antitrust hearings. And all of those actions were given plenty of press. People should know better than to trust Micro$oft already. Anyone screwed by this deserves it for using a Micro$oft service to begin with.
Directly from Yahoo Mail's Terms of Service
With respect to Content you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of Yahoo! Clubs and Yahoo! Groups, the license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the Service solely for the purposes of providing and promoting the specific Yahoo! Club or Yahoo! Group to which such Content was submitted or made available. This license exists only for as long as you elect to continue to include such Content on the Service and will terminate at the time you remove or Yahoo removes such Content from the Service.
With respect to photos, graphics, audio or video you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible area of the Service other than Yahoo! Clubs or Yahoo! Groups, the license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the Service solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted or made available. This license exists only for as long as you elect to continue to include such Content on the Service and will terminate at the time you remove or Yahoo removes such Content from the Service.
With respect to Content other than photos, graphics, audio or video you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Service other than Yahoo! Clubs or Yahoo! Groups, the perpetual, irrevocable and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other works in any format or medium now known or later developed.
- passion
Personally, I think that the open source, non-profit, privacy contract system, put together by http://xns.org/ is the way to go.
We, the saavy users know that plain text transmitted over SSL is anything but insecure. We also find out at least a little about how something works before we comment on it.
This is a manual virus. Copy it to your sig and help me spread!
Why would anyone trust their company secrets to Hotmail?
Where I work, sometimes when our mail servers are down, we use an external free email provider to exchange important messages with colleagues. When doing this, it is a very clear policy to state in the first line of the email that it is being sent via hotmail and no confidential information should be contained in any reply. Also, of course, the sender makes sure that no confidential information is disclosed in the original message.
Messages are simply of the form "The build is ready" or "I have checked in the fix for Bug #12345".
This is not because we don't trust the email provider but because we don't trust the security of messages transmitted as clear text over the internet. It would be foolish to do otherwise.
Mmmm.. Donuts
EOF
Edith Keeler Must Die
It is all very interesting discussing the intricacies of the TOS, but on a more productive level, how the hell do you remove yourself from the Passport database? I for one have a single very old Hotmail account I never use any more, and I have installed MSN Messenger so my daughter could chat to her friends. Yes, I stupidly gave MS my details in doing so. How can I save myself from Nasty Bill, and get my soul back?
Cleanstick.org: Dumb weblog about nothing
If you are a registered user at the MSDN Online service, passport is required. It was changed to use it a few months ago. Before, the registration was separate from Passport, but, you could use Passport.
I imagine that M$ could try to take ownership of something you create via the Passwort network, but if it came to brass tacks do you think that a judge would really tell you that M$ owns your work?
From my (very) limited copyright experience there isn't a very large chance of this happening!
-----
When I got cable-modem service installed, the first time I accessed my new email address there were already 10 spams in there. This was an address that had only been created a few days prior by the ISP's customer support staff. A nice intro to the new service!
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
What happen if you send me the linux kernel to my hotmail account? Or you send me an MP3? will that belong to MS???
how inforacable these terms are in Belgium (and some other European countries) where your privacy is protected by law, and companies are forced to let you inspect, modify or delete any personal data (even your name is considered private data) from their database upon simple request.
Jeez,... thinking that corporate controlled US are trying to force their "self-regulating" bussiness privacy policy upon Europe, one starts to wonder if the US citizen really want this, and if they don't who gives a fuck about their opinions. Democracy,...? Nah, Corporacy!
J.
If anyone is using Hotmail for serious, private e-mail, they deserve to be exploited.
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
When people read a story like this that has been on the register for a few days and instead of submitting it - rewrite it and call it their own. Its crap. Mod me down but I just wanted to say that!
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
That's not associativity, that's symmetry.
I just finished reading the orignal posting, and find it very disturbing. I am aware that Hotmail has it's own Terms of Use, and many people has pointed that fact out, but in a quick search I found this line in the Terms of Use for Hotmail. "Some MSN Sites/Services automatically provide you with a Microsoft Passport account when you open an account (e.g. Hotmail, MSN Explorer), to learn more about what a Microsoft Passport is please visit the Passport web site at www.passport.com " I belive this answers the orignal posters question as to weather or not Hotmail is affected, but how does it affect Explorer? How can a Online portal's TOS affect a application? Since I am not a M$ Guru, I am only assumeing that Explorer is refering to the application.
-Ghost
Instead of "All your whatever...", why don't we just say that "Everything is now belong to us." At the rate things are going now, everything will belong to someone.
Wasn't this supposed to be posted on the 1st?
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The only website I've had to use Passport with was creating an account with SanJose Mercury News (.com) so I could check the comics. I have emailed SJMerc a few times asking why they use Passport, but I send most of my "insightful" letters into the void in vain. I know NY Times makes you have an account with them, but not with Passport. So SJMerc is weird. Even CNN.com doesn't use Passport. (personally)I think Passport is silly. But I think a few other things are rather silly, too. From how I see it, using a third party for passwords/&c. is like hiring a guy to wash your windows for you instead of the button on your car; it *might* be more efficient, but redundant and frivolous. Anyway...that's my view. Sinerely, Tamarah
Perhaps it was a typo on your part (he and she are so close in spelling) but I think Jamie is actually a she.
Even I was surprised.
kickin' science like no one else can,
my dick is twice as long as my attention span.
Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
I did not use more then a year, I think, and was logged on in msn without any big trouble. But, do not count on my memory, somebody else should confirm it.
BTW, I have 2 different passwords for same email address with them. do not know how. one I use with msn messenger, and second was send me back whne I wanted to register for Whistler and forgot it. wierd, really.
oh, and one more. AFAIK in Europe you have to provide ability to remove all data from database per customers request.
tandr
I'm not going to like it when Microsoft publishes "The Insider Guide to Avumede's Address Book".
