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Groups Push FTC to Act on MS XP, Passport
BuckMulligan writes: "EPIC and a coalition of consumer and privacy groups have renewed their calls for FTC action to protect consumers from the privacy risks associated with Windows XP and Passport. In a letter sent to the FTC, the groups criticized the FTC for not upholding its statutory duty to protect consumers in light of the planned release of Windows XP. More information on the groups' previous FTC complaints is stored on the EPIC Microsoft Passport Page." So who here thinks the FTC is going to block Windows XP? Me neither. The other remedies requested (toward the middle of the letter) are interesting, though.
Let MicroSoft AND XP/Passport users learn the hard way. No one with any common sense would register sensitive data with Passport, and those that do are due for a valuable lesson.
Worst case scenario: this gets cracked big time, and suddenly everyone is hip to M$'s lack of attention to security.
> Most recently, an error on Microsoft's Certified Partners page, a Passport service, made usernames and passwords available on the Internet in plain text.(FN10) Anyone could have used this information to gain complete access to others' Passports and Hotmail E-mail accounts.
This is not true. They could see the user name and password to log in into SQL Server database on the machine that was behind firewall, not the Passport user names and passwords. That SQL Server didn't contain any information related to Passport users. And since the machine(s) was behind the firewall, nobody could access it anyway.
I find it so funny that consumers apparently need to be "protected" from an OS. Really, they aren't protecting consumers as much as protecting the competitors of MS.
Not to say the competitors shouldn't be protected from a monopolized MS, but lets not beat around the bush, eh?
Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?
I recently purchased Money 2002 and it has you sign up for a passport ID on install. Then everytime you open Money, it asks for it again.
Now, this may be just a "software choice" and not "forced on by the OS" but it still leads me to believe the FTC could care less. This problem is too ingrained in the commerce/commercialism division of capitalism, the only way to change it is by regulating it (hoping that enough congressmen/women are not totally on the side of big business) (and regulation of businesses is another big topic, and has many problems associated with it) or leaving it up to consumer choice/free market...but face it...it's hard to motivate ppl who just want to balance thier checkbook/email/browse the web and could care less about the implications....
I think there is extremism on both ends. Too much regulation and you can sqelch true innovation, or hurt businesses, or create huge goverments. But if you rely on the market and the population to chose, well, lets just say its hard to beat a intel's/microsoft marketshare with the average complacent home user who might use his computer for 3 hrs a week... because in aggregate that makes a lot more marketshare than the 10% who realize that hey there are better alternatives out there....
I need a TiVo for my car. Pause live traffic now.
Look here for how...
//m
"The FTC has carefully considered the allegations against Microsoft and, more specifically, the Windows XP operating system and Passport data storage center. It is our decision that these charges are unfounded, and that Microsoft will be allowed to continue unimpeded with their designs. The reasons for our ruling are far too complex to go into at this time, but rest assured that we gave the matter considerable, unbiased contemplation. By the way, do you like my hat? It's made of money! Are you staying for lunch? We're having money!"
(Punchline uncerimoniously stolen from Penny Arcade)
Why do you need the FTC to block Windows XP? You can block it yourself using the method known as "not buying it" if you don't like it.
It seems to be taking some people quite a while to figure it out, but I've tried it and I can tell you it certainly works. It's considerably more effective than the method called "grubmle and moan to your friends about microsoft and then go out and buy their products" that most people seem to be using.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
Open it up.
Go to Tools/Options.
Select the Preferences tab
Uncheck "Run this program when Windows starts."
Close the program down (including in your systray).
It now will not startup automatically.
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
After reading the letter, make sure to scroll through all of the signatures at the bottom. If you haven't yet done so this year, open up your check book and contribute to your favorite of these organizations. These consumer organizations can only continue to push the FTC if we support them.
Jason
The FTC privacy site is here. I quote:
Here is their check list of pro-privacy iniatives:
It seems that at the very least, privacy is on the radar of the FTC... are they doing all they could? Of course not, not with big business pushing them around.
I don't necessarily even see where Passport would fall into one of the catagories above, although it is by not means a complete list.
All sorts of groups are calling foul about MS/Passport. I don't think it will go un-noticed.
First, security details are a non-issue. None of the proposed remedies even address the security concerns.
