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."
Trying to make bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet.
-- Bruce Schneier
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.
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If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
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?
And there you have it. There is a back door in this here DRM technology, "just in case" of course... So not only is this technology flawed, even by DRM standards, but the necessary tools to circumvent it will be hitting your local dodgy site in 5... 4...
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
>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.
If anything, this may give stupid senders a false sense of security. They may think "Well, since I put limits on this email it will never get out." Right. What about copy/paste? Ok, they probably disable copy/paste in the window context. What about a print-screen/snapshot of the entire email? Paint Shop Pro would certainly do the trick.
Also funny was the line "Microsoft says a free viewing program will be available for those who receive a protected document but are not using Office 2003." Yeah, I'm sure there'll be one available for Linux. Doesn't matter. If someone sends me a non-standard email that I can't read it goes to the bit bucket. I may or may not ask them to send it again.
The free viewing program is brilliant.
Phase 1: Create an e-mail format only your program can read.
Phase 2: Use that leverage to force organizations using the products of your competitors (e.g. Lotus) to switch to your product.
Phase 3: PROFIT!
I don't think that there needs to be a way to query the recipient. Probably this will entail some sort of public key encryption system ala PGP, but unlocked by that ever secure .NET Passport instead of something that you control. Included in the encrypted message will be rules that state what the client program may or may not do with the message, including reading, replying, and forwarding. Apparently, the message may also contain a 'self-destruct' order that instructs the client to destroy it's copy if it meets certain requirements. Who knows if it's only the requirements set by the creator of the content.
Now, this only works if the client plays by the rules. To ensure this, only Microsoft created clients will be able to read the messages. Well, that's the idea at any rate. I leave it to you to ponder whether or not Microsoft's new system can be broken.
Now, having gotten the method out of the way, this brings up some serious issues for we in the OSS movement and for society at large.
Microsoft has stated that there will be a free viewer available that can read these messages. Note that's a viewer, not a true email client. Users of this viewer will not be able to send messages in the same fashion. It is very possible that they will not be able to do anything with the message other than view it, regardless of whether copyright controls contained therein allow for forwarding. Obviously, if you want to be able to use the messages sent to you by someone else, you must use a Microsoft product. That means that you must run Microsoft Windows. Given that Microsoft only makes software for Windows and Macintosh, and will be dropping support for the Mac, I must conclude that this is simply yet another way for Microsoft to control the market, and stifle competition.
Finally, to satisfy the requirements of my moniker, I should point out that Microsoft will be able to read these messages via it's Passport system. Therefore, by extension, the U.S. government will also be able to read those messages. Don't believe the crap that Microsoft is trying to sell you. This is not about you being able to control what happens to your content (as implied in the article by that bleeding heart story about the woman who sent embarassing material to her irresponsible boyfriend). No, this is about Microsoft controlling what you do on your computer with software that you own. It is also about the government being able to monitor your communication.
No matter how many of my rights are taken away, somehow I still don't feel safe. -Frigid Monkey
When I worked in corporateworld, casually forwarded emails made up about 50% of my total email workload - I must have wasted about an hour a day on that crap. Sure it's a problem!
Of course, it doesn't look like this new MS stuff is going to solve that problem, as most people aren't going to bother to specify the 'no forward' option. In fact, I think that there isn't really a technological solution - it's a cultural issue.