"Your mail to manager@bigcompany.com" had a delivery failure because of the following reason: Due to legal and ethical considerations we can not engage in communications with organizations that violate elementary privacy rules. If you wish to contact us, please do so through a reputable service provider"
In Murphy We Turst
I figure I need to protect my rights, so I came up with a first draft of a new .signature.
It bothers me a great deal that this signature is not a joke.
Please do not mod this as "Funny." It is not.
Anyway, as i thought it might be useful to some of you all, here is my new .signature
------------License Agreement
You must agree to this license agreement in order to read the main body of this email. If you do not agree with the terms of this license agreement you must not read the body of this email.
Because of blatant intellectual property theft embodied in the Microsoft Passport Terms of Use (http://www.passport.com/Consumer/TermsOfUse.asp) I am forced to copyright and include this licensing agreement in every email I send. I apologize for bandwidth wasted on these bits.
All rights to ideas and text contained within this email, or any subportion thereof, belong solely to Brian McCallister. Receipt or SMTP based retransmission of this email do not grant you any rights, general or specific, in regards to the content of this email.
Permission is specifically denied to post, read, or transmit the contents, or any part thereof, of this email to or over Microsoft Passport Services or Affiliated Services or Programs.
Permission is specificaly denied for anyone affiliated with Microsoft Passport to read or possess a copy of this message. Permission is specifically denied for Microsoft, or any Passport Business Affiliate to use information or ideas presented in this message, or any part thereof.
If you know of or suspect any violations of this agreement please contact the Electronic Freedom Foundation at http://www.eff.org
I wonder if the DMCA can be used to protect my email?
Guess that particular moderator never looked at the bottom of the page before. *shrug*
The Copyright Act requires a signed, written transfer of copyright. A click-through agreement or a posted "Terms of Use" doesn't cut it, no matter what Microsoft says. At best, they can claim that you're licensing them to use the work, but as Microsoft's lawyers have often pointed out, a license and a transfer are completely different creatures.
Does Microsoft own all communications that originate, terminate, or pass through passport.com? If anti-spam legislation is passed, that means they can be sued for any and all spam that passes through their systems. If the amount of spam I get from hotmail users is any indication, Bill Gates will be bankrupt within seventy-two hours.
Je pense, donc je lis Slashdot.
I joined hotmail before M$ got their greedy hands on it. I never agreed to their TOS for passport. I agreed to the pre-microsoft TOS. I assume there are others on this board in the same boat. So am I affected by this very, very bad TOS?
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
It oesn't matter how serious the writer takes these things, what matters how seriously an entity known to exploit takes them serious.
And I am convinced taking off your pink-colored shades would give you a much needed view on realism. Or why do You think that the strictest one got chosen if nobody reads them?
It's actuatually quite bad when I have to read through X pages just to use a service in peace and good trust, just to make sure I am not sold to the highest bidder. But hey this is the so-called democratic USA. Where money rules the free.
-- "Your lack of faith is disturbing." Darth Vader
And why wouldn't they know their own TOS and the such? They are big, and employ their fair share of laywers ...
--
"I find your lack of faith disturbing." Darth Vader
I like Slashdot's rule: "Comments are owned by the Poster." Much better.
Sounds good, but didnt Katz use a bunch of them, without permission or payment?
yeah, and if you invent something, and a big company rips it off you and f***s you up the ass, you should be grateful that your contribution has been helpful to someone - you shouldnt complain about something as petty as money!
I mean, jesus!
question: is control controlled by its need to control?
answer: yes
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
Due to security reasons we do not allow nor do we have a feature to delete Passport accounts. Rest assured that if you do not access your account within 12 months our system will automatically delete your account
LOL. I hadn't thought of this excuse.
Look, due to security reasons I must backwards engineer your code. I can't explain it, but it's a part of my private genetic makeup. I'll be glad to supply you with my public genetic key, but, as you know, the private key must stay with me.
I must backwards engineer CSS.
I must hack BlueMatter.
I must attempt to thwart the latest SDMI watermarking scheme.
Rest assured (and this means you, Hilary, and you too, Jack Valenti -- even though, yeah, you're getting up there in years) that if I do not release my version of your encryption schemes, they will be deleted from my hard and from my memory banks. But, as you know, for security reasons, there's no way I can delete them manually. Nor is there any way that you -- Hilary or Jack or you spooks at the NSA -- can compel me to delete them sooner.
I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is. It's for security. You understand. I know you do.
"All your gene makeup are belong to us."
Can your say "All your [Trash/Recycle Bins] are belong to Micro$oft."
"All Your Bits Are Belong To Us"
Tell me I'm not just freaking out...
but, I do have a serious question. Should I be able to own bits that are sent from my machine. I created them (in a sense), and I paid for them (electricty). Should I not be able to own those bits? If I don't own any bits of data, is it okay for others to tamper with bits that I don't own?
But then again, is there any real sense in owning something that doesn't really exist (so to speak).
Remember what happened with real networks? well they still have their truste thing, woah... what a GOOD releif knowing that truste is helping to protect consumer privacy...
bull.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
Anyone reading the plane English of this license cannot help but see that, very clearly, the end user is required to grant Microsoft any and every right to their ideas, their work, even their patents, just by processing their information through a piece of software which happens to use Passport as an authentication mechanism. This could, in the future, include any document written by Micosoft Word (using passport to authenticate the author or encrypt the file as a new feature, etc.), sent through a Microsoft mail server, or served from a Microsoft Web server.
.NET and so-called "services," they could consider Windows XP merely a "Passport-associated service," thus meaning anything created/residing on your PC would belong to them, and they would have every right to download any data from your PC as they wished.