Just reading through the proposed remedies I have to ask whether these complaints are just there for the sake of bashing Microsoft and propping up competitors:
"An investigation into the information collection practices of Microsoft through Passport and associated services"
...we don't trust them, investigate them!!
"Order Microsoft to revise the XP registration procedures so that purchasers of Microsoft XP are clearly informed that they need not register for Passport to obtain access to the Internet"
...it was clear enough to me when I installed XP that the Passport registration was separate from internet access, after all you have to be connected to the internet before you can register with Passport!!
"Order Microsoft to block the sharing of personal information among Microsoft areas provided by a user under the Passport registration procedures absent explicit consent"
...why just Microsoft? Shouldn't the companies registering this complaint also volunteer their own information sharing policies? Smacks of hypocrasy to me.
"Order Microsoft to incorporate techniques for anonymity and pseudo-anonymity that would allow users of Windows XP to gain access to Microsoft web sites without disclosing their actual identity"
...you mean like a fake hotmail account? No one's done that before!
"Order Microsoft to incorporate techniques that would enable users of Windows XP to easily integrate services provided by non-Microsoft companies for online payment, electronic commerce, and other Internet-based commercial activity"
...what's wrong with the other companies? Can't they write code anymore?
"Provide such other relief as the Commission finds necessary to redress injury to consumers resulting from Microsoft's practices as described herein"
...there's been damages? Sheesh!
not to mention the real kicker:
"Begin an investigation to determine whether Passport complies with the requirements of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act."
Oh my GOD!!! Think of the CHILDREN!!!
I'm sorry, but I just don't buy this one as a legitamate complaint. None of these remedies sit anywhere close to fixing any known problem with Passport. Naturally the most obvious remedy is to open the protocol and allow third parties to implement their own Passport servers but that would be too obvious, wouldn't it?
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
XP is already out of the gate.
Read up on anti-trust precedent. Google on 'Kodak Polaroid instant', or just follow this link [kodak.com]. Or this one [perdue.edu].
So let's see. A case that takes 16 years to play out. A final judgement that is worth greater than half of the winner's annual sales, and more than 5% of the loser's. An entire product line pulled from the shelves after nearly two decaedes of sales. A class-action lawsuit against the loser that results in refunds to any purchasers of the discontinued product.
Sounds like a good roadmap to follow. And more to the point of my subject line, proof that the courts have a history of deciding to pull products after they have shipped. So enough of this "it's too late" boo-hooing. It is damn well not too late.
Nope, no sig
All I want is to be able to 1) buy a computer from any PC manufacturer I want without ANY operating system, or 2) be able to immediately sell, on eBay let's say, the operating system and junk that comes with a new PC. And not get a nastygram from Microsoft, or the guy who buys it can't run it because of some serial number.
If I buy a car, or a TV, or pretty much anything else, I can strip it down and sell the parts and nobody calls me a "pirate". For instance, I sold a card remote and sensor from an old Discman on eBay. I can remove the tires, or the engine, or the ashtray from my car and give them away or sell them, then add my own.
Why can't I do this with my computer? Why are software companies allowed this power? Really, I want to exercise my capitalistic rights and avoid Microsoft, but it's hard.
I haven't seen this on the news pages yet, but I just read that Sun has gotten together with a bunch of other companies, 32 to be exact, to basically compete against MS and are calling themselves The Liberty Alliance:
o k/article/0,,10535_908411,00.html
http://ecommerce.internet.com/news/insights/outlo
The difference between this and MS is that the Liberty Alliance is made up of many companies and so the data will hopefully be more secure. In fact, that's one reason they formed it (so they say).. because they don't trust MS with all that personal info.
Anyway, I guess the larger sites will still support passport just because they don't want to isolate users. eBay is quoted in the article as saying just that.. they'll support any and all, even though they are part of the Liberty Alliance. Wonder who will win...
-Frijoles-
Let me see. The Passport prompt comes up the first six times. I have 10 completely clueless friends are going to call and email me every single time it comes up. I have 20 moderately intelligent friends who will call the first two times then email me asking for detailed instructions how to disable it. I have 50 friends who'll know exactly what it's doing and will send me rants every time it happens. That's 100 phone calls and hundreds of emails. Then there's my dad who I'll have to visit personally and connect through six times so he doesn't see it again.
