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Financial Institutions Balk at MS Licensing
mmol_6453 writes "Now, not only are hospitals groaning under the combination of Microsoft and the HIPAA, but banks are having issues relating to federal privacy laws. Favorite line: 'Microsoft has told...that it plans eventually to eliminate users' ability to disable Microsoft's access to their systems.'"
And in other news, Microsoft becomes the first fortune 500 company to trogan horse an operating system.
Karma: Not Particularly Funny.
Hell, Windows Update is one of the few things that should probably be ON by default!
Trusting the bank != trusting Microsoft. A bank that takes customer privacy seriously and switches away from using Microsoft products has a better chance of getting my business. Pity my account is so small... :(
Notice that everything he's directly quoted on in the article is straightforward...and then a completely bizarre indirect quote.
Most likely he gave a bunch of examples of macro viruses or undocumented APIs and the reporter decided to "condense" things a bit.
May we never see th
Solely to prevent piracy?
What a joke -- Microsoft could never stop piracy, as the devilsown copy of XP was out months before the release, and service pack 1 for it, fully cracked, was out in an integrated ISO weeks before the release of SP1.
Microsoft doesn't have a chance at stopping piracy, and it's just another lame excuse for Microsoft to follow the logical course of big business and try to control everything.
If Microsoft turns a deaf ear to angry consumers on the issue of collecting data, the federal government has every right to nail them to the wall for it, especially if it interferes with our health and banking privacy.
Arguments against using Macintosh or Linux usually center on retraining issues. However, heavy retraining occurred when migrating between Win3.11, WinNT, Win2000, and - for the chumps - WinXP. So if you have to retrain anyway, then why not go with something easier to both use and maintain like Macintosh OS X or Mandrake/Redhat?
When you consider the bizarre nature of the service pack EULAs, the migration to Macintosh or Linux should be the obvious choice to anyone that can read English.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
has told...that it plans eventually to eliminate users' ability to disable Microsoft's access to their systems.'
Of course, if you are willing to pay just a little more, Microsoft will sell you security. Coincidence? I think not.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Heck, EVERYONE Balks at MS Licensing.
How many people have passed on XP because of the licensing crap? I'll bet a LOT of people have.
I have, and it has nothing to do with piracy.
I think that MS is going to back off on a lot of this stuff, probably even Palladium in its most extreme form.
Their strategy at the highest level seems to be two pronged. On one hand they want to gather up all of the power and control of the monopolist, and on the other hand, they try to respond to customers as if they had to compete.
I know that a lot of people are skeptical about the last part of that, but I believe it. They backed off of the passport nightmare to a large extent.
There are lots of smaller things they've backed off on as well -- their first incarnation of their anti-piracy measures would have made it impossible for corporate users to roll out systems using software like ghost, but they backed down on that, and that concession has had a real effect on the ease with which one can pirate their software.
The banks have a real problem, and MS is going to have to address it or lose the business. I think they're going to address it.
The big conceptual problem, I think, is to consider MS to be a monolith. There are people who are pushing for this stuff, and there are others who are talking to the customers who are screaming bloody murder.
In the end, they will have to listen to their customers.
"Do something man. Right now."
I think the problem here is the wide discrepancy between what the licensing agreement allows and what Microsoft says they actually do. I'd be scared shitless too if I were some yokel credit union administrator and I didn't have any way of verifying what Microsoft (and you) says they do to my system.
Actually, there are three settings:
Off. Pops up dialog boxes and warnings: "DO YOU REALLY WANT TO DO THIS!?" sort of things. After clicking "yes" a few dozen times, WinXP no longer attempts to auto-update, and doesn't poll for update availability.
Automatic Download. Periodically (timeframe? anyone?) polls an MS server for updates, downloads them in the background, you have to click a little taskbar widget to install them.
Automatic Download and Install. Yep, just what it says: "Please, Microsoft, install arbitrary code on my system without alerting me!"
Of course, I'm currently leading an initiative to have all non-technical people required to set their level to "Automatic Download and Install", so I can only be a certain degree of harsh about what that means.
Jouster
As a street level tech mostly working on MS boxes I can be a tad upset about the "auto update" feature.. i've made so much money in billable hours on boxes that just needed windows updates and a disk defrag that i can't even count.. i usually charge $50 for this service and explain what i did and that they need to do it themselves evey once in a while... well i still get reapeat calls to do it about once every 10-12 months on most boxes..and they don't want to be bothered by learning to click on it themselves.. hey..let the little guy make a buck..:)
Just Limin' Mon
about pirracy and privacy is driving me nuts, why can't people see the obvious? M$ is pissed because their products are being pirated left, right and up their asses... but they then cause difficulty to who? That's right, legit owners of the software, CUSTOMERS... that's who!