It was my understanding one of the new "features" of Windows XP was to pass your username/password entered in the initial user logon box to MS Passport-enabled sites to provide seemless logon to M$ services.
This sounds alarmist, but especially considering Microsoft's well-publicized refocus on
They wouldn't do that, would they? As much as I hate Microsoft, even I can't believe they'd do something like this. Someone please convince me I'm wrong...
--Mythos
Is it just me or is it that all these types of stories are always aimed at Microsoft.
Maybe you would rather just allow someone else to hold onto your thesis for a few months while you finish it, but I doubt it. Now you believe that you can put all your intellectual property into the hands of someone else and they will hold it safe and secure for you? They're corporate, the bottom line is the bottom line. This is a great way to get new ideas into the stream without paying top dollar (not anymore but you know what I mean) to hire someone who may take their property somewhere else. And this surprises you?
DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
UNIX - Not just for Vestal Virgins anymore
No, they would not route around their chunk. I can think of a few companies they could buy and NOT be able to route well around. Is the first that comes to mind uu.net - which owns alter.net, grid.net, and a bunch of others. Most ISPs route through them or a subisdiary in one form or another.
So does this mean that MS now owns All the Spam as well?
Yeeeeeah!
LOL! Thanks...I needed that! Why trust us? Because we're your friend.
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
I don't even trust IE to hold on to my /. password! You never know when Bill Gates may want to hi-jack my account and burn my karma away by posting anti-Linux hate speech!
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
Go to this URL:
http://register.passport.com/global.asa+.htr
This exploits a VERY well known and easily fixable IIS hole on the passport registration site. Check out the source behind this page and you will see exactly what I mean:-) Note this doesnt work well on pure ASP pages because of the presence of the
Its very likely that the passport site is vulnerable to other holes as well - but I'll leave that to you NT Script Kiddies out there dying to get a piece of the Microsoft action.
Now normally I'm one to stay away from the MS Bash Mobile here at Slashdot - but in this case I would suggest that anybody with a brain refrain from using passport for anything you wish to keep even remotely private.
Gamorck
"Equal Oppurtunity Windows/Linux/Macintosh Basher"
I love idealists not because I am one, but because they make life bearable for pragmatists such as myself.
This is a nice security concern and if you feel violated and shocked you should be shot. Microsoft has NO concern for INDIVIDUALS or their rights (evidence in the inhearent crappyness of Windows). Yes I use Hotmail; yes I believe they would trample my rights and or data if it served them any advantage. But honestly, what are you sending over your Hotmail account thats so important and or threatining to Microsoft that they will misuse it? And if this is a password concern... if you care so much about security you should be using multiple passwords... and never ever ever use your root password on any other account. But for those of us in UNIX happy land this is all old hat and big bad Microsoft playing very old games.
#set prompt = $user.$group @ `hostname -s`#
root.wheel @ reality#
Remove *your pants* to send me email.
A twelve-month inactivity period with no provision for deletion is bad, especially given how many time MS's systems have been hacked. If MS tells you they can't remove you from their service and your personal info will sit out there for a full year, contact your state's Attorney General. -Dave
Oops. Guess I forgot where I was posting for a second.
Jamie, do us all a favor a get a journalistic clue.
Once Passport expands to protecting e-money and banks, then...
All your money belongs to them...
If microsoft was smart, it would scan all passport accounts that now belong to them and seize all the assets. Need to finance a new software product to take over the world, use the Passport users credit to take out the loan. For a down payment, use the money in the passport user's bank accounts...
TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken
TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken
I don't care if microsoft compiles a user data information base about my hotmail usage. The only mail that comes to my hotmail account is pron spam anyway. That means they know my name, and the fact that I use the hotmail account on the web, and _nothing else_. They can only get the information you give 'em folks.
Nessun maggior dolore, Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria. -Dante
And Title 17 says that copyright rights can only be transferred in writing, signed by the copyright owner. And case law says that written transfer has to name the IP involved explictly.
You cannot transfer copyright ownership (or even license partial rights) without being aware of it.
Get a grip people.
Why not try to answer some of the questions you raised?
I read an old compuserve EULA back in '96 that stated something to the effect that by using compuserve you give consent for them to scan all files on you hard disk or other permenant media.
//
--// Hartsock
Live to Code, Code to Live!
Microsoft should probably put in etraordinarily clear armor plated language that this does not license them to theft of corporate secrets, not that this has never stopped them before.
That said, If it wasn't news last week, why is it news now?
(People moan about news items around here being old if they saw it twelve hours ago, but the age on this seems a little extreme)
Heck, it could have made a wonderful story for April Fools day, the one legit story that would have looked like a fake.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
this sounds like a case of big brother to me :)
i love my brother
---------------
100% Australian
So what this means is that the next time Microsoft gets hacked and some poor shlemazle's credit card numbers get e-mailed to everyone in Bill Gate's address book, Microsoft can't be held legally liable because "all your bits are belong to us".
This raising an interesting issue: What happens if a web browser fails to properly display a disclaimer (or other legal document)? For example, suppose the main site uses javascript to pop up the legalese. Further suppose that I browse the web with javascript disabled. So when I click on the link that says, "Click here to view limitations of the offer", am I able to interpret the lack of any limitations appearing on my screen as a complete lack of any limitations on the offer? What if I do have javascript enabled, but the text isn't displayed (or is displayed blank) due to an error in the web browser's interpretation of javascript?
If Microsoft claims ownership rights over everything emailed through Hotmail, does that mean I can sue them for all the unsolicited email that I can't stop getting?
Respondeo dicendum quod . . .
heheh, even the Dallas Morning News ran an article about AYBABTU as a "new, hot internet craze" on the front page of their "Texas Living" section...
last week.
this is why i get almost all my news online -- i like the reporting of 'news' to at least occur during the same calendar year as when the event itself occurs.