That's a lot of my time wasted which could be better spent elsewhere. I wish I could charge those costs back to Microsoft.
This isn't about you and me, about those with the knowledge to avoid such pitfalls. It's for the unlearned masses, many of whom I'll end up wasting my time responding to. Just like this message.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
All this is notwithstanding your rather debious set-theory math here .. can you actually proove that the people who post a la "MS is evil, protect the consumer" are the /exact/ same people as the "Big Brother" watchers? Yes, its true (and probably a surprise to you), slashdot does contain a range of opinions from a range of people. As such, you may be referring to two reletively (obviously not totally) discrete sets of people here: those who hate MS or are big up on consumer advocacy, and those who hate the government and are big up on civil rights. On TOP of that, both goals are essentially designed to disempower a centralized point-of-abuse for the benifit of the population at large, so it's not all that hypocrytical. At any rate, protecting consumers from MS is a goal that will ultimately protect and affect far more lives than any dent terrorism can make into the actual physical population (MS consumer base is the world, while the target of terrorism is confined to a relatively small set of symbolic geographical locations). You speak volumes about the rediculously skewed perspective on the threat terrorism truely poses as opposed to those who's lives are influenced by the world economy and its communication and data infrastructure.
I ain't arguing for either side, but I just thought I should point out that your comment is pretty rich in rheoric and glibness and short of supportive evidence.
"Old man yells at systemd"
It doesn't force you to sign up for Passport. It just heavily implies that you need Passport, then depends on the naive masses to fall in line. "It keeps nagging me to get a Passport. I guess I need one." Once you sit through the nag screen six or seven times, however, it goes away.
This sig intentionally left blank.
Microsoft is good at one thing: spin control. Even if they get hacked and everyone's data gets stolen, what do they do? Take the blame? Admit they're not very good at this security thing? Decide Passport wasn't a good idea?
Yeah right. Instead, they can simply spin it as "terrorism". That's right---you and your data have been the victims of a terrorist-hacker attack. Computer crimes are terrorism. You are a hapless victim. Microsoft is a hapless victim. Are they to blame? Who would blame the victims of a terrorist attack? Would you blame the people in the WTC buildings for the attack that got them killed?
Now whose fault does it look like? Certainly no-one would blame MS. They've provided this great service and now for their insight, innovation, and generosity, are the victims of terror. Right. How many people will learn a lesson from this? They'll just want more draconian laws passed, harsher measures taken against these "computer terrorists".
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Regardless of whether XP gets stopped or not (and at this late juncture I doubt that it's even feasible), Microsoft's practices need to be reviewed by the government. It's pretty much a given that what they are doing with XP is more of the same bundling that they were found guilty of previously (in short, this time they're attacking AOL, Winamp, Real, Adaptec, and more). If anyone in the judicial branch were to see this, it might make a much better case for a very harsh penalty against Microsoft.
Personally, I'd like to see them make the OS free and force them to open a lot of their proprietary APIs. That way, they can't continue to lock things down into a proprietary format. That should compensate for the amount of innovation they've snuffed over the last 7 years. Your mileage may vary, so I expect someone to disagree. That's just fine, I'm just stating my opinion.
Electronic Frontier Foundation for online civil rights information
Useless upgrades and software is what keeps the market from ever getting ahead and really realizing its potential. If people could buy something, and then have their money to buy something else, think how much better off they'd be. The only people who profit from this kind of unproductive behavior are companies that lack the ability to do better. It is easier to rip off your customers to get rich than really build a better product.
It depends. Deleting the files will not do, since XP 'protects' them (new feature to prevent uninstaling programs to delete system dll's and the likes).
;-)
however there is an option burried deep in outlook express to 'Automaticly launch messager', de-select this, and outlook express is 'safe'.
some other programs also have these options build in, some don't.. Basicly, your prety stuck to it
great way of MS making sure that you will subcumb to their ways!
Yes, you can. Works just fine.
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
I know /. is evidence-deficient in a serious way, (I myself am guilty of this) but that doesn't take away from the importance of evidence and supportive arguments ... in fact, it just makes /. all the more ripe an orchard in which to pick at glib comments like the parent post.