Pirates will always find ways to circumvent any protection the boys at M$ can come up with. Heck, I've seem similar web-based authentication registration being spoofed by web-proxy based crack (it was a version of zMud about two years ago)... so to the pirates, these are just old tricks implemented differently.
Why doesn't M$ realise the answers that have been looking at them straight in the corneas for ages... produce less-expansive stuff and respect the customer's privacy. That's all they're asking for... is it too much to ask?
If the price of Windows reflects on development put into it, why oh why do we still have security concerns that are similar to those of previous versions, sometimes even more critical.
Welley Corporation - SLM Scammers
There was Corporate America. And people enjoyed to remark this. And there was a company that claimed that Linux, Open Source, GPL and Co. were a treat to Capitalism... And there was a lot of FUD, among some people, that all this was the same thing as Communism, if not worst. And they raised Corporate America in a crusade against the Spectrum. And they said: buy only true corporate software. And Corporate America felt that it would be easier to deal with a corporation, rather than risking its health and wealth with something that sounded like some old enemies calls.
Now Corporate America is eating the fruits of its short vision and its lack of support to venture capitalists, small developers and a little more freedom for people. Soon, we may see that Corporate America is no more. Welcome to M$ America.
Maybe microsoft as a company wouldnt want to sniff through the data, tho i wouldn`t put it past them..
But think of errant employees, or blackhat hackers who gain knowlege of how to exploit the backdoors..
Yes, network-accessible backdoors HAVE existed in windows since 95, they only change the licensing now to try and cover themselves for when a whitehat hacker inevitably discovers and publishes them.
FYI, atleast one blackhat group knows of and exploits a backdoor present in windows. And this is definately a backdoor, not just sloppy coding.
Which makes you think.. maybe many of the vulnerabilities present in microsoft products were intended as backdoors and werent supposed to be found by the general public.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
My 65 year old mom uses linux, for browsing, icq, occasional letter writing, and email. She actually prefers the lack of advert banners in icq, the fact she doesnt have to worry about viruses in her mail, and the fact galeon can block images and cookies from particular servers.
She also prefers the fact that the machine stays running.
When she was using windows (2000) she was getting very frustrated with regular crashing, slow reboot time, frequent virus infection, and slowdown caused by the virus checker itself. Not to mention the fact that a pension doesnt stretch very far towards expensive software, the straw that broke the camels back.. was the cost of msoffice when she decided she wanted to write some letters (most of her friends dont have computers atall)
openoffice is vastly overpowered for what she needs infact, she usually uses the old wordperfect 8 (or was it 9?) that was ported to linux.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
New Coke.
New Coke was a means of converting the bottling plants over from powdered supplies (sugar) to liquid supplies (high fructose corn syrup).
The way it worked was to make something that tasted sufficiently bad, compared to the original, that when they "switched back" to the old formula (actually, the old formula, minus sugar, plus corn syrup), they were sufficiently close to the old formula that people didn't complain about the switch (they just got fat off the new stuff).
The best way to get something small and distasteful past someone is to try for something very large and distasteful, and when people complain, back off to the small distasteful thing you wanted in the first place.
To get unimpeded weapons inspections, ask for a "regime change" and an OK to invade. To switch over to cheaper, easier indistrial process supplies, like corn syrup instead of sugar, change everything, and then change "almost all the way back".
If you don't think Microsoft knows about this technique, you are fooling yourself. You should be much more worried about the consequences of whatever they pick as their "backed down" position.
-- Terry
Women scare me.
By requiring a key to activate XP, Microsoft has the ability to force an OS upgrade simply by no longer issuing them. Therefore if (say) Windows YP is released and sells abysmally, MS can announce the withdrawal of keys for XP, forcing users to get YP should they need to reactivate. Instant sales boost, instant share price surge.
If lying to yourself makes you comfortable, well just keep lying to yourself.
You could pull the network plug during install, watch for traffic, block those IPs that are associated with the install, plug network back in.
But then you are operating in a way where you know you can't trust them but are relying on being able to outsmart them. It won't work because you are at a major disadvantage:
1.) They've a whole kingdom of bloated code to hide their sneaky little bits.
2.) If they wanted to do something dirty, they have the resources to find someone who could outsmart most people. All kinds of sneaky ways one could send out data.
3.) They could eulagize you into submitting to, and accepting whatever they did, and even require you to submit under the auspices of the DMCA.
One is completely powerless with these agreements that come with software. You click on that agree button, and you are magically transformed into a worm whenever doing anything at all that has anything to do with the software.
Of course such agreements may be useful to some degree in certain circumstances but the situation has progressed far into the absurd. The expectation is complete dominance over whoever uses the software.