--
---
Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
I've had hotmail accounts since before MS bought them, and what finally made me stop using it [as someone has already mentioned, they never really delete you, they just put your info offline after awhile -- which is one of the important issues: how much inactivity constitutes your release from the TOS?], was when they started pushing MSN IM, so that every time I sent a message to anyone, the confirmation page pleads:
"1 Person wants to exchange instant messages with you. Download MSN Messenger NOW!!!"
I know my friends well enough to know that if it was one of them, they would have just emailed me to say so. I created a completely new account and sent an email back to myself... Sure enough, "1 Person wants to exchange instant messages with you!!"
dickheads.
And while we're griping about MS, it REALLY pisses me off that they've apparently decided that Outlook Express is "essential to the Windows Operating System" just like Internet Explorer, because I upgraded a machine to Win2k yesterday just to see what the differences were, if any, and I discovered that OE can't be removed by any conventional means.
I'm wondering how they would try to convince the Justice Department that OE was part of the core OS?
Microsoft VP: "So, as the court can see, we have discarded the old, inconvenient drag-and-drop file copying in favor of our new innovative system of using Outlook Express to email attached files between folders and drives. It's an inseparable part of our Windows Operating System!"
The problem is that I don't provide, and don't want to provide, email on my mini-net. But there it sits anyway, unnecessary bloat.
Gee. Thanks guys.
---
---
Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
I'll use an analogy. There is a Babylon 5 moderated newsgroup, which the creator of the show (who is known as JMS) frequents. One of the moderation rules is that you are not allowed to post story ideas to the newsgroup. This is to protect JMS from being sued if he happens to use a similar story.
MS could be attempting something similar here. If someone posts an idea for a new piece of software that MS has been working on already, they dont want to expose themselves to a lawsuit.
Of course it is worded in a way that claims much more than just that. Whether it is careless wording, or whether MS intentionally took a mile when they needed an inch, is an exercise for the reader.
___
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
We just got into a heated argument at the office about this. We are a little disbeleiving that Microsoft could attempt anything this completely diabolical and obvious. Yet it seems that is what they are doing. After some discussion, we came to the conclusion that this will not work to microsoft's benefit in the long run, and that this is most likely an attempt to test the laws in this area. I cant find this out, but is the contract to use passport/hotmail formed under the jurisdiction of Washington (Redmond) or Maryland (UCITA state) courts?
.net product? If we succeed in suing them, they are out of pocket a LOT of money. If we fail, you can bet that every business in our sector will stop doing business with MSFT out of fear/spite. I don't think it will take a lot of effort to completely destroy microsoft once word gets out. Microsoft has to realize that its entire business is founded upon respect for copyrights, not theft or misappropriation of copyrights.
Another thought- if microsoft starts using the tactic of "if you use any of our services, you surrender all intellectual property rights to us" eventually people will start to behave towards microsoft in the same way. If microsoft thinks it has a problem with piracy now, just wait till goverments and business stop cooperating altogether after microsoft starts to lift people's code. What if my company's proprietary network protocols suddenly show up in the next version of a
I personally suspect that this is a quasi-legal attempt to get around the GPL and start including linux code in windows. As you can already tell, I think this is stupid. There are plenty of wealthy GPL programmers who like to sue violators (remember Carmack and the quake code?). I admit that the FSF isnt exactly MSFT in terms of market cap, but they can probably afford lawyers. Do you think that ESR or RMS will back down if MSFT tries to pirate code from Linux, er i mean GNU/Linux? Not bloodly likely.
You're a moron. Win2k lets you choose whether or not to install MS Messenger in Windows Update. I've got this installed for everyone at work and no one is bitching about their CD burner making their ass itch or their eyes watering from any incompatibilities. For Christmas sake, hard drives are so freakin dirt cheap that if you had been productive with the time you wasted complaining you could have bought yourself a $150 hard drive with so much room you'd puke.
I'm sick of the "Microsoft made me sleep with my cat" crowd. Are you all too sickly to use something *besides* Hotmail? There are a thousand other places offering free email, none of them run by Bill Gates' lawyers. Stop the Whaa Whaa Whaa and do something for yourselves. Repeat after me: The only reason you are using Passport is because you signed up for it and did not stop using it immediately on hearing about this new policy; you talk some good talk about your privacy, but you show in your actions that you couldn't care. Don't you think they'd notice if no one logged into their service for a week?
Byarglaglagla!!!!!
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
...that my friend informed me about it through his shiny Hotmail account :)
Great, now I can sue them out of existance for all the spam "they" send me.
I better report this to Playboy too, they will really like it that MS claims Copyright of thier works!
Oh better yet, they own DeCSS, lets tell the MPAA! How about the illegal MP3? Tell the RIAA!
Just imagine all the shit they claim ownership of, it's amazing!
All the possibilities are belong to us!
I still think the TOS sucks, and it's a fair article. So I'm not a MS Passport user. End of story.
sulli
RTFJ.
By the way, TrustMe is garbage - always has been. They are a fig leaf for the whole "privacy policy" crap that the industry is pushing instead of consent, which is what should be required to share personal data.
I like Slashdot's rule: "Comments are owned by the Poster." Much better.
sulli
RTFJ.
. . .
Actually, if they owned a big chunk of the Internet, I don't believe they could. It seems to me that the USA vs. Std. Oil Supreme Court case would/could hold precedence in that situation.
However, should I (personally, or as a metaphorical business) put up my _own_ router (or smtp server, or what have you), it is within my ability (and if I'm not mistaken, my legal right) to examine, log, and review _all_ traffic that goes through that server. Obviously, I don't own any of that information; the original creator does. I believe if Microsoft had such a monopoly, they would not be allowed to have such control. As according to the court case above, just because you _own_ the pipeline, doesn't mean you can control what flows through it. As well, It doesn't seem to me that implicit transfer of ownership like that would be legally binding.
