Slashdot Mirror
E-Mail Controls in Office 2003
TiggsPanther writes "The BBC's Technology News reports than the next version of MS Office will include E-Mail controls which should limit way that e-mail messages can be forwarded.
Being tied into the Information Rights Management concept, it might be interesting to see how quickly this gets taken up."
the washington post (via msnbc) says dont bother with Office 2003 at all
http://www.msnbc.com/news/982713.asp?0dm=T15NT
fp?
another reason NOT to use MSoft. AS if I needed one anyway..
We just received our Office 2003 discs yesterday. I installed Outlook 2003 because the vertical-side-panel-snap-together-do-hicky is pretty sweet. .NET Passport. .NET Passport is active.
If you use the e-mail DRM service(straight from the dialog box):
- You need a
- Your documents won't be sent to or stored by Microsoft.
- If Microsoft decides to end the trial, you can access the restricted documents and e-mail for at least three months, as long your
- Microsoft won't decrypt contect protected by the service unless a court order requires it.
I read something about being able to use DRM within an organization, but that it required running some sort of IRM server. Don't know anything else beyond that though.
I can't really see how this is useful as if you can read it you can copy it and then forward it.
more we hate ms. boohoohoo
In Soviet Russia, E-Mail Controls you!
Looks like Microsoft are trying to make the evil RM services appear sweeter. Lets hope nobody falls for it.
Dave Bell
The only reason they are doing this to stop the leakage of internal memo's about destroying linux etc. But I assume that employees will still be able to print emails, so its all kind of pointless imho.
Wang33
PAGERANK++ Robsell.com
This is something that a lot of people will want, as it looks like a real feature.
The problem of course is that MS can't just provide good service. Stay tuned for how they plan to use this to further extort, alienate and harass customers, simultaneously using this to break existing standards, most likely having the result that no one will be able to recieve emails from folks using this feature unless the recipeient is also using Outlook.
Great.
Trying to make bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet.
-- Bruce Schneier
oh and cutting and pasting is so hard to do.
Does it still support copy/paste?
How about printscreen?
Check out my sysadmin blog!
This has been discussed endlessly already - new DRM features control documents, how they can be saved, printed, forwarded, stored. Yes, it will be possible for documents to "expire" after a certain time, etc. etc.
How is this news?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
will be interesting to see how this works with non-MS email clients, esp on non-MS O/S's
It saddens me that me that the 'trusted' sources are publishing this information in most part as a good thing, or as a cool gadgetry.
/R
The whole wider debate about freedom of choice/DRM as a consumer is being lost in the 'he he, now you can retract that naughty email' haze.
Hey its almost 2004!! Get with it microsoft!!!!!!
(click)(drag)(Copy)(launch Mozilla)(Paste)(Send)
Really, how is this supposed to work? Even if Microsoft suppresses the clipboard for protected documents, I (or any other mildly knowledgeable user) can take a couple of screen captures and then put it into a jpg or pdf to resend. If someone can see the e-mail, there's a way to copy it.
Ah... so maybe the idea is, *they* sent it, so that it'll be on *my* machine, but *they* retroactively control what I do with it, without specifying up-front. I *knew* SCO had some marketable ideas for Microsoft in exchange for that investment...
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
And when are they going to have the email etiquette checker working? And the filter for bad joke forwarding - thats what I really need.
If I can see or hear it, I can copy it. This might stop people from forwarding casually interesting letters, but the things where it matters will be copied anyway. I don't see the point. If they do find a way to do this well, I'd love to have this possibility, otherwise it's just yet another way to make people feel secure without actually being so.
Third of Nine
Well, um, yes.
So when will they release details of the encryption scheme used so that non-Outlook mail clients can be used......? I'm not holding my breath.
More significantly, Outlook can automatically block images embedded in e-mails, a common tactic used by spammers.
Is this not automatic? Any how when will MS put this stuff in IE too? I mean I love how Mozilla lets me diable Javascripting, why doesn't MS catch on to this.
And E-mail SPAM filtering? I just opened an MSN account to use the MSN messenger and I got five SPAM immediatly, why don't they try to stop it further away from the machine? Because even you filter it Outlook will down load the message first to look at it.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
Microsoft has also tweaked Word, Excel and Powerpoint, though the most obvious change is a new, blue colour scheme.
Ahh, priorities. Is that the same "BSOD" shade of blue I see far too often? Where do I send my $ for the upgrade?
... they love to set rules and access rights and controls - instead of actually managing employees conscionably and using resources responsibly.
mostly i imagine this will appeal to the less savory huge corporations who wish to stop seeing their internal memos and severance packages on f*ckedcompany.
but inevitably, if the information would actually be interesting to someone outside the desired recipient list, it will be shared. to borrow a cliche, 'information wants to be free' - good information anyway.
perhaps the 'leaker' will have to retype the message, but more likely he'll cut/paste or (if that's disabled) take a screenshot and email that.
and as soon as an email leaves the corporate structure once, all those controls don't mean a thing.
the platform-specific nature, and the fact that most leaks come through corporate partners who have limited email access/correspondence (some may even be on public distro lists) will mean that its effectiveness will be entirely limited to internal corporations.
though, if momentum builds behind this, a trusted email standard may not be far away. and if nothing else, perhaps that would alleviate some spam? if you consider the price worth the cost.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
So what's stopping a third-party from making their own client that can read the e-mails and doesn't give a damn about DRM or any sort of document expiration?
