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MSDN Subscriber Forced to use Passport
Dear MSDN subscriber,
MSDN® Subscriptions is pleased to announce that the MSDN Subscriber Download Web site at http://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions/resources/ subdwnld.asp will soon be upgrading its logon authentication technology to Microsoft® Passport.
Microsoft Passport provides personal authentication services that make it easier for you to navigate between Web sites, and makes it faster and more secure for you to make purchases online.
Beginning in late June, the MSDN Subscriber Download Web site will prompt you to sign up for your personal Passport and associate your current subscriber record to this Passport. After signing up, access to MSDN Subscriber Downloads will be easier, faster, and more secure.
For complete details, and to sign up now for your free Microsoft Passport, please visit http://www.passport.com.
Sincerely,
The MSDN Subscriptions Team
http://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions
CT: So, if you want to write code under windows, you must use Passport. Or not use MSDN. And lets face it, if you develop under windows, you must buy MSs tools, and you sure can't use those tools without their docs. Times like this I just sorta throw my hands up in the air and say wow. How long before MSNBC requires it? Windows? IE? Your Visa company works with Microsoft Money, so you can bet that sooner or later, you'll need passport to balance your checkbook and credit cards. Paranoid delusion? Of course not. Windows XP will link my complaints to all sorts of helpful sources of information on medication that can be used to calm my delusions, or the numerous sites that exist to mock me or slashdot, thus undermining my credibility and making me seem like a crazy man to any onlooker.
Ok, I'm obviously exagerating. But you still gotta be a little wary.
So use your JOB info. What is there to 'compromise'? e.g., all software here is registered to "Software Development", company name, company address, company tel#, company email.
Why do you care that MS wants your non personal info?
Hold on. CT sez: "So, if you want to write code under windows, you must use Passport. Or not use MSDN". That is blatant FUD. No one in the world is stopping you from using MSDN Online. In fact, most of the information ever used by developers is on that site absolutely, 100% free.
No one is stopping you from obtaining a subscription to MSDN. This gets MAILED RIGHT TO YOUR DOOR.
The ONLY thing the above is saying is "If you want to download some stuff that we've only made available on the web, you gotta get a Passport". This is like saying "If you want to use Hotmail, you gotta get a Passport".
Does this mean you have to have everything from your Mother's maiden name to your pet's favorite food in there? NO.
I'm an intern for MS, but I'm not trolling here. And since I'm an intern, I barely have an impact on my own group let alone MSDN.
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
--
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Well... they'll track your useage anyhow, and also know that your company exists. Moot point for MSDN anyway, but Passport links up with lots of other things. Who knows what else it will do in five years?
Microsoft aren't reknowned for letting invasive ideas languish, and caving in at any point is useless. You don't pacify a crocodile by tossing it steaks.
How aboute a website somewhere listing logins?
One still needs cookie control. On Linux, that's easy, redirect web traffic to a local proxy that strips cookies, both in headers and in URL. What about on work machines etc?
Microsoft want to take your freedom and replace it with multiple choice. In particular:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Use this info:
Name : C. Montgomery Burns
Address: 666 Mammon Lane, Springfield, USA
Phone: KL5-3226
Company: Springfield Nuclear Power Plant
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Nothing really insightful here, but I personally hate to lie. I think one of the problems with what we've become is that too many are willing to lie at the drop of a hat. But now MS narrows my choices to two I don't like: register with my real information, or lie.
I despise click-throughs that give me the choice to "register now" or "register later". I have to lie because there is no "don't register" choice. I have to agree to license agreements where part is written in a language I don't speak. When I click "Agree", it's another lie. How can I agree to what I don't understand. Some writer wrote an excellent column on that, but I don't remember who.
I'm a Windows programmer for a living and I use MSDN. But I will not create a real Passport account. Again, I will lie, as much as I hate it. The only choices they give are unpalatable. Even worse than their monopoloy, even worse than their licenses, they make you comply, lie, or do without. When they're the only source of Win32 documentation, what's the choice going to be? I hate it.
You, sir, are either an AOLuser or a Micros~1 intern being paid to FUD here, and I claim my 50 quatloos bounty.
Either that, or I'm too old for this modern world of .NET. When I was growing up, I distinctly remember everyone I've ever respected in the field of computer security - from my high school "computer programming" teacher who let me h4x0r the school assignments assembly, to the BOFH at university who let me run "crack" distributed-style on the school's shiny new Sun workstations because I was nice enough to ask him first, to my cow orkers, all saying "Never use the same password for more than one system, because if one system is compromised, the other ones will be too".
This technique works great for me.
Also, you don't need MS's development tools to do Windows development.
You can use the (free) Cygwin/MinGW32 or Borland C/C++ compilers if you like.
You can use any of a plethora of non-MS languages, like Java, Perl, Python, Delphi and lots of others.