But then, IANAL. *sigh*
faboo
Great! So if I send a copy of my tax refund through MSN for a friend to double-check, does that mean M$ gets my tax refund? For that matter, if I transmit my Social Security number, can they assume my identity?
This should hardly come as a suprise - we all know Microsoft is as power mad as it is arogant.
I tried to sign up for an account about a year ago. On entering my name (John Linford), I was told that I was unable to create an account with that name 'because the sirname field contains inelegible or restricted word' - I welcome any ideas as to why.
I gave up after this, but there are plenty of alternatives - I use mail.ru, a free russian service with web and POP3 access
If you don't like it, don't use it - that's why they give you the coice to decline.
-- John Linford
If you were really worried that microsoft was stealing your code you could sue them. "But they could appeal it for years" you might say, but it's a lot harder with this case. Lets say you make your own site, "Pirate-Windows-Mail", same ToS and submit Windows and copy/distribute it. MS of course sues you. You get in court and let MS tear you appart (and they win), suddenly there is a precident set that says that the ToS used like that breaks the law. So the court would turn around and shut down MS. I dont think there is anything to worry about..
Looks like the public criticism of the Passport policy is waking some people up. Check this post from cnet about this passport bs. Sorry if this is a dup, couldn't read all the posts.
I heard a small blurb about this Passport thing on NPR somewhere. When I heard them say 'central repository for passwords and credit card information' I almost ran off the road laughing so hard. Why would anyone use this 'service'?
That just makes me mad. ARRGH! And I had written it better too. Geez.
----
Toora Loora Toora Loo Rye Aye
"Due to security reasons we do not allow nor do we have a feature to remove Microsoft Internet Explorer from your computer. The security reasons being that we need multiple backdoors into your computer. Rest assured that if you do not use Internet Explorer, ever, the backdoors will still work. And probably better, since you won't have updated IE."
Got friends?
Oh darn so I loose all the rights to the spam account I keep there. So does this mean MS owns all the spam?
I have posted this as an article too, and I have actually read their TOS (because I have - personally and by title - access to several Hotmail accounts). I have set them a delay of two days, to change this or to tell me how to alter this on my/our mails, or I'll cancel these accounts. (Now need a good free mailer)
--
My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And
No, they don't own it: We do not claim ownership [...] reserve a right to use...
You are still responsible, and you are the owner. But M$ has the right to use it.
If you'd put enough kernel patches via hotmail, M$ could include them into windoze (ironically THIS was good for us). But they'd put it in modifictatedly so YOU dont have any rights on M$ code (but they on yours).
This sucks.
Read this license and tell me whether it's prohibiting them...
--
My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And
How this could/is/will affect the on-going trial.
Its like, now their TOS basically say: You have no rights while using this service, and anything you passthru, becomes ours.
To me, thats all the evidence a judge should need.
No pleasure, no rapture, no exquisite sin greater.
Stop using Hotmail and any other Micro$oft portal.
But then:
Write the Justice Department, (http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/index.html) and your Senators. Maybe if enough people scream about this the government will step in.
Granted, I don't like the idea of having the Feds involved with anything, but in this case...
Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
You may not have officially agreed to anything, but since you continued to use Hotmail after Micro$oft took over, you implied agreement by staying a user. Trust me, that can and has held up in court.
Sorry. I bailed when Micro$oft took over. Sucks to be you.
Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
how is this TOS different from hotmail's existing TOS? its no different..sheesh..i dont care if microsoft wants to peruse (sp?) the files i store online, but i'm not ecstatic about letting them read/publish/use my private email..but then again, that being the case, if i were a hotmail user, i would've read the TOS and caught this beforehand..this is old news..overdone and underneeded microsoft bashing.. an avid win2k user, coronaride
Those who can, do. Those who can't, go into business for themselves.
Microsoft is working on a new system, code-named Hailstorm, where they plan to tie in credit card information, plane reservations, e-purchases, and just about everything else into one giant account, stored on Microsoft's servers, and accessed via Passport. American Express and Ebay are already in on the deal along with several other large companies. Here's an URL.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
I looked around and was startled to find that I *couldn't* find any such information in the "about" section, nor in the "faq". One would think that given the viewpoints so floridly and frequently espoused here that the policy would be front-and-center. Did I miss it somewhere ?
Our constitution clearly says that all personal information about an individual belongs to the individual and can not be transfered by any legal means.
So if I fill a form with my data in a M$ site and they sell this to a third party without my writen consent or make any unlawfull use I can:
1) force them to tell me everithing they did with the data. This is called "Abeas Data" by our contitution.
2) Sue them for reparation if I consider myself harmed by the way they used my data.
Since I'm a Brasilian citizen, simply doesn't matter theyr claim that the terms of use are governed by the laws os the state of Washington. If the service is ofered in Brasil it's bound to our laws and our constitution.
What ? Me, worry ?
At least this is what the law says in my country. A server's log doesn't count as a proof that I agreed with the terms of the contract, so it's invalid an I can sue them for any unauthorised use of my copyrhighted material.
Other thing that I noticed is this paragraph in the "General" section:
"Use of the Passport Web Site and service is unauthorized in any jurisdiction that does not give effect to all provisions of these terms and conditions"
Since Brasilian law doesn't accept these terms, the use of hotmail in Brasil is ILEGAL acording with the term.
But again, the term is INVALID here, so I so want to see M$ trying to enforce it in Brasil...
What ? Me, worry ?
What if I SEND email to a hotmail account? That TOS wording is very vague; could it be interpreted that if you yourself are running, say, Pine under Linux and send your manuscript TO a hotmail account, will Micro$oft be able to steal the IP?