/anyone/ to avoid looking hypocritical to other people, especially when you consider that others will undoubtedly interpret your statements as supporting different values than those you originally meant to eshew.
..
Being glib is a terrible thing to be when you're trying to discredit people based on hypocricy. Glibness is practically the mother of hypocricy, as it takes an awful lot of work, attention to detail, and care for
Booyah! And this UID is all mine baby
"Old man yells at systemd"
I use imici, it lets you use all 4 - imici, msn, aol, icq in one app
For that comic.
- 10 -23
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2000
:)
I cann't understand how this kind of post get rated as 5 - insightfull. The "don't like-it, don't buy it!" arguement is one of the most over-used argumenents here at slashdot at this kind of discussion.
I believe "don't like-it don't buy it" posts are going to surpass the "imagine a beowulf cluster of those" posts. Please, say something new, would you?
Microsoft isn't removing Java from IE by choice. They were ordered to remove their implementation of Java after the MS/Sun lawsuit. I remember hearing about Symantec going crazy because they were going to be able to supply MS with a Sun-compliant Java engine. I'm not sure if that's actually happened, haven't heard anymore about it since.
Actually, I do not recieve any spam, except the stuff I want.
I contacted all businesses that have my personal data, and told them I wanted to opt out and to not share my info with anyone.
I started telling every telemarketer that called that I wanted to be put on their do not call list and asked for their name, a phone number, an address, and a confirmation letter (didn't get very many letters).
I contacted all of the big 3 credit shops and opted out with them too...
And ya' know what? I don't get marketing calls or letters anymore. None. Zero. My mail was cut by, oh, about 70%. And I never get interupting phone calls over dinner.
I took about a 9 months of telling people no, but it finally paid off.
I'm fairly certain that I can attribute at least a bit of that to the FTC muscle behind these laws.
Hotmail Account == Passport User
MSN Dialup account == Passport User
How many throw-away Hotmail accounts do you have?
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
Worst case scenario: this gets cracked big time, and suddenly everyone is hip to M$'s lack of attention to security.
Not so sure. I think that the bigger possibility is for people to steal accounts one at a time. People will not fault Microsoft here anymore than they have in the past...
I assume that it is happening right now, but I hardly use Passport except for my email and that is not terribly sensitive (yah, and some people think all hotmail accounts are used only by spammers anyway, so I am all right).
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Oh please. Firestones blowing were an exception. People don't expect that to happen. There isn't a long-term historical trend of tires suddenly failing like that.
Microsoft products blowing are not an exception. They've been blowing continuously for years and years. Before you buy a Microsoft product, you're already reaching for the KY ointment.
Would you buy a can clearly labelled "carbonated dog vomit, with donkey puss extract" and then complain to the FTC about the taste and healthfulness of the beverage? Bitching about Microsoft products, when the boxes are clearly labelled with the well-known company's name, is the same thing.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The reason that Microsoft have a monopoly position is that the barrier to entry in the OS market is so immense. Windows is the result of twenty years of coding, legacy applications and market dominance against which you would have to compete if you're an OS startup.
Take, for example, device drivers. The first thing you'd ask when hearing of a new OS is "does it work with my hardware?" Because of Microsoft's market dominance, nobody will release PC hardware without a working set of Windows drivers. On the other hand, if you're developing a new OS, you have to write all the drivers yourself, most of the time going on your hands and knees to the hardware vendors who may or may not release the specs for their device to you.
And if you have overcome the device drivers hurdle, you get the applications hurdle. Each new version of Windows is very, very careful to remain compatible with the applications running in previous versions. Otherwise they wouldn't sell. Ditto, nobody but a few hobbyists are going to buy an OS without any applications.
When Microsoft was starting out, other people wrote applications for them. Visicalc was ported to MS-DOS. Lotus 1-2-3 was the IBM PC's killer application. On the back of that, Microsoft used their profits to build their own applications suite, and through bundling and leveraging their OS dominance, they managed to subsume the productivity applications market until there was only Office left.
People don't get trained in Word Processing any more, they get trained in Word. If you're running an office, you want your staff to be as productive as possible, so if you hire someone with Word Processing experience (i.e. Word experience), you'd better be giving them Word to work with, or they'll be working inefficiently, and complaining that the replacement sucks, even if it has identical (or better) features, because it works differently.