Regarding my e-mail address... mind the gap, please.
If you want to be seen, stand up. If you want to be heard, speak up. If you want to be respected, sit down and shut up.
Well, now everybody must have a microsoft product installed on their machines to read these documents... yeah, it is free, but then, microsoft got in your system.
OK I will start out by saying that I don't think that this should be controlled by M$, but I don't think that tying DRM to email is a bad idea. Hell I think it is one of the only good uses of DRM.
Spam is a huge problem and the only way it is going to be effectively controlled is to change the open nature of email. Putting controls onto who can do what to the email is the next step. You don't always want emails to be forwarded especially if the email is signed from you. The same goes for company internal emails it is fine them being sent internally but most often they are not for third party use.
OK you are not going to stop people cutting and pasting then forwarding but at least it will not be verified as being from you. Just wish that some open consortium had come up with standards for this sort of thing before M$ got their mitts on it.
Uh, no. Nothing is foolproof because fools are just too damned clever.
The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines
There's going to have to be a fundimental change in the protocol and how people use e-mail if it's going to ever become remotely secure. Sure, there's always PGP, but how many average users even know what PGP stands for? And I doubt they'll disable both cut and paste and screen capture programs - if someone wants to forward your e-mail bad enough, they'll find a way.
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
You can still create a .net passport without e-mail verify. It's easy.
I still have president@whitehouse.gov as a .net passport.
Liberated women don't wear parachute bloomers!
I am guessing that if I send a nice libelous email to someone using any email client other than Outlook 2003 (and Exchange 2003?), then these magical "cannot forward" and "delete in x days" features will not work...or is there a new RFC covering this enhanced email functionality?
$2B OR NOT $2B = $FF
First, and slightly OT, but that screen shot makes it look like I had better plan on a 19" monitor or greater. It was a tiny screen cap but the proportions of title bar to window contents make me think Microsoft has given up on the notion that a 15" screen should be usable. (See Also: Visual Studio.NET)
Anyway, this who "can't forward" thing might have nice side effects. I'd love it if documents on the hard drive could be flagged "do not forward", so my dad would stop pestering me about "what if I get a virus and it sends my Quicken files?"
This functionality was created to appease corporate America (to stop things ending up on InternalMemos.com, among other things) but it might have positive side effects for the home user.
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
Will it improve productivity in my office? Not my Office, but my real office?
Simple answer: No, it would reduce it.
Thanks for another useless product.
-
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Looks like the two biggest additions to Outlook 2003 is spam containment and rights management. Adding more easily configurable spam containment is an important feature (maybe the spammers will just give up!), and much needed. The rights management is very hard to judge, I'll have to see it in operation.
I am sure that the experience Microsoft had with it's emails and the Justice Dept. had a lot to do with this feature. I can see where it would be a good idea for some people to restrict certain messages, but I believe that this serious knock to accountability
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
Great having beers with you last night.
I just got a memo that they'll be laying off 30 people in engineering, starting with Dan. The fucktards have disabled forwarding permissions for it, but drop by my desk on your way to lunch if you want to see.
Ron
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
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Ceci n'est pas une pipe.
If i have information i don't want other people seeing, i don't send it in an e-mail!
Why pay good money for a dialog box? Does this dialog box merit a change in ALL other apps - Excel, PPT etc? Okay, here's a dialog box:
Do you think Office 2003 will improve office productivity? (not Office productivity, just your real office)
-
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Yep, been in Notes since, what, 1997?!
Cut and paste were disabled, as I recall. A quick PrintScreen twarted that quite quickly.
If you see it on the screen, it can be copied. Perhaps not as well, but yep, it can be copied.
...tizzyd
Every time a PGP article is posted, everyone here starts panting about how everyone should send signed & encrypted email and how wonderful the world would be, yatta yatta.
Well, Microsoft did it -- you'll see the amount of encrypted email increase substantially as companies adopt this new version of Office and implement their own identity management servers.
So what's the big hub-ubb? If you are being investigated, a court order will result in the police getting your GPG/PGP private key anyway, so that argument is out...
I guess since it is Microsoft, it has to be bad!
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Would it not be more sensible NOT to send sensitive information to untrusted parties?
1. Read Protected Email
2. File -> New
3. Type juicy bits.
4. ???
5. Profit!!
-AC
Since at least version 4 (maybe version 3.0) of Lotus Notes, you could prevent copying, printing and forwarding of a message. Under the delivery options when you're composing a new message, there is an option "Prevent Copying".
With notes, you could still grab a screen shot by pressing "Print Scrn", since that's tied into the OS, not the app.
makes the pateNTdead eyecon0meter kode expand to include more&more fauxking phonIE feechurn ideNTification strings.
is there a remedy for all of these softwar gangster payper liesense georgewellian fuddite execrable BugWear(tm) debacles? of course there is.
that would be the creator's increasingly popular planet/population rescue initiative (formerly unknown as the oil for babies program), which coincides perfectly (we do not use that word lightly) with the onset of the gnu millennium.
secure? why this stuff is unbreakable, & works on several (more than 3) dimensions.
the daze of the phonIE payper liesense corepirate nazi stock markup fraud execrable is WANing into coolapps/the abyss, at the speed of right. not much secure IT to be had with those fauxking foulcurrs.
the pateNTdead eyecon0meter kode has been used extensibly, in helping to eXPose many of the ?pr? ?firm? hypenosys fallicIEs surrounding the efforts of the felonious billyonerrors softwar gangsters' to mask their greed/fear/ego based misdeeds, & ongoing frauduleNT behaviours.
still much to be done. see you there.
consult with/trust in yOUR creator regarding decisions of the heart/mind/wallet. that's the spirit, moving you.
for each of the creator's innocents harmed, there is a badtoll that must/will be repaid by you/US, as the aforementioned perpetraitors of the life0cide against the planet/population, will not be available to make reparations.
get ready to see the light. there's no going back, & no where to hide.
the next version of MS Office will include E-Mail controls which should limit way that e-mail messages can be forwarded
:)
I hope they include a control that prevents email from being forwarded once the subject line contains more than one Fwd: in it.