QT, GTK, wxWindows are all good, cross-platform toolkits for Windows, your comment about needing Windows development tools to develop on Windows is plain wrong.
I'm not denying that MS tools are the most widely used and convenient tools to use for M$ development in an M$-only environment, but to say you have no alternative is just plain wrong.
What youre complaining about is the fact that your employer requires you to use M$ tools.
So get your employer to get a single Passport and then all developers at your company use it. When you perform work for your company, you represent that company, not yourself personally.
M$ is free to use any authentication scheme it likes with it's web services.
Its not news that M$ is a giant corporate entity that abuses its monopoly power to screw the consumer and lock them in so it can keep screwing them, but you have, and always have had the choice not to use their products.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Maybe I'm missing something, and I'll get flamed to hell about this. Why is this a shocking or bad thing?
Before, in order to get special developer downloads, you needed an account with some other Microsoft Authentication service, right?
With this announcement, you need an account with some new Microsoft Authentication service.
Why is a Passport account so much more horrible then the old-style MS Authentication service?
MSDN is a division of Microsoft. It's pretty expected that a large company like MS would want to use a centralized authentication service. It's not like MS is using some strongarm tactics to muscle some non-MS business to use the Passport service (At least, not in the MSDN example).
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
THIS IS NOT THE MSDN DOCUMENTATION! IT'S THE MSDN DOWNLOADS! Sorry to shout, but I get irritated with all the FUD that gets spread on Slashdot about issues like this. I realize it's unintentional, I sincerely doubt that Taco has a MSDN subscription, so he doesn't know that the Downloads page is a seperat thing. The Downloads page is where you can get the latest updates and patches to MS products, before you get the CD in the mail. MSDN sends out quarterly CDs with all the updted documentation, and any new software that you receive under the MSDN level you signed up for (and are paying for). You also get interm shipments, often on a monthly basis, of software that MS ships between quarterly releases.
As for developing with Non-MS tools, I'm sure it works great for applications, but if you're developing device drivers, you pretty much have to use Visual C++. I've heard of people trying to use other compilers, but I haven't heard anyone say they've had a lot of success.
Don't worry. You may not like the idea now, but you'll be one of Us soon.
Microsoft is simply doing what most companies that own several online properties have been flamed for not doing earlier. Why should I have several logins to a service run by the same company? (The original poster failed to mention that you already need a login to the MSDN subscriber site, the only new thing is that the login now goes through passport).
I don't remember references to World Domination (TM) and Revelations when AOL required me to get an AIM user ID once they purchased Netscape. I also know lots of people who complain about the fact that ICQ and AIM don't interoperate even though they by the same company. Quite frankly, the less logins I need to maintain especially to websites owned by the same company, the better. Does CmdrTaco also complain about the fact that Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Finances, Yahoo Groups (formerly eGroups) and Geocities use the same ID?
This is probably one of the bigger non-issues picked up by Slashdot in recent history. This of course, makes more serious allegations become overlooked when there actually is something to complain about.
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Oh, that's right...
"And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name."
-Revelations 13:17
-- dR.fuZZo
First off, MSDN downloads are a subscriber based service -- they've got to keep track of subscriptions somehow! And Passport is MS' new cross server identification system...of COURSE they're going to want to use it. I wouldn't want to have a different password for each server in the apple CVS network, and the same goes for MS' web services. They HAVE revamped the license and it's not nearly as serpentine as before.
But that doesn't stop you from using your ultimate response to any and all registration systems: lie. Lie as much as you can! Lie discordantly! Click female sometimes, male others, enter your race as an albino nepalese scotsgaelic neanderthal from northern Peru, and by all means give them false contact information. If we want to avoid the possible ramifications for misuse of our personal information, then we've got to give false information. Don't be a demographic, be ALL demographics! Nobody said you had to be truthful when asked a question. If MS needs your real name and real MSDN subscriber id, give them...but everything else in your passport should be clever fibs, abominations and halftruths. I like to build unflattering portfolios of people who bug the shit out of me at work.
After all, it won't take much worthless information for MS to drop this whole shenanigan and go to something useful (like an incredibly lightweight key based system...let's introduce PKE to the masses). Marketeers always get theirs in the end when they promote something this annoying...hence, the dotcom bust.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
But as for the reference tools, that IS all available free, without having to log on via passport, over the web.
What isn't told is that if you are a subscriber of MSDN, you already have given them your information when you sent them your check. As for employees having to divulge your information, big deal. I have to do that all the time. I give my company address and company phone number and nothing else.
Let's keep this in perspective please and not have "the sky is falling" rants just because the person doing it is microsoft. There is no effective difference between logging in via Passport or directly to their websites. They could share the information either way. Again, let's keep perspective. Try downloading something from Oracle, Sun, or Sybase. Each time I've downloaded from one of these companies they've wanted information.