Slashdot Mirror
Phoenix DRM Reads Your E-Mail
martensitic writes "eWeek reports that Phoenix has developed a utility allowing users of its laptop DRM BIOS (last discussed here) to 'check their Outlook data on a notebook computer without needing to boot the machine.' Since Longhorn is still several years away, Pheonix is developing their own trusted apps to sell the BIOS to laptop manufacturers. One can only imagine what other innocuous bells and whistles will be used to leverage DRM onto Joe Laptop's machine."
It's not like the BIOS transmits info anywhere else or logs keystrokes. It's seems to be a quick boot access method to get to your PIM data. And, quite frankly - its ABOUT BLOODY TIME.
Even with a fast 2 gig PC its hard to convince the family to use the contacts database instead of the paper version- takes too long to boot, logon, load the app. Sheesh, it seems as if this type of information access is going backwards these days. The faster the hardware gets, the more bloated the software gets.
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
Zawinski's Law strikes again.
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
Ignoring the various 'Good God what else could they do' responses, do yuo *really* care about the 10 seconds or so it takes to come out of hibernation mode ? Enough to want DRM h/w on your machine ?
Really ? Good for you. I don't.
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Now I can write an Outlook virus that takes out the system BIOS
Why get such a BIOS? Increase BIOS complexity and you will end with a heavy, buggy bios. KISS!
I, for one, welcome our old great Award BIOS!
but with the prevalence of viruses and spam factory trojans contracted via the inboxes of lusers, this may be a case of lesser of two evils. *If I can disable it* then I don't mind.
How dare such a potentially privacy infringing combination be developed? I find it sickening that this could allow someone else to go through my emails about generic viagra.
Ah, it allows me to access my Outlook data. Very good. But does it allow me to connect to the net and retrieve new data for viewing?
--
The last digit of pi is four.
Now my BIOS can get a virus from LookOut emails. Wonderful! That's progress. :-)
Now viral e-mail can spread even when your computer's down.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The NSA has been reading my email for years! :-P
'check their Outlook data on a notebook computer without needing to boot the machine.'
Sounds like another Outlook virus.
Open Source BIOS anyone? Prohibitively expensive? Administratively impossibile? Too geek even for /.?
Why just Outlook data? Why not extend this idea further. I dont USE Outlook, so I want my BIOS to enable me to check my Eudora mail, engage in ICQ, MSN-MSGR, and AIM chat, check the weather, stock quotes, movie times, and train schedules from my favorite web sites. To support all these things of course, my BIOS would need to bring up a sophisticated operating system... lets call it 'Bindows'. This 'Bindows' would be rather large, so it will need the ability to 'hibernate' quickly and wake up from hibernation quickly.
Yes, this will be great.
Much better than what we have now...
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
With 20 second hibernation restores, are people really so pressed for time that they have to read e-mail from their fricken bios? Leave the bios alone. Bioses generally work fine, are feature packed, and nowadays don't give people problems. If manufacturers need to diferentiate their products they should add usefull features like DVD and mp3 cd playing without booting. These sort of features are for when I am generally not sitting at the computer but just looking at the screen, usually saving the battery life or perhaps noise level (media pc anyone?) If I wanted to read e-mail I would just boot and read e-mail.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Ok, so here's what they do. They enable access to MS outlook information (address book, email etc) without having to go through the entire boot sequence.
That means, your anti-virus product hasn't been launched yet, but you can still read that funny mail telling you to "see this amazing attachment".
It also means, that they're basically providing an API to the outlook address book. That means, if you can fake that you're really just the BIOS requesting the information, you can make a virus that can access all the information it needs - undetected.
Some might call this a feature. Other might call this Yet Another Reason To Avoid Phoenix And Outlook.
Underholdning.info
Now instead of having .8243 seconds to find the bios config key you also will have to stare at your monitor to find the new mail key ( followed by reboot since time to enter function has long passed and the OS is almost up)
Whats A sig anyway
I really get the feeling they're trying any old tactics to sell Joe Public the idea of DRM.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Hopefully the big manufacturers don't use Pheonix and come up with thier own (or continue using their own, whatever the case).
/Even/ if it did happen, I doubt the EU would let it go far. So even if the corrupt US lets MS win, I can buy a web proxy in the EU for surfing. Sucks, but it's better than losing my right to choose.