I swear, many days I get more "Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: THIS COULD SAVE SOMEONE'S LIFE!" than I do spam. The latest and greatest is the "gang initiation - guy sneaks into a woman's backseat at the gas pump", which I haven't seen making the rounds for a couple of years now.
Eliminate crap like this, and watch worker productivity double.
And yes, my tongue is ever-firmly pressed into my cheek
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
At least we know MS-DRM won't work on SlashDot.
Lotus Notes has long a had a feature to prevent copying or forwarding of messages. With an installed base upwards of 80 million, Notes is one of the most secure e-mail products on the planet, with notable usage among the government and intelligence organizations. Good cryptographic controls are built into the product, so it's easy for individual users to put these kinds of policies in force for their own messages.
should limit way that e-mail messages can be forwarded.
But it won't stop Outlook to be vulnerable to any kind of attack, such as a worm which "forwards" itself to everybody in your address book ?
everyone should be allowed to have secrets. even companies should be allowed to have secrets. secrets like how to manufacture product X, or get Y working, or how to solve problem Z that nobody else can. it's being able to keep secrets like that that makes the economy work, because i know i can make scads of cash if i hit on the right secret to keep, so i'll stay up at night to figure it out.
the DRM/IRM bullshit won't protect that in the least, because, yes, you can paraphrase a secret like the one above. important secrets are things people have to know within the company to do their jobs. the only way to keep those kinds of secrets is to (gasp) treat your employees well enough that they feel like they have a stake in your company. god freaking forbid.
no, this program won't keep those secrets. what it will keep secret is the incriminating evidence -- the smoking gun e-mail where the tobacco exec says "addict kids" or the ms exec says "spread fud on open source." the only secrets this program will keep are the secrets we pay journalists to uncover for the public good -- the secrets that expose the lies that companies present to the public.
THOSE secrets require the e-mails to be quoted, because the point is not the information -- it's the source, and the way it's said. thanks, microsoft, for helping to make the world a little more like your own house.
The Pentagon announced the return of Admiral John Poindexter and Colonel Oliver North to their staff as lead team for an upgrade of all Pentagon internal mail systems to Outlook 2003.
the only feature outlook has which other email clients don't is the exchange integration for the stupid meeting stuff. I personally don't use it and think it's junk, so why would I care. It's not to say there isn't any value in those features, just that it could just as well be a separate client. All this digital rights management stuff is total BS and just makes me despise outlook. Outlook is already a huge virus risk and I have no faith the new version will be any better.
Create a chain mail letter saying this must be forwarded to five of your friends, and set the controls to prevent it from being forwarded.
Should be good for a chuckle or two.
My rights don't need management.
Just turn on text-to-speech features for the blind, capture the output, and then later use speech-to-text.
If they disable features for the blind, sue Microsoft.
PROFIT!
Platform lockin anyone?
Having said that, it is a good idea. But totally non-enforceable without community buyin, and when you have community buyin it is easily circumventible...
The new controls features a new piece of equipment that is to be connected to the side of the PC. What is does is permanently blind you after you read a 'protected' email message. Of course, it also cuts off your hands and your tongue, so there is no way you could possibly ever duplicate or transmit the email to another.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
How will DRM email respond to being opened in 'nix clients? Also, since I assume the "document viewer" will be a Windows program, will it run under WINE (or some such)?
The answers to these questions would be interesting. Office 2003 may well make using 'nix desktops in a MS 2003 shop more dificult. It may also keep Office 2003 out of existing mixed environments.
Just send the correct events to the window to enable cut/paste/print.
...so get ready to send those "you idiot" emails to dumb users that decide it's a good idea to send "protected" emails to those without Outlook 2003.
I for one will be ignoring any emails I get this way.
Is this going to be the start of "two tier emails"? i.e. those that any email client can read and those that only an MS approved/DRM enabled client can read? Surely this is a _bad_ thing? I don't want to have to read some of my emails with one client and some with another!
What are the implications for those running email clients on other platforms? Are MS going to make viewers available for Linux?
S.
Ok, this thread is full of people assuming MS are dumb. Monopolists they may be but dumb they're not.
1. IRM allows you to block forwarding of a message.
2. IRM allows you to block printing of a message.
3. Cut and paste is disabled for protected messages.
4. You cannot get round it by using a non-MS mail client, the client will simply not be able to open the email at all.
5. Screenshots are feasible but how many large corporations filter images in email sent externally? I know we do!
This is not going to be as trivial to work round as many are suggesting.
This is what this new feature really is.