So if you want to compete in the OS market, you'd better also produce something that works just the same as Word, and interoperates flawlessly with it. This is tough, since MS Word is a constantly moving target of file-formats and features with a budget behind it that dwarfs anything that a competing company can attempt.
You'd better produce it yourself, too. Unlike in the early days of DOS, Windows 3.1 and MacOS, you're not going to find another start-up willing to write the next Killer App for your Operating System, because it's assumed no matter how good you are, you're going to fail. Nobody producing commercial software is going to bother writing against an OS nobody uses, they're going to be putting all their resources into making sure the Windows version works properly, because that's what people use.
In the meantime, do you have a killer app that you're writing that's going to revolutionise the industry? Your business plan had better include cashing out in five years, because in twelve months Microsoft will have produced a cheap imitation of your product and bundled it with Windows. In two years, their product will be close enough to yours that you'll start losing market share as more and more people stop bothering to download your better software, and in five years, you'll be left behind because you just don't have the resources to compete.
The barrier to entry is too high.
The only alternative OS that survives in the consumer realm is MacOS. It does so because the Mac started out before Microsoft had consolidated their monopoly position, and because you can still get Office on it. Even then, Apple only barely hang on to solvency by the skin of their teeth, again and again.
Let's name the most common "alternative" applications installed on Windows PCs.
1. Winamp - free, propped up by AOL/TW, threatened by the integration of Media Player and Win XP.
2. ICQ - free, propped up by AOL/TW, pretty much killed by AOL IM, both of which are now threatened by the integration of MSN Messenger with Win XP - if everyone's got a passport account and MSN Messenger, another IM application is unnecessary.
3. Netscape - free, propped up by AOL/TW, annihilated by the bundling of MSIE with Windows 95/98.
4. RealPlayer - free, installed with Netscape, threatened by the bundling of Media Player with XP.
That's a pretty scary pattern. It tells us that in the real world, where the only viable consumer platform is Windows, the only people who can survive writing software for Windows are either the writers of esoteric, niche applications that haven't appeared on Microsoft's radar yet, or people who are willing to give their software away for free (libre).
If you have to give your software away, you have to find some other revenue model, which is why all the non-Microsoft applications are covered in advertisements, "shop now" buttons and unwanted features that point to stuff that the software publisher may get some revenue from. And because of this, people are further driven away from the non-MS applications, because the advertising model is so intensely annoying.
It's incredibly anti-competetive. Internet Explorer, Media Player, MSN Messenger, Hotmail, Passport. None of these things are free. Whenever you buy a license for Windows, you're paying for ALL of these things. That's what bundling is. Take a product that people have to buy, and tie it to products they don't in order to undersell, starve and kill your competition.
If you prefer Mozilla, Quicktime, Winamp, ICQ/AOL-IM/Jabber and use your own email service, you simply can't choose not to pay for Explorer, Media Player, Messenger, Hotmail and Passport. The major applications I use at work only run on Windows, and thus, despite wanting none of them, they're still paying for Internet Explorer, Media Player, Messenger, Hotmail and Passport.
The only way my employer can do business is by subsidising Microsoft's effort to stamp out competing applications, even though we don't use, nor want the bundled software we're paying for. Microsoft have you by the balls. Anything the US justice department can do to loosen that grip, up to and including burying Bill Gates up to his neck by a nest of fire ants is fine by me.
Charles Miller
The more I learn about the Internet, the more amazed I am that it works at all.
Why do they think that? It's a tradition, every time a new M$ OS comes out it totally uses all available resources so people/corps need to buy new PCs reviving the semi, PCB, OEM, sw market somewhat. Old story.
I think what really happens is that an impending release of a new OS depresses sales for the months prior to release, because nobody wants to pay for the upgrade, or perform the upgrade when its offered for free. Any upturn probably doesn't totally counteract the several months of depressed sales. XP's release has weakened PC market of the past several months.
I know this is not the answer you're looking for, but I've been very succesful with option 3: build your own. You may have to find somebody with the technical know-how to help you, but building your own from scratch does mean you will end up with a computer without an operating system.
-- Could you use my software consulting serv