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MS Zone Users Must Use Passport Accounts
pathos writes: "CNet reports in this article that Microsoft, in its continued obsession to get everyone and his/her mother to be a registered Passport user, forced all of it's MS Zone gaming site users (including players of 'Asheron's Call') to open accounts in Passport in order to keep using the service... too bad that a bug with their .NET deployment kept many users not being able to access the service..." Of course, if you run the hotel, you get to say who uses the pool ...
Of course, if you run the hotel, you get to say who uses the pool...
Yeah, but you can't control who pees in it.
:)
Why can't users just act the same as they do with Hotmail? Open up separate accounts for different uses, most with false information that can't be tied back to you without a search warrant?
Wouldn't be amusing if somebody registerred a generic account and released the name/password onto the public?
Maybe when MS sees 4 million people logged on as $L4$hd0t it'll realize that the people don't want to be uniquely identified in EVERYTHING they do.
"Derp de derp."
So when the XBox's online program comes out in 6 months, will the users have to do the same thing? I would assume so. Which is one of the reasons I will never get the XBox and why I shake my head at everyone that did. Tsk, tsk, tsk kids.
sin(6cos(r)+5A)
I hate Microsoft as much as the next *nix guy, but this makes sense to me. If you're going to push a single account/password strategy, you need to implement it yourself first.
.NET and Passport. For myself, I'll just continue to choose not to use any Microsoft web services.
If you are going to use Microsoft web services, you have to get used to
But the whole point of passport was to provide a single continous logon throughout the MSN suite of web sites.
Why is Zone.com any different?
Of course, it looks a little different if you consider things from a business perspective. If you're a company that has 7 different login and authentication systems for their wide array of services, and you could centralize that for cost savings, wouldn't you do it? I would.
The problem with Microsoft is that later down the line someone will say "we should use this massive pile of user data we've got to get volunteers to test our new free brain implants."
Not everything Microsoft does is evil, it's just usually the last thing that they do that turns everything they've done before evil.
Predictions:
Microsoft will block access to www.microsoft.com unless you have a Passport account.
When that happens, Slashdot will report it as 'news'.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
I've never played any games in the "MS Zone" so I may be way off base here. I assume you have to have a "MS Zone" account to play the games, what's the big deal about having a passport account instead? Whether Microsoft wants to keep seperate logins to all of their services, or one login that works everywhere doesn't much seem to matter. I don't like the idea of MS pushing Passport as some internet wide login system, but for their own sites I think it makes sense (aside from the security holes).
And if I violate the ToS for any Microsoft service, do I get my passport pulled so that I can no longer access my Hotmail account or anything else that requires it?
I know we've said this before, but whenever Passport allows access to everyone bank account and stock portfolio the Passport servers will the the target of every black-hat hacker on the planet. And you know that script kiddies will be blasting it constantly with DOS attacks.
I'm sure MS will have excuses for why it happened to, like published security holes and such. But it will be their fault for leaving so much critical information linked to one account.
-Xenopax
Hmmm, I was unaware that special legislation was required to make people use their login system for their website. What did I miss?
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
No it doesn't ... I just installed it and it works fine. Sure, it asks you to sign up for passport every 30 seconds, but I can connect to my bank and get my stuff just fine without passport.
Here's a question for people to ponder. What happens if I violate the terms of service of Passport or any attached property of Microsoft? Or more to the point, what happens if Microsoft mistakenly thinks I did but I didn't (like if I was hacked, etc). It seems that as Passport is further extended, this has a greater and greater impact on my ability to do things on-line. What if my bank uses passport? What if I communicate with my doctor through a passport secured site? If I get booted from passport for whatever reason, there could be some serious personal ramifications, and there's noreal recourse for me because I clicked the little "I Accept" button.
I grant you this is a little out there and paranoid, but I think that if passport does become a very fundamental part of on-line authorization systems, this could become a potential problem
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From the article:
"It's a difficult task, but other companies have done it--Starbucks just switched their old log-in system to Passport and did it smoothly."