In our company, when I want to send out some confidential document, I copy it to a special document server which has all restriction access built it, and send out a link. However, many people are too lazy to do so, as it is much easier to simply drag and drop a document to Outlook window.
Granted, i cannot restrict what people do with my document once they download it from the server, though if need to, I can create PDF document with cut/paste and print restricted. But you can still send it out for other people to see, and it can't expire.
What this new feature supposedly does it merges these two systems - regular e-mail and central server-based document management - into one.
Therefore, I think this is a good feature in a corporate environment, that is.
>Microsoft says a free viewing program will be available for those who receive a protected document but are not using Office 2003.
Why would one need a special reader if email standards are adhered to? Presumably this is an attempt to hijack the email system by getting all Office users to send email in a format which is unreadable by non-Office users. The only way to read email from a windows user will be to get a copy of Office 2003.
Personally I will be replying to all such emails with a polite message that the message got garbled in transmision and could the sender please fix the problem in their system.
Does it mean that we won't see them anymore ?
Yet a not wonderful DRM tool that only works because it's not open source. The copy paste functions are being disabled for protected email... okay, so what if someone writes a client that doesn't disable copy? Oh wait, they can't, Microsoft won't tell them how. I havn't seen one DRM solution from Microsoft that would work if it was open source. Most of Microsofts security is in the restriction of the source code. Sorry but this just not good enough. Im not sure that you could write an open source DRM system, but we don't really want it anyway, so we lose nothing.
When the recipients want to read the message, they connect to the central server (using their Passport) and the server sends them the key.
The document probably includes the IP/name of the server to connect to as an unencrypted field so that large Corporate clients can manage there own security (with the help of more expensive software from M$).
The only other option, is that the key is just embedded in the client software, but that really sucks. So my guess is that you'll need to have a network connection to read the mail.
Still the fundamental flaw with the system is that the client MUST be provided with the key at some point (since the documents are never sent to M$). Hence, it must be possible to write software which just connects to the server, authenticates using the users Passport, gets the key and then just ignores the access controls.
I just see the next wave of Worms setting lifetimes on all my email to 0 and blocking all incoming mail from people in my office. Genius.
But it's called GnuPG. It keeps people from reading my emails if I don't want them to. Come to think of it, it's on by default on Evolution and Mozilla mail.
All's true that is mistrusted
Print Screen
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)
Of course, it will if MS makes wearing a DRM Helmet part of the EULA.
RIP Slashdot. I used to love you. dead account - but slashdot wont let me delete it.
.. someone from simply highlighting the entire text of the original email and composing another email with all the information - and none of the restrictions - and then sending this to everyone?
If you can read it, you can circumvent this.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
...what the headers are so I can get a head start with procmail recipies?
Trying to make bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet.
No, but you can make it difficult to copy them, possibly even provably difficult.
Anyone with some spare time on their hands can crack a public key/private key exchange - all's you gotta do is factor that big product of primes. And no one has even proved that that's a hard problem in and of itself, yet there's a whole industry built on the faith that it is.
Somehow I doubt that W3k is a good abbreviation for Windows 2003. You know, it is Windows 2003, not Windows 3000...
You'll have to wait a couple of years for W3k.
I love when I get an e-mail from someone on Windows saying the message they sent has been recalled.
My mbox doesn't seem to care though.
Can *anyone* thing of one single example of an email that may not be forwarded by the recepient??
I want my karma, and I want it now!
>CTRL-C CTRL-V
Wihich probably means I'll now get sued for breaking a protection scheme like that guy who told everyone about the spacebar.
-- Put crudely, the world is an extremely large problem instance. (Russel/Norvig Artificial Intelligence)
If I can see it I can get it out of the computer.
:)
Try copy/paste. If you can't copy the text content then how about a screen shot (Alt-Print Screen). Until the OS only runs signed drivers and doesn't expose this stuff over remote control apps like VNC or Windows Terminal services there's always going to be a back door.
Since the idea doesn't seem to be to completely protect against a smart user it would appear that they're just trying to cover the casual forwarding along by managers.
In any case I know that I for one have no intention of accepting mail like this. "Sorry, my IT department won't let me install that software" is going to be my flat response to any mail in this new format.
Why?
Because it introduces people to the molasses and chains that are DRM.
From this experience, more people will be in a position to recognize TCPA for what it really is.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Ok maybe I missed something but when Microsoft LOST the "trial of the century" and was declared a monopoly, one of the restrictions placed on Microsoft was that they could not require the use of one application/service to promote another application or service.
So, if now certain functionality of new applications requires Passport, a separate service/application, then isn't Microsoft in violation of the judgement?
Seems top me that MS has adopted this bury the requirements for other products and/or services within the application's functionality and this trend seems to be appearing throughout their product and service lines.
Ever heard of Snagit for Windows...
It's got a handy dandy "Text Capture" which can grab any text from ANY window and put it to a file, clipboard etc...
ta da... text copied! RM defeated... bingo!
Congratulations RMS, for finally destroying Microsoft!
-- do not copy, print or forward this message --The fact that they are raising this issue says to me that I would be damn stupid if I left a critically important and/or confidential document in their hands.
Furthermore, there is nothing stopping me from setting up a filter to reject emails sent under this protocol. If anybody really wants to communicate with me, he or she can do it in plain text or not at all.
RTFP[osts above.]
aside from controls, does anything prevent cut and paste or print screens? doesn't seem to matter much if u can still move the content...
meh.