This has got me worried. If this is the case, it's time to break off all communications with hotmailers. Thanks Microsoft for another 'net schism.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
I mean, look at it this way...There have been several parodies of the original now, and a lot of them were total ass (the one on SurvivorSucks comes to mind.) But that's not the point. It's the idea that any schlep with some wit and maybe some talent can do such a thing and have thousands of people see it.
Instant, low-cost, idea-sharing. Maybe not the best ideas, but still...
Which will it be? The Internet on Micro$oft/AOL-TW/(insert megacorp here)'s terms? Or on ours? We as a collective might not always say the brightest things, but we can still say them!
GTRacer
- Vagrant Story, or How Not To Let a Little Thing Like Assassination Get in the Way of Your Self-Actualization
And besides, you have to give some credit to the AYBABTU images that were real meatspace hacks and not Gimped.
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
without a meeting of the minds, this garbage is worthless. and what can m$ possibly gain by creating an enviornment that will make future customers question the need for m$ purchases.
one should not under estimate inux, forte, vi, staroffice as a nice way to do business. i'm a software contractor, and it works for me verrrrrry well.
Now all you Aussies should start sendding your smutty emails via Hotmail. You never know who will publiclty perform that picture you send to your co-workers.
====
Codeala - Just another mindless drone
associativity
commutativity
How did he get past junior high school ? <insightful><flame>Well I suppose it's OK for an american</flame></insightful>
Anyone dumb enough to use a hotmail accout probably needs to be abused like this.
Of coarse the IP that M$ sreals from this bunch will be pretty lame IP so I say hotmail account users and M$ deserve each other.
Anyone with a grain of sense head on over to www.evilemail.com and grab one of their free mail accounts.
CC
Intellectual Property IS Theft.
God forbid users don't remember their own passwords. Would you expect anything less from MS? Unfortunately, they don't get the benefit of the doubt that they probably didn't mean it in the way we are interpreting it. That's a sign of bad (or good) TOS writing by the suits. :)
Why would you entrust your passwords to anyone? If someone has that many important passwords, they should really come up with a better system than asking someone else to manage them. How irresponsible is that?
Save yourselves all the trouble. If you have that many passwords, buy a $10 lock box and write them all on paper and save them in there
--does anyone else's fingers get pruned from surfing the net?
Look, even the US Supreme Court avoids ruling on whether Americans have a right to privacy, so forget it - you have none on Hotmail.
....
In Canada, there's the Internet Privacy Act, which became law on 01/01/01, and which means that I, as a dual citizen of the US and Canada, have more rights by virtue of my Canadian citizenship than by my American birthright.
And in the EU they have more rights, but the EU won't sue the US companies that violate their citizens' rights to privacy.
All this shall pass
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Um, Passport doesn't store passwords -- it's used for access to online retailers, et al. You're thinking of IE or maybe the OS.
I'm on a road shaped like a figure eight; I'm going nowhere but I'm guaranteed to be late.
Let me give you just 1 example.
If you click on a link in an email to hotmail, it redirects that link through a hotmail server so they can track you followed the link.
They put up "you are visiting a site outside of hotmail" in a pane.
The reason for redirecting you is so that they can warn you, right?
No way, the pane doesn't give you the chance to cancel the site link, what use is a warning of something thats ALREADY happened? The link has ALREADY been followed!
Still don't believe that this is purely for spying?
Do this:
1. Email your hotmail account a link to
http://www.hotmail.com
2. Open your hotmail
3. Follow the link
4. You still get the message
"You are visiting a site outside of Hotmail"
It makes no difference if this is any site within the passport, msn or hotmail group it always sends the command through the hotmail server.
Any warning value they could give you simply by putting "Warning External Site:" infront of the link, instead of the redirect.
I guess M$ own's all my spam and junk email now.
BIG DEAL!
Who uses Hotmail for anything other than that?
If the previous statement says that everything belongs to them, then of course by suing you they're defending "their" property.
All this moaning about privacy and security is getting old. People should use the same instincts about net use as they do in other activities. Would you trust some guy who walked up and said, "I'll deliver your messages. I've got a big fast truck and I'm your man!" That's what Hotmail and Excite and Yahoo mail and other services are. They're something you didn't ask for, but found to be convenient when they offered themselves. Sad fact is, they probably didn't tell you everything. If you're worried about their motives or their scruples, DON"T USE THEM! Use some service you know you can trust.
Just because they are big companies with large exposure you can't assume that they have a mandate to be ethical or even nice.
- Sig this!
I use MSN messenger (because all of my colleages do), but I do not have a passport. I signed up using my standard email address (as recently as last month) and have never agreed to the PassPort t+c's.
Therefore, if the PassPort terms and conditions apply to messenger, surely they are being applied to me without my express written consent?
Ben^3
The Slashdot Paradox: "100% Overrated"
What would be the implication if I e-mail someone a Debian GNU/Linux application through Passport? If Microsoft claims copyrights, don't they violate the law by doing so?
that's an amazing pair of tits you have keslin. oh, almost forgot, good post.
-- Patience is a virtue, but impatience is an art.
Why doesn't somebody just ASK MICROSOFT???
---
evil adrian
This adds fuel to the first of the Microsoft Antitrust appeal doesn't it?
So yeah, let's all talk about it, raise awareness and show what we think of their heavy-handed and likely unlawful approach to being more than commoncarrier service.
I wonder though... if they were to buy a big chunk of the internet, could they do the same thing? "If your traffic passes through our routers, we will sniff it and steal anything we like!"??
These people need to be stopped.
FUCK M$!
What better place to store all my pr0n passwords?
I've been following this case with appropriate concern for a while now. While I no longer use Hotmail for a variety of reasons (the most significant of which is performance issues) this seems to set a dangerous precedent.
/. land been able to determine if MS read their email?
