Microsoft Offers A DRM Patch

Transcendent writes "Microsoft Windows Update is offering a download for their 1.0 version of the 'Microsoft Windows Rights Management client,' if you care to download it. Seems that you need Win98 SE and up (or at least that's the minimum 'supported'). Details are here. Although it's not required or a 'critical' update, this just paves the road for all of Microsoft's software to require DRM technology on your computer. Quote from the details page: 'Installing this client allows RM-aware applications to work with Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) to provide licenses for publishing and consuming RM-protected information.' This, dubbed 'Activation', entails that 'your computer will be automatically connected via the Internet ... in order to create and save on your computer a system component that is associated with your hardware.' Hmmm... me no like ..."

Comments

Roll up, roll up!

[leonbrooks]

Getcha free chains here! Bondage! Suffering! Leather gear, only the hottest from Microsoft! Trade-ins on unwanted liberty a specialty, test-whip today's amazing offer!

Rights Managements Services

[tato (and tato only)]

Something tells me GNU/RMS is not going to like Microsoft's choice of acronyms.

Re:Rights Managements Services

[archen]

Something tells me GNU/RMS is not going to like Microsoft's choice of acronyms.

Is that why he's even adding it to his name now?

I welcome Windows Rights Management

[rock_climbing_guy]

Everyone at the Office (TM) complains about having to use the cubicles next to the Windows (TM) where the mid-day Sun (TM) can be unbearable. I hope that this patch can help us respect each other's rights about sitting next to the Windows (TM)

They got the versions all wrong

[RumbaFlex]

Windows 1984 and up is what it was supposed to say...

Re:The thin end of the wedge.

[Anonymous Coward]

But then the shining becon of freedom shone through on a land far away. The champoin of freedom in a world which had become a matrix of digital prisons. The ones that stood up to it all without flinching.

The Chinese...

In other news...

[iamdrscience]

Microsoft will be releasing their next major version of Windows under the name "Linus" in the tradition of their new "RMS" digital rights management client.

Patch?

[iamdrscience]

I have to admit, when I read the headline "Microsoft Offers a DRM Patch" I was pretty happy because I thought it meant they had issued a patch FOR DRM, in the same way a patch for "remote code execution exploit #502937" helps you avoid remote code execution exploit #502937.

Good Try, But You Lost

[Farley Mullet]

Unless you're incredibly comfortable with Reich Emergency Protection Act ---- oops, make that the "Patriot" Act ---- it IS the apocalypse, and it's time to wise up and push back.

Hey, I know you were trying to be the first to bring the Nazis into a discussion about an optional operating system patch, but this asshole beat you too it. Better luck next time.

What is with Slashdot?

[An Onerous Coward]

Microsoft is giving us the opportunity to activate the much-anticipated Windows RM technology on our computers--absolutely free--enabling "certain features of the software," and they've given us their word that they won't collect any personally identifiable information. Isn't that enough for you people?

Man, if Microsoft started handing out bags of money on the street while nursing sick puppies back to health, you guys still wouldn't trust them.

Me, I'm going to install it right now. I can't wait to see what sort of new and exciting functionality is added to my com--[PLEASE ENTER A VALID CREDIT CARD NUMBER TO COMPLETE THIS POST]