Much simpler than screen capping etc.
Or have Microsoft stopped you from creating a new email while you are reading one you have been sent ?
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
Plagiarism.
-- No sig for you!
I wonder how all those folks who have RIM devices will feel once they need to buy a new device that can understand the new DRM (since I really doubt that the existing RIM's will support it). And, if the RIM can't understand the new DRM, then there will be much angst on both the part of users and the device manufacturers.
we (large F100) have been doing our own CA for a while and have trained users in how to do digital signing/encrypting of their messages using the cert on their USB tokens. the ones that do bother either screw it up or tick people off who haven't figured out how to do it. the usage % of the signed/encrypted is also extremely small *despite* the fact that it's one freakin' click. M$ may have gone one step further with the DRM part, but folks will still be too lazy/stupid to use it.
and, finally, i would encourage someone who deploys W2K3 server, the necessary Exchange rev, and O2K3 to submit their first occurrance of a DRM-enabled "reply to all" message that some idiot sends out.
i like the idea of message control (especially *within* an organization), but would have like to see some type of standard developed with both open and closed source choices for implementation rather than M$ be the only pace setter.
Mind the gap...
Cryptography is a means, not an end. PGP and similar systems exist to provide security to both sender and recipient against third-party attacks. After decryption, the recipient may do with the data as he wishes. The Office 2003 DRM, and all digital restriction management systems, exist to provide security to the sender against the recipient. One provides mutual benefit; the other unilateral control.
If you don't see the difference, you need look no further than the last version of Office. Outlook for years has supported X.509 certificates. (It also deserves mention that PGP and X.509 are open standards and widely interoperable, while Microsoft's DRM is proprietary.)
It isn't the LEOs people are worried about. If Microsoft can decrypt messages by court order, it has the ability to decrypt messages at any time. Whether this is done via escrow or a master key, it inherently weakens the cryptosystem. If the police want your PGP private key, they don't go to PGP Corporation for it, because PGP Corporation doesn't have it.Look, can we put the DoJ onto this NOW, rather than after MS releases it? Clearly sending proprietary format email violates the MS anti-trust settlement, and if we get someone working on it now, we won't have to deal with this piece of shite.
There is nothing here--NOTHING--that can't be done with existing protocols. PGP anyone (or GPG if you prefer)? I seem to recall that it had a 'read-don't-save' flag that you could set.
Furthermore, this won't help anyways. Hasn't anyone heard of screencaptures?
This new "feature" has no purpose other than to lock people into MS Office even further. It's a political trojan horse.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
A PHB in a brokerage firm wants to do a risky stock deal but not blamed if it bad.
So using Outlook 2003 he sends an email to an employee to buy 1,000,000 shares in SCOX thinking it should go up higher the next week or so. "Do it now or else you are fired" says the message. The PHB also sets the message to expire in 7 days.
If SCOX stock goes up: the PHB can take all the credit. after all it was his idea...
If SCOX stock tanks: The PHB deletes his message from his sent folder. The employee has no proof since the email expired and is fired. Another bad employee taking outrageous risks...
-- Convoy? Michael you're hanging around with a person who uses a collective term for a single object..
Sort of like multi-media. It SHOULD be multi-medium, or just media, by hey, you cannot argue with brain-dead talking heads....
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
My post on how to get around it
clickThe Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
- A public company sends it's SEC documents to SEC. Settings: Open next next day at 10:30 am.
- An analyst got this mail with an other setting: Open once, then destroy mail.
- This analyst can mail the CEO/CFO of this company that he will rate this company as "strong buy". The Settings are: Not printable, only visible for 24h - then delete
- I blackmail a company for baby food. Settings: not printable, read only once, delete after 120 seconds
- A big big company/lobby organisation mails a politican: "Hey make this law like we mailed you last year and we donate you 200k USD" Settings: not printable, read once and destroy mail
These are only some paranoid ideas, I think you got your own ideas.There is no evidence of insider trading. "Evil managers" get a "secure" tool to do evil things. Without a proof the is no court case!
NoSuchGuy
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
Now I can prevent my Nigerian mail scams from being forwarded to security and my spams from being forwarded to spam corpi.
So, what about those who are disabled? Will screen-readers be able to read these documents? If not, will major corporations bother using this? If so, what's to stop the screen reader from placing the content on the clipboard or in some other usable place?
Full-Featured GPL Web Hosting Control Panel
When I read this "Microsoft says this is in response to concerns from its customers about how to prevent sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands." and this "Forwarding is obviously the key issue," said Mr Pryke-Smith. "This puts control into the hands of the person sending the e-mail, as opposed to allowing the proliferation of messages.", the first thing that came to mind was, wouldn't GNUPG solve this problem? You encrypt the email with someone's key, so only they can read it. Theoretically (not technologically) isn't it the same idea?
In this picture what in the world is Bill holding in his hand? Bill - you nicotine fiend! I didn't know you were a smoker! Maybe this is a stock photograph from an image archive of Phillip Morris and Microsoft "Axis of Evil" merger discussions.
"One touch of Darwin makes the whole world kin." George Bernard Shaw
Ok, so lemme get this straight, the guy hypenated his name so it a) appears lower in the directory listing. Or b) becomes the most common sirname in the United States?
Ok there's always c) Mrs. Smith is not only his wife but his dominatrix and if he wanted to get that red rubber ball out of his mouth he had to do it once she OwNeD him.