"It's kind of surprising," Rosoff added. "If anyone should be able to implement a Passport switch, it's Microsoft."
That is hilarious: The staffers at a coffee house that, no doubt, keep MS programmers in caffinated beverages, can implement MS's own stuff better than MS can.
Ahaaahahaha.
Do you think maybe we should send MS some penguin mints? Oh, wait, belay that...probably most here would consider that aid and comfort to the enemy.
.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
aware.
98% of all usable land. Now, if they did, and they
insisted that some African goat-herder who has
never even heard of the US be a US citizen in
order to continue herding goats, you could expect
a bit of a protest. Quite a bit of a protest.
The point is not that Microsoft is doing something
wrong, because they DO own the service and they DO
therefore have a say on how it is used.
The point is that they have monopoly control on
the desktop, they have monopoly control on the
browser market, and they are rapidly acquiring a
monopoly on the online gaming industry. The
leverage of a monopoly in ONE field to control
another is illegal, never mind three!
And therein lies the problem. The control is not
at issue. It is the abuse of monopoly power in a
seperate field, in order to gain that control,
which is so often the problem. You are simply not
permitted that kind of power, in the US. At least,
in theory. It's not slowed Microsoft any, even
though their actions have been declared illegal,
by numerous courts, over monopoly abuse.
(And here you were, thinking Monopoly was just a
board game!)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
This has nothing to do with rights. Well, it does, but it has to do with Microsoft's rights. They have a right to use whatever authentication system for their web pages that they choose.
You, as the average internet consumer do not have a right to access some companies pages without using the access mechanism that they choose. You do have a right to not grace that company with your business, though.
Really, can someone explain to me all of the mis-directed righteous indignation at Microsoft over this? It's a non-issue. If you don't like what MS has done with the Zone...tough. Just go play elsewhere.
No. Wrong.
You need a M$ Passport to vote in the United States...
t_t_b
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
I can still play MechWarrior 4, for example, I just can't be an 'uber stat monkey' and sit around on the zone all day making fun of people who can't stand against my ph4t sk1llZ. :p
And even if future Microsoft games require Passport to play.. So? It's a Microsoft game. They have a right to choose who plays it. As long as it says, "Passport required for play." on the box, why do we have the right to bitch?
..If I want karma on Slashdot, I need to make an account. True, an account also saves preferences and tells the server where to shove that karma. But there's little difference here, because the Zone, for example, required me to make an account to store my MW4 stats.
So they're changing from some obscure account system to Passport. An account is an account. Accounts tend to hold you accountable, too, from what I hear.
Of course, there are alternatives. If I don't wish to endure the Passport system, I can go play, say, Heavy Gear instead. Or insist that Bandai needs to release a Gundam sim. Sure, it's not Mechwarrior 4, but maybe I should be taking that up with the people who sold the Battletech rights?
Rights, there's that word again. Yes, people who create things generally have rights to do with as they please with said thing. I'm an author by trade, and, while I don't feel the need to come out and say, "Hey, Joe Windows User, I don't want you reading my book!", I have the right to say, "Hey! Fred Publisher! You're not reprinting my material without paying me!"
But should I ever want to say, "Hey, Joe Windows User..", shouldn't I have that right? (Granted, it'd be pretty stupid of me *to* say that, but hey, work with me, people.) After all, anything I create is *mine*, to do with as *I* please.
I'm delving into things that are just silly here, but the argument holds with common sense issues too. Just as we don't want foreign nationals electing our president, we don't want people basing programs off of GPL'd code and closing the source. If we have those rights, why doesn't Microsoft have the right to say, "You can't utilize our stat recording system without getting a Passport."?