What do you folks think about setting up a "honey pot" style information-gathering effort using Hotmail or $passportService? For example, send a PowerPoint presentation depicting a proposal for some potentially lucrative business plan that MS could co-opt?
Conversely, has anyone out there in
There's a lot of chicken littling (is that a verb now?) going on here but not too many hard-and-fast facts. Even so much as a legal opinion from an IP lawyer would be useful.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
So, anything that I send/receive at my Hotmail account is Microsoft's too? So, let's everyone send WAREZ and Illegal stuff, so its Microsoft fault too.
gcc -o sig sig.c sig.c:4: #error NO SIG FOUND make: *** [sig] error 1
So can I not print out my email or forward it?
This is ludicrous!
I guess I can't...:
By way of example, and not as a limitation, you agree that when using a Communication Service, you will not:
So much for sending a generic email asking my friends where they want to go to eat this weekend and when - much less ask them to forward that email to other who might go...
"Johnny, be off that computer in 5 minutes! I need to check my email too."
"I can't enjoy my Hotmail?! I'm calling Microsoft!"
Microsoft employees themselves can't use the service. Interesting...
Also:
This agreement is governed by the laws of the State of Washington, U.S.A. You hereby consent to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of courts in King County, Washington, U.S.A. in all disputes arising out of or relating to the use of the Passport Web Site or service.
Wonder if they have anyone paid off....
If I had a sig, this is where it would be.
what if you're a user of hotmail before it became a part of M$. I don't remember agreeing to their new TOS.
So you may ask why a service like Passport even exists. My answer: M$ is a marketing genius of a company, not a computer genius of a company. Not to say that really bright people do not work at M$, just that the company motto is not how best to serve the individual, but the masses. And the unfortunate truth is that the masses do not care, or think much about computer security, or even their daily physical security either. Most people take things for granted (I know I do far too many times!).
So it does not surprise me that M$ would throw this kind of thing into their EULA for Passport.com. It's not illegal to do so, and the general public really doesn't know, so why not do it? And not just M$, but other companies do this sort of thing as well. *cough* Credit Card companies *cough*. Our info is getting sold to everyone all the time now-a-days.
Your best bet is to protect what info you do have, listen more often rather than talk, and keep voting for those who will best protect your interest to remain responsible for your own actions, and therefore free from corporate and governmental dictatorship (or oligarchy, as the case may be).
Or "All your bits is belong to us."
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
I've seen "All your base are belong to us" and variants all over the place but (perhaps because I'm not an American immersed in US culture) I don't know the original source of this quote.
Is it from a TV show or something? Someone want to point me in the right direction?
Thanks.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
It must be nice to be the world's tallest two year old.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I hear ya!!!
What I am also concerned about, is the feature in IE called "auto complete" This feature allows you to NOT have to type user names/passwords into forms on the web. The browser stores this information in an area under "Internet Options" in the Control Panel called Personal Information. What concerns me, is if M$ can gather this information, and use it...
"Look where we worship" -- Jim Morrison
Do you remember when Yahoo! had much the same stuff in their license?
We should ack against it.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
It took several days after this was first reported in Reg, but slashdot managed to pull a story with a lot of interesting links that actually look researched.
/. about o-p-t-o-m-i-z-a-t-i-o-n, which is a way to speed up the reaction.
/. may come up with an *original* story or two on its own.
Keep on doing to good work!
Next week, I might inform
By the turn of the century,
Yes, I know this is shocking, but it's *possible*.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
I'll bet that this is how they plan on getting around stealing code, now and in the future. "Oh, such and such sent it via our passport system, making it ours", "He also mentioned his shirt, which we are in the process of acquiring..."
Bitches.
"...any chance you could enlighten us with the solution to our problem?"
That's easy. You buy a really BIG gun, put it in the back window of your pickup, drive down to Redmond and do something really stupid with it. Rise up ye masses, throw off your chains and be free in the smoking ruins of your formerly great country. Thus spake Ektanoor.
EVERYBODY makes a compromise between cooperation and freedom. The median wavers back and forth. Big deal. You wanna be totally free, go live in Antarctica. Eat penguins.
I think a more reasonable solution would be to just boycott the crap out of Mickeysoft, myself. If they want to play nasty like this, f**k 'em. Wild Bill will watch his market share slump and smarten right up.
You bet your arse.
You thought Uncle Sam shafted you. Just wait until the Borg gets here.
The Netscape problem (An article in the Daily Aardvark points out that Netscape users have a hard time reading Passport Q&A ) appears to be a long-standing problem whereas Netscape 4.x will fail to load a page if a linked style sheet cannot be loaded. The page not found is for the style sheet, or so it appears. Now, mind you, it is entirely possible that Microsoft Passport's web admin knew this and did it intentionally. Its probably more likely that it's just another case of someone doing a half-assed job because they used a tool (like, uh maybe, Frontpage!?) and didn't understand/bother to check their work. Amateurs... geesh.
I can move my personal data from one site to another without M$, HailStorm, Passport and NOT YET (I mean .NET)
http://www.serviceswitch.com supports all of my data on Excite, MSN and Yahoo for free.
The more stories like this I read on Slashdot, the more I think OSDN would benefit from a ProBonoLawForge.org
What if I wanted to e-mail some Linux kernel source to a friend using a Hotmail account. Can Microsoft then claim ownership to the kernel?
Chinese Prime Minister Jiang Zemin, avid Microsoft enthusiast and regular user of Microsoft Passport, was said to have been greatly angered by the recent uncovering of the oppressive Microsoft Passport license agreement. The official Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying, "All your top-secret spy plane are belong to us."
Despite what EULAs say, most software is sold, not licensed.
"3) act under exigent circumstances to protect the personal safety of its users or the public."