1. Eula
2. Dominate
3. Profit!!
Really just a reflection of society at large these days. Brutal grabs at power followed by relentless utilization of the aquired power. Things like shutting off the electricity to entire states and requiring people to purchase entire operating systems to view DVDs-with enforcement provided by the government.
Actually the new EULA gives them the right, regardless of some config setting.
Is nobody else capable to talk about the ability to point the EVIL "Windows Update" feature to YOUR OWN Windows Update server?? This short-circuits the "EVIL EMPIRE" from touching your computer, while instead giving you FULL CONTROL of what is deployed. And it does it in a very network-friendly "dribble" approach, rather than full-on 100 megabit draw from thousands of clients. It's effective and it works.
So the question is, what on earth will compell them to drop Windows on the desktop? Because it's sure as hell not any of the issues we've seen so far.
When I can buy LeasePlus, Smart.alx and Great Plains Dynamics as ELF binaries.
Seriously, the reason small-medium businesses buy MS servers and workstations in the first place is because they need to run that one application that runs their business, and it only runs on MS because the vendor doesn't have the resources to devote to multiple platforms. For us, it's a combination of the apps I mentioned (and a couple of other minor ones).
There are hundreds (if not thousands) of small software companies that write, manage and maintain ONE niche-software app to run the businesses in their specific industry. They use MS tools and platforms because they are easy, cheap*** and ubiquitous. There is some competition, but it is limited by huge barriers to entry -- mostly, up-front capital and specific in-depth industry experience (for example: in order to write effective lease management and accounting software, you first have to know the leasing industry inside and out.)
Oh, and did I mention that we hate the software we're using, but so does everyone else. We're stuck with it because the only alternatives are either prohibitively expensive to switch or crummier or both. We're too small to pay someone develop custom software in-house, and our industry is too small to generate enough free-developer interest for a non-propretary/open-source solution to be practical.
There is only one way Linux is going to **REPLACE** the MS servers in our storage/mopcloset/utility/telco room: Our vendors need to start developing for Linux, or at least on an open platform like LAMP or WAMP that allows us to pick one or the other.
Why do you think monkeyboy gets so jacked up about DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS! ?
Until then, Linux is going to have to run our web site and our email and be happy with that. There aren't enough open-source developers in equipment leasing.
*** "cheap" in a relative sense. Consider that we're going to send the equivalent of a small automobile to each of our two or three software vendors every year for the priviledge of being able to call them when their shitty, crappy, slow and bug-infested software takes a dump after an update all the while frustrated that we can't get working features we were promised three years ago when we bought the software for the price of a good-sized house.
But, you know what? Our business couldn't function without it.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
I'd love to see MSFT change my /etc/rc.d/rc.firewall script to let itself through.
For us carnivores, "Sucking the marrow out of life" isn't a transcendentalist philosophy but a practical instruction.
But in any case, MS never initiates contact with any system.
A Microsoft operating system initiating contact with the Microsoft home base is Microsoft initiating contact with the system. They are just automating the process from the client side of things. Going either way without the end user's explicit consent (click-through/shrink-wrap EULA isn't sufficient) is simply wrong.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Just seems rather odd, doesn't it?
/. would never do something that hypocritical, right? I mean promoting FUD about Windows to further some weird Linux agenda.
All these articles from journalists complaining about Windows EULA, and quoting people at hospitals, financial institutions and so forth and asking them if they are afraid. But not once do they ever actually quote a lawyer who can interpret the real legal language.
I work for a Fortune 30 company, we're moving to XP. We're also a financial institution. Our lawyers looked over the licensing and saw nothing to be concerned with.
I've spoken to other people in this industry who are in the same situation.
It almost seems like the media is trying to promote FUD concerning Windows. Of course we all know that
If your bank is using MS - Sue Them! It's *your* data that's at risk.
I think the only way to get the point across is to go out and file proactive lawsuits. If enough people start suing banks/financial institutions/medical institutions over MS privacy issues, then it will become too expensive to continue to use(or, more likely, MS will change the EULA. Perhaps it is this sort of issue that would make EULA's illegal...)
An ounce of perception is worth a pound of obscure
So, let me get this straight. Easter eggs are now security threats? Whats next, a law to protect us from the evils of hidden credits or secret photos of the programmers?
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
I haven't worked in the medical industry, but I have worked in the banking industry. They are in a very similar situation regarding software. There is no window shopping. You don't get to decide what platform these programs run on. You get what your vendor makes.
These programs must often follow stringent federal guidelines and the vendors often offer 24/7 live support (and I've called my vendor at 11:30pm on Christmas Eve and there was a knowledgable tech there to help me out).
Idealsim is a fine thing, but don't let it get in the way of getting your actual work done.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.