Perhaps it's just that some people insist the entire world revolves around and exists to serve *them*. (:
The MSN gaming zone is a microsoft site. I can see why Microsoft wants one universal system like passport to use for their various sites (MSDN switched a while ago). It saves them support costs in the long run. I'm also not sure how AC players lost any privacy through this move. Microsoft already had the credit card info from the previous zone accounts. It would be nice if Microsoft would accept some other form of payment other than credit cards for AC.
They now have email addresses (read: 'sales leads') for a BUNCH of folks.
Nooooo!!! Not <gasp> E-MAIL ADDRESSES!!!!
Dude, get a clue already. How many games have you bought because someone sent you an email?
What would you do with a starbucks account any way?
And do you have to have Java to use it?
Actually, Asheron's Call is the only reason that I still have a Windows Partition anymore on my main box at home. All joking aside, its a GREAT game. It wasn't developed my Microsoft, nor is it managed by them, but by a company called Turbine. If you'd like to learn more about this addiction, feel free to browse some of my favorite fan sites, Crossroads of Dereth or Asheron's Call Stratics. Of course you can also check my guilds site which I administer, called Strife.
Clinton made me a Republican. Bush made me a Libertarian. Trump is making me question reality.
I thought you weren't allowed to use a monopoly in one area to create a monopoly in another area?
How is it that Microsoft is able to take it's monopoly in Office Suites and require you to create a Passport account in order to register them? Isn't that just creating a monopoly in online Registration?
Once everyone has been forced to register their Office and Windows with Passport, why whould they bother to register with another service? It is just like bundling the browser, only this time they are bundling the online registration.
It's crap of the highest order. It is even worse than the monopoly movie theatres have on food and drink. They state that you cannot bring in outside food or drink and make you pay extortionist prices for the crap that they do offer. It is not a free choice, in the sense that I went there for the movie, not food, but if I want food with my movie I have to pay out the whazoo. This would only be fair if I had the choice of brining in outside food and drink.
Same thing for amusement park food pricing.
So when I do not agree with terms of service of Passport, can I return Asheron's call since I cannot play it now? I want my money refunded.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
I agree, I try to avoid using microsoft software as much as possible, but perhaps taking this a step further would be more useful. The fact of the matter is that the average person won't boycott microsoft for various reasons. What we need to do is help average computer users learn why they should boycott microsoft and given them what they need to do it.
What does this translate into? Helping people learn other operating systems. Contributing to software projects that improve the usability of those other operating systems. This does not mean going out a proseletyzing and shouting "Windows sucks!" That sort of approach just makes you look arrogant and turns people off. Until we can get the masses on board, a boycott is nearly useless.
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Being a former manager at the Zone, I can honestly say this is a scary concept. While I was there, we desperately tried to resist even becoming a part of MSN, alas the powers that be just wheeled the Zone like any other product and made us a part of MSN.
Microsoft already tracks user information through the use of their Zone software. So much information, that it's almost like the Windows XP product activation. They ban users from their service based on a unique key generated by the Zone software that analyzes your hardware.
Slap this in with the fact that you use a credit card to access Asheron's Call and other premium services, they've got a good start on a personal profile for you.
They know what your system is made up of, they know your credit card number, they know your visiting habits, and if you use hotmail, they have your email by the proverbial balls. Short of owning your home, they own your online presence indefinitely. In the future if they integrate Passport with XBox, they'll be able to track your game habits, how many wins, losses even your game chats.
Chalk one up to MS for squeaking this one in on the Zone. I bet they resisted it with their very last bit of will power.
Little do we know microsoft will soon be providing:
POOL ex-pee
To try and convince users there's no more pee in the pool. Once new hotel guests jump in, they'll realize why the water's still yellow.
-Wrexsoul
--- Need web hosting?
Reminds me of websites I have found that were optimized for 1600x1200 resolution.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I had to register several copies of MS software for my office some time ago, and since then I've been receiving a whole lot of newsletters from them. So I followed their instructions on how to unsubscribe, and went to http://www.microsoft.com/info/unsubscribe.htm
Guess what? In order to unsubscribe from their spam, I need to sign up for Passport.