I just encrypt all my outgoing email's with an md5 hash. That way, nobody's gonna snoop on my messages!
I'll forward it anyway. Bochs.
Does anybody know if you can mail an IRM email to a non-IRM email reader -- ie, Outlook to Pine? I mean this looks like a rather bold attempt to hijack a good portion of the email readers. If you think about it, if companies start to require IRM emails, then that will trickle down to the home user. Following the same logic, then people could be forced to switch away from their tried and proven email clients to a M$ one. It just stinks of problems for me.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
i gave up on outlook back with O2k, my dad still uses it (he's too damned attached to it, and it does run his one man business), otherwise i use eudora (win2k), squirllmail (anywhere) or Evo on the penguin. this is a bad thing, glad i don't do MS, i have a feeling that my pal over at bitdiddles, who installs windoze servers for a living (him = MCSE...) is gonna have a field day with this one. I'll just stick to OpenOffice thank you, does everything M$ can do and is faster, cheaper, etc and outputs PDF without even thinking.
Logistical Chaos Officer http://www.slagg.org - LAN Gaming in Sarasota FL,USA
...we can't answer your subpeona with any e-mails; we can't read them."
"Because forensic examination of the subject's computer failed to find any evidence of child pornography distribution..."
Of course there is a back door. Attorneys in civil suits and law enforcement need it.
I am a researcher who has blown a huge hole in the Microsoft IRM technology in Office! [Prt Scr] + [CTRL+V]
What, you say? They'll release a patch to prevent me from using Print Screen? Good thing digital cameras take good pictures of LCD monitors.
Or, even worse, I can use a pen and paper to copy the document manually!
Then again, this is Microsoft... can we really expect them to store this in memory in some protected form? (maybe they will, but I doubt it)
And I wonder if this runs under Linux... maybe the viewer will work under Wine, but who knows.
Crap the Microsoft DMCA lawyers are after me...... aaaaaargh!
I think that the point is that, yes you can copy the text (by hand, OCR, or whatever), but when you do that, you remove the headers, and thus any association with the original sender. Headers can provide legal evidence of sender and recipient, and can prove a chain of communication existed. This is as much a plausible deniability tool, as it is a secrecy tool.
Microsoft has been burned a few times in court cases due to emails. That wouldn't have happened if either the emails themselves had automatically become unreadable due to expiry, or if it was simply the text of the email, without the incriminating headers. Without the headers, the text of the email is just hearsay.
Copy + Paste.
to call people who mail Word documents idiots.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
Besides the holes they have had (which are patched), my one beef about Outlook is that you cannot, so to speak, unpatch the patch. I had someone wanting to send me a EXE file and bloody Outlook has NO WAY that I can find to temporarily disable the blocking of EXE attachments. Probably the easiest way around it is to have the sender resend to a Hotmail account, or send you the exe in a zipped format. I realize why they block exe's (mostly to protect stupid users from themselves), but why can't I disable it for like 10 minutes or so and have it re-enable itself or something. This is a royal pain in the butt when your trying to get something done.
Gorkman
Let me inquire from a crowd that would know.
How often in the Star Trek universe, from which we derive designs for membrane keypads and restaurants and flip-top cell phones among other things, does one hear the terms "intellectual property", "rights management", "file permissions", or any other such claptrap? Not that I worship at the feet of Roddenberry, but the general sci-fi vision of the future is usually more predictive than fantastical. I find that "access denied" occasionally answers requests for ship schematics or command functions, but even personal logs and communiques are commonly shared on these shows. Just curious.
-j
Hell, take a picture of the screen with your digital camera...
so this DRM thing really couldn't stop me much.
(hint: it has a built in camera)
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Let me see MSFT gets embarrassed over old emails in a few lawsuits and suddenly they come out with an email program that self-destructs email and won't let other people read/forward the email. It sounds like a CYA feature for MSFT to say what they want and keep incriminating statements out of court.
... well damn if they just didn't delete themselves. I want to obey that court order, but this computer? (shrugs)." So, it will be harder for people to police corporate behaviour, and it wasn't easy to police when you had discovery of internal memos.
Imagine how much the tobacco companies would have loved it if their reports and internal memos could have been kept out of court. (Not that that would have stopped billion dollars jury awards. Public opinion had turned against them.) That is just one example.
It seems like we are entering an era where "smart" companies will be able to hide their criminal or tortious behaviour using DRM. "Sorry your honour. I'd love to open that email as you ordered, but it can't be printed or forwarded, and the other emails
Yes, either this feature breaks Windows Terminal Services, reducing the functionality of the whole system - or it is ineffectual.
--jeff++
ipv6 is my vpn
Maybe Microsoft just wants to keep their e-mail from falling into the hands of opposing lawyers who might use it against them.
I can see it now.
If you are willing to take actions that could have major legal or financial ramifications, just on a verbal agreement or an email, you should understand the risks and cover your ass accordingly.
"Do it now or else you are fired" should be the last conversation you have with ANY supervisor.