I find it real hard to believe IBM will allow DRM to get to the point where Linux is unusable/"untrusted" on a machine.
I also find it hard to believe that Microsoft will be able to lock the internet down to the point where only Windows workstations can get to websites anyways.
Daniel
I can read my email without booting any of my computers. My email is stored on the server so it's available to me, (and probably anyone else that's so inclined), at anytime. ///Security, Ha!!!\\\
Well hell just tell them not to shut down the pc. Damn that was tough.....
Got Code?
Since it is instant on and negotiates with my 802.11b to grab emails in only a few seconds.
Surely this has,if nothing else, the potential to simply create more problems than it solves?
/.? :P
Solved: Annoying need to wait for a few seconds while my machine comes out of hibernate mode.
Problem: A plethora of BIOS destroying viruses and worms, spread by email, capable of rendering whole systems useless.
Given the (frankly silly) amount of worms circulating in today's email, would this really produce a worthwhile benefit? I fail to see how this produces more good effects than bad. If you really, honestly, have such a pressed schedule that you can't wait for your machine to come out of hibernate mode then
a) You need a less pressing job
and
b) What are you doing on
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
id rather my bios just connected the HD and not actually read data from my files thanks
what happened to doing a task but doing that task really well
if writing the bios is simple enough that you have time to add applications then just drop the price, my alternator for my car doesnt include extras with it just does its job cheaply and well
this could be convienent. It bypasses windows logon to get the data directly. If for some reason, that's toast, at least you've got your information. One would hope that things are set up in a manner where this is of nearly trivial importance. But there are those situations where those vital e-mail responses written but not sent (or what have you) might be retrieved from the last gasp of a hard drive.
The vulnerability of the BIOS to manipulation by this data is something of a remote concern, and the complexity introduced has it's issues, as many have said. But there are rare times when this could be damn convienent. Of course if you have one of these laptops and sensitive information, a little more encryption is probably in order, which immediately dispenses with the advantages, but hey....
BIOS: Acronym for Basic Input-Output System
s/Basic/Bloated/
I'm a chainsmokin' alcoholic sociopath, so-ci-o-path
POST
BIOS initialization
Nag Screen Asking you if you want to read your email or continue to boot.
Nag Screen Asking you if you want to read your email or continue to boot.
Nag Screen Asking you if you want to read your email or continue to boot.
Nag Screen Asking you if you want to read your email or continue to boot.
Then you come back to your new computer with your cup of coffee expecting to see your Windows desktop...
You hit the NO key, which is a combination of CTRL-SHIFT-N-Enter keys.
Nag Screen Asking you if you are really sure you want to boot into the OS, because you can read your email from the BIOS.
You confirm by contorting your hands and hitting the combination of keys confirming that you really want to boot into the OS.
The comptuer boots and you enter Windows, check a few web sites and then check your email.
Who the heck is going to use this? This seems like that 'wonderful' push technology that MS pushed so many years ago that turned out to be something nobody wanted.
It's like the new "2-Stroke Gasoline Engine Powered Toothbrush". Sure, it might be more powerful then a plain old battery powered toothbrush, but nobody wants that stinky gasoline exhaust smell in the morning, plus it brushes to 'well' that the enamel on your teeth is removed after one use...
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Use your PDA for storing contacts, not the PC?
--
This sig is inoffensive.
Where can I buy one of these crippled computers?
So is there any way I can erase and use that 200Mb BIOS that it's going to take to cram in Outlook?
I thought that's what we had the FBI for?
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
BIOS - Basic Input Output System
What does checking Outlook email have to do with _Basic_ Input or Output? Why don't they keep going and put a spreadsheet in the BIOS while they're at it?
From someone who did, once, inadvertantly flash a bios with the wrong firmware and have to go though the hell that ensued to get a new firmware chip....the idea that the BIOS can directly connect to potentially damaging information is downright frightning. Imagine the potential if they allowed dynamic updating (think windows update), and the hell that could ensue if someone figured out how to hack its updating system.
Perhaps those email-hoxes of old about a virus completely destroying your computer were actually profetic.
Chris Knight is my hero.
Because they don't care for the average person, who can't tell a BIOS from an OS etc. Although reports have shown they discontinued their phone-home