So I set up a procmail filter.
I have Bejewelled open in another Mozilla window right now, and I don't have a passport account. It would seem that the change is a bit less extensive than CNet (and Slashdot) seems to be saying.
Really? Do you want one key to open all your doors. Do you need the same level of security for advert laden email as you do for real identity protection? Sometimes seperation is a good idea. Sometimes it happens because you bought everyone and were too dumb to fix things as you did it.
Logic asside, if they do it you would hope that they could use something that worked (what is it, Kerebos?). They has proven incapable of protecting anything, from credit card info to Hotmail to individual PCs. Who would trust them as they move all their services to the system first used for Hotmail that has been broken already? They should realize that this is just one more reason not to do business with Micro~.
M$ is evil but, as usual, they are not very good at it.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Everybody always likes to jump down Microsoft's throat every time they try and breathe. But please, stop for a second and get a grip on reality.
Keeping up with the usernames and passwords for every account I have is a complete nightmare. I have hundreds of them, I can't remember them all, its nuts. Passport solves that problem by giving me one password to go along with my email address (that's my normal email address, not a Hotmail address).
Now everybody seems to have plenty downsides to this convienence, most of which are uninformed rubbish (a site using passport doesn't suddenly get all my information, they only get the information I want them to have for instance) - some of it important (if I break the terms of use, I get cut off all sites). But does anybody have a better method of solving the multiple account problem?
Sun are going to have all the same issues with theirs, so is anybody else trying to do the same thing. They're all going to be the target of every script kiddie under the sun, they're all going to have terms of use that can be broken and you use access to them all, they'll all have the problem of being hacked and the hacker getting your information for all sites. Other companies won't be invulnerable to these problems just because they aren't Microsoft. And don't think that Microsoft aren't going to get all the best security they can on these things either, they're not THAT dumb (not when they're business really depends on it that much).
So how do you propose these problems are solved?
All of us who do not like Microsoft obviously do not want .NET and passport to prevail. We have a shot against .NET because there are many alternatives coming out. However, there is no technology competing with passport right now. Microsoft is forcing people who want to use their services to sign on.
.NET servers.
Let's consider for a moment how Microsoft has tried to take on the instant messenger market. They've bundled MSN messenger with Windows XP, but many people already have been using ICQ or AIM for years. They won't bother signing up for MSN messenger because they wouldn't be able to talk to their buddies on the other services. But with Passport, there is no alternative around. Sure people may reluctantly sign up for it, but once they have it, they've already gone through the painful process of giving away information. Now they'll be more likely to use other passport services.
But we don't have a good competitor for passport because close to 100% of the slashdot readers, and *nix people in general, don't like the idea of passport. If we don't like the idea, then we won't bother implementing it. Maybe there should be a movement for a competitor to passport. You don't have to use it immediately, or at all. I highly doubt Bill Gates has his credit card number sitting out on those oh so vulnerable
only to be told:
.NET Passport does not support the Web browsing software you are using. Please use supported browsing software such as Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.0 or later, or Netscape Navigator versions 4.08-4.82.
.NET Passport using Netscape Navigator 6.1. We take security seriously and are working with Netscape to resolve these issues as soon as possible so that .NET Passport can support Netscape Navigator 6.1. Until that time, please use supported browsing software. We apologize for this inconvenience and thank you for your patience.
Unfortunately, Microsoft®
If you use Netscape Navigator 6.1: due to possible data security issues, you cannot currently access
Quite amazing.
Yes, MS does have a competitor in this field, and that competitor is wiping the floor with them (on non-subscription services).
You might have heard of them... GameSpy?
"Faith is the last resort of a desperate man" - Me
I don't rent videos from Blockbuster because they insist I waive my rights under the Video Rental Privacy Act.
I don't buy from Amazon because they now insist I "register" before buying.
It's getting hard to spend money.