Obviously they are tring to force companies to use e-mail services from MS too !!, I need a passport to send an email ?? damn no !!, I do have one, but I dont care about it, I have it because I made a hotmail account before it was from MS
so, is my evolution going nuts after I recieve a "restricted" e-mail from any msOffice 2003 ?? , I dont think so
I'm positive, don't belive me look at my karma
It seems to me that MS is counting on the rest of the world to allow the extension to go unfettered. If enough of us choose to stop it, it will flip this whole thing on its arse. Lets start configuring mailservers to bounce any emails send with this kind of attachment. While we are at it, lets get mozella and other mail software to do it too. They can bounce the message with something along the lines of "This message contains encoding that is not compatible with this mail server. You will need to resend your message without the DRM for it to be processed." Short, sweet, and will be enough of a pain to stop it. Especially if AOL / Yahoo were to get on board with it.
This will put a stop to unauthorized transmission of information too stupid to cut and paste! It's about time Microsoft moved to punish the clueless market segment.
Oh wait, they've been doing that all along.
In all seriousness, though, I wonder if the decision-makers at MS know that this is a useless feature being used as marketing fluff, or if they really are dumb enough to believe their own hype.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Lotus Notes (now Domino) has had this "feature" for five years!
Now, I hate Lotus Notes as much as the next person who is forced to use it at work, but I think Lotus deserves credit for this. Its documentation even says that it is "not a security feature", because it is so easily bypassed. Contrast IBM honesty to MS hype.
This isn't email, this is a server based document viewing system. Email is a system of forwarding text from one computer to another through at least one email server. It can have attachments, and even shiny graphics. But it is a message that has been sent.
It stores the material on the server, and truely just sends a notification to someone. The notification itself is email, but that's where email ends and DRM begins. Since the email is really just a link to a server where the document can be viewed, it can't be viewed by "untrusted" platforms.
This is why these emails are only accessible by people with certain operating systems that can be "trusted". Since they can never truely lock out any MS OS short of W2K or XP (arguable on those as well), they aren't going to have a client for anything else. Even with these you'll have to have the client DRM software. You know the software that intercepts calls for things like "print screen", the software that could only be written in Redmond?
This is one way for Microsoft to get the masses to install DRM enforcement software. You know that new job your looking at? The one that requires completing paperwork through a DRM compliant system?
There is a reason that this feature requires Server 2003 and so on, it is because it is an interlocking and interdependent license obtainment system. So the question becomes, since this isn't email, what do you call a centralized document viewing system?
Our Network administrator sent this out last week. Apparantely the new Outlook 2003 client is not backwards compatible with older versions of exchanger server.
Attention All Employees:
Until further notice, Outlook 2003, which was just recently released on the market, should not be installed on any company computer system. It must not be used to access your Outlook/Exchange Email accounts. This applies to all companies, all locations, all laptops, and all home PC's used to connect to your company email. This also includes any new PC's or Laptops purchased that have Outlook 2003 pre-installed. If you now have, or in the future aquire, a PC or laptop with Office 2003 installed, please contact the IT department to ensure that Outlook 2003 is removed and a previous version is installed before attempting to access your email account.
If any individual uses Outlook 2003 to access their email account, Outlook Web Access (OWA) will stop functioning for everyone. The subsequent remedy would require Outlook 2003 to be removed, the email account accessed would have to be completely deleted from the server and reinstalled from scratch, and the server would need to have some components re-installed. That is not a very pleasant prospect.
I understand that some individuals are always excited about having the very latest software available. But there are several previous versions that still provide full functionallity and allow you to effectively perform your job functions. In this case installing the "latest and greatest" software has proven to be very detrimental to our systems. While the permanant fix is not yet available, I appreciate your cooperation in preventing these problems by refraining from using Outlook 2003.
Thank You.
Network Manager
I dug around until I found the licensing page for Windows Rights Management. You have to have a "Rights Management Service Client access license" on top of the normal Windows 2003 CAL. Which is $37 a seat! That's pretty expensive for enterprise use. Plus if you want to use it over the internet, you need a "rights management connector license", which will run you $18,000 per server. That's a lot to pay for something that basically provides nothing more than peice of mind.
i must be in rear form today. a second m$ posting, and a second reply to the time sink m$ is becoming.
openOffice has no such limitations. children use it for their homework, non-computer users use it with mozilla to communicate their thoughts.
it looks like m$ is in the process of removing the 'p' in 'pc'.
So does this mean that if my company uses DRM-ized email and a private key server, I cant read it at home on Kmail?
Or if a friend gets 2003 home edition and uses passport for his key server.....
Regardless of any potential 'good' uses, it sounds like an exerting of monopoly power to control a related market.
Email should not be tied to a single vendor, haven't they heard of standards?
What is next, preparatory web pages? ( yes that was a joke. I know they exist now.. ' you must use IE version bla bla to view this web page ' )
What about DRM-ized word documents.. when the powers that be decide I cant have a document that shows how ludicrous gun control is it goes *poof*? ( or anything else that is legal to speak about now, but becomes 'banned speech' later )
Another step away from free speech...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Maybe that's just my paranoia, but assume for a moment that they implement it in a silly way (instead of mstnef), i.e. with an X-Do-not-forward header or something like that. Then every non-Outlook email program that doesn't have a full implementation of these extensions is a circumvention device (though not for the /sole purpose/ as the DMCA reuqires).
:-)
Maybe we should implement that first for Mutt and then we sue MS for circumventing our "security system"
Does anybody know any details of how MS's system works? Is it some special attachment or something like that?
Long enough that you couldn't copy it, word for word, in less than 3 minutes?
It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.
For this reason, I think there is going to be an increasingly large backlash against Microsoft and other organizations out there that are pushing all this DRM bullshit.