... it sounds a lot like: national security. (in which case there is already one government body that has the authority to to use the information. Maybe M$ is not in bed with the NSA, maybe it is trying to create a privitized (non-government) version for the information age. (BTW I do not think that policy is legally binding anyway)
This particular line worries me
-CrackElf
(IANAL)
"Blake is an idealist, Jenna. He cannot afford to think." - Kerr Avon, Star One, Blakes 7
The story itself is really interesting, it is well-written, and it has a lot of interesting background information. It is thought-provoking, it provided me with information that actually does happen to be new to me (I missed the first story on this) and it should start some interesting discussion. Then it gets posted with the fifteen thousandth AYBABTU reference in the last week. That totally distracted me from the story itself by sheer irritation level alone.
The whole thing reminds me of the "WHAZZUP!!" commercials. It was funny once. Maybe even twice. Now I can't go into a sushi bar without a bunch of jerks getting drunk on sake and yelling "WASSSABI!!"
The AYBABTU thing is way past old. I almost expect to see it linger on in comments for the next six months, but it really doesn't need to keep coming up in the headlines. Especially not in the headlines of stories that are otherwise really interesting. That just makes it more irritating.
-Keslin, the naked nerd girl
-Keslin, the naked nerd girl
Highly logical
What makes you think they are under any obligation to pay you for your suggestions without those disclaimers? The implementation of such suggestions is not protected by copyright law, and they are only protected by patent law if you file for a patent before they did (in which case Microsoft should pay).
In fact, much of the value and user friendliness (such as it is) of Microsoft products derives from the information they derive from the aggregate feedback of millions of users. That's why it is particularly cynical when people point to Microsoft and say "See how innovative they are? Look at all those things they came up with.". Any product that has a large user community and a company that listens even half-heartedly to its customers will have a big leg up in terms of features and user-friendliness on any of its competitors.
The first thing I thought of was "remind me not to use this." Then I wondered if that is possible. What is passport linked into. I used to have a hotmail account, does that matter? What else will go through this? No patches to their products without using passport?
Now, what makes you think that the writers of these things would take it any more seriously? This kind of stuff is usually copied over from the previous version or another product.
Hotmail, Passport and all kinds of different MSN services used to be separate entities with separate TOSs. I'm 95% convinced that when MS started to integrate them more tightly, nobody really checked carefully enough the legal texts (they are so boring, after all), and this created a situation where the strictest one happens to seem to cover other stuff also. It's a blunder but it's certainly not an attempt to take over the world. Microsoft is still a software and gadgets company, it doesn't have the means or reasons to read your e-mail and check if you are quarreling with your mother-in-law. If it wants to take over the world then it would use other ways to do it, not some silly conspiracy to peek into your private life. So don't panic.
When men used to be men
If Microsoft owns all the rights to all the mail that goes through the Hotmail system, what does this say about the sex site spam I always seem to get from @hotmail.com? Could this be turned around to put any and all blame for that squarely on Microsoft?
No, there's no over reacting whatsoever. Or do you think it's fair for Microsoft to "own" whatever piece of YOUR code you send to/from a Hotmail account? Or a book you're writing? Or an image... You get the idea (I hope you do).
AFAIK this will not stand up in a court of law. MSN is too global for this. In Europe this is completly invalid The issues surrounding this also only apply to hotmail/passport users. If i were to email off the entire linux kernel source to *@hotmail.com, then it is not magically owned by MS, because I have not agreed to the TOS, so cannot be bound by them. Unless it is required that the sender foo@bar-isp.net agrees to the TOS before newbie@hotmail.com recieves his mail, then this will not happen.
http://www.shockfusion.com/allyourbase.swf
I was a hotmail user before Microsoft "acquired" the web service. I never knowingly signed up to be a part of Passport. So how does this affect/effect my email privacy?
Because Microsoft now has the right to "Use , modify, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, publish, sublicense, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell any such communication",what is to prevent Microsoft from profiling and profiting from us in a way that would make DoubleClick turn green with envy?
I don't believe the language is as aggressive and overreaching as noted in these posts or in the Register article (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/18002.html ). The language, which is found in the Passport Web Site Term of Use (http://www.passport.com/Consumer/TermsOfUse.asp?P Plcid=1033), states that "By posting messages, uploading files, inputting data, submitting any feedback or suggestions, or engaging in any other form of communication with or through the Passport Web Site . . ." This doesn't say anything about using the Passport technology, just the Passport Web Site. There aren't even any language traps such as "or associated Web sites." I think the subtle distinction is that the language granting MS all rights in the content is limited to content provided specifically "with or through the Passport Web Site," not with or through the Passport technology. Since Hotmail and .NET works independently of the Passport Web Site, MS would have a difficult time claiming ownership of the email or its content even though the Passport technology is used on Hotmail, .NET, etc.
The offensive language is notably absent in the MSN Web Site Terms of Use (http://www.hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/dasp/hminfo_sh ell.asp?content=tos&_lang=EN), which govern the use of various MS properties including Hotmail. While I have not seen the Hailstorm terms of use, I would be surprised if MS attempts to alientate its early adopters by including the overreaching language that's in the Passport terms.
In short, I think there's a strong argument against the position that MS owns everything that touches Passport. If MS were to attempt to assert ownership, they would have a dificult road trying to prove to a judge that ownership ever passed from the author to them, since it appears to me that the Passport terms don't do it.
At least that's my argument ;)
Anybody ever read the great book 1984 by George Orwell? The one where the Government controls everything, if they didn't want something to exist all they had to do was destroy all the evidence it ever had and change all the history books. Or how about the movie The Net with Sandra Bullock where a secret a security company basically installs the worlds biggest backdoor into every computer everywhere in the US essentially giving them all the information they ever needed. Seems a bit suspicious...doesn't it...only difference is that this is a company that could control the government if they wanted.