Answer to this reply from the bench. Mister X would you please step down and surrender yourself to the Bailiff. Bailiff, Please charge Mr. X with wilful destruction of evidence and escort him to a holding cell. It's magic!, instant criminal charge for what was a civil case!. Thanks Microsoft! To paraphrase another poster Technolgy giveth what technology takes away!
If it just disables prntscrn while that window is in focus, could you not just create an app that fills the screen which is just a huge transparent box? Though I suppose it would just cover the document when its own window is not in focus similar to chips challenge or something.
Just hold down the "Shift" key when opening your email and you can bypass all this DRM stuff!
When working for a company that treats its employees right, when someone recieves and email with red text on top saying "Confidential" and forward/clipboard/printing disabled, they know this information is to stay inside. It's still circumventable for whistleblowers and people who really want to get around it, but loyal employees won't acidentally print it to read on the train home in public, etc.
Hey, if DRM helmets are one step forward to getting full-immersion VR, where I can have sex with seven ladies at once, I'm all for it!
Come to think of it Steve, I've taken a photo of it with my digicam, here's the jpg.
I don't know how many people are still fighting spam the old-fashioned way, analysing headers, tracerouting, forwarding results to proper abuse departments. But if a piece of spam comes that you can't copy, print or forward, that avenue is pretty much dead and gone.
"Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity." - Marshall McLuhan
Disabled.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
From RFC 1911 section 4.2 (Message Header Fields)
:) Wonder if they are embracing, or extending....
Sensitivity
The sensitivity header, if present, indicates the requested privacy level. The case-insensitive values "Personal" and "Private" are specified. If no privacy is requested, this field is omitted.
If a sensitivity header is present in the message, a conformant system MUST prohibit the recipient from forwarding this message to any other user. If the receiving system does not support privacy and the sensitivity is one of "Personal" or "Private", the message MUST be returned to the sender with an appropriate error code indicating that privacy could not be assured and that the message was not delivered [X400].
Yes it's X400, but there is prior art on this.
i'd hit it.
The above ONLY apply if you use Microsoft's public key server. You can run your own server in-house. So the anti-Microsoft zealots can sit back down.
Whereas Office can cost hundreds of pounds, OpenOffice can be downloaded for free over the internet.
at first when i read that, i thought it said..
Whereas Office can cost hundreds of pounds, OpenOffice can weigh hundreds of pounds.
or, here's an attachment of an AlT+PrtSc I took of the email... have fun.
"Teachers leave us kids alone
I can see it now. I purchase some downloadable software and the company emails me the registration information (download URL, serial number, etc.) in a "self-destructing" email.
I later need to re-install the software and "boom" the email is gone. Real nice.
I tend to keep registration emails for future reference. this system could potentially screw customers.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
I like to keep archived email online so that I can easily reference it from anywhere through my web-based email account.
Now, say I change to a different email proveder and I simply want to forward all my email to the new provider for safe-keeping. Not gonna happen if all the emails are "forward-protected."
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
What happens if I receive one of these emails, using my (non-Microsoft) Web-based email account? Will I be able to read it? Seems like I won't. Yet another example of Microsoft writing their own "standards".
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
OK, OK, obviously the market for this is companies that are tired of internal emails being leaked to sources outside the company ... competitors, journalists, analysts, etc...
Hearsay like you describe is a lot less damning than having an actual copy of the email.
Breakfast served all day!
[x] For Linux zealot's eyes only. [x] Post Anonymously
"dear Joe Average Employee,
..and there we go.
please do . If you won't do it I'll fire you.
sincerely,
your Boss."
if Joe goes to court then Microsoft COULD unlock the mail - but what if the mail was deleted? How can Joe Average prove what the Boss told him? How can he even compete with the Corporation Lawyers?
And why it will be widely adopted:
- new worms scaring people
- FUDs from microsoft
- new fancy things
- office 2003 will come with DRM enabled by default
- corporations will get discounts on it
- no more support for "older" version
I'm sorry I have to live in such a sad world.
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
Microsoft is trying to spread this like a "cancer" (hint hint) as people start down-grading to the next gen of office, other people wont be able to read email from them anymore, this will lead to these people eventually giving up and going to Microsoft. Ofcourse if they think students will pay 120 for that crap then Bill Gates must be on crack, but even if people do pirate it it will like giving in. Microsoft will then tie this into "licensed" emailing to reduce spam and will be seen as the good guys for it.
Just hope we can crack this bull-shit attempt at DRM in record time:P
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
One of the few intelligent posts here. Hmmm, the legal stuff itself is very worrying. Wonder what MS's legal team .... oh wait .... marketing rules all, the legal team may not even know about it.
Bitter and proud of it.
Heh. I think that's an understatement.
e-mail. Hypersnap DX and an OCR scanning program. that's that.
And even if people are able to circumvent it, they are not going to be able to plead "oops" if they get busted. In fact, wouldn't circumventing it contravene the DMCA?
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
i went to the office 2003 launch today and learned all about it. they demonstrated that none of it worked.
.net passport. that would probably be for PUBLIC email that you wanted to control. for internal mail, you run your own drm server against which the mail recipient authenticates.
i didn't, however, see any mention of requiring a
Can't you just cut&paste?
Please don't call it DRM management.
DRM stands for Digital Rights Management, and putting management after it is redundant, just like NT Technology, and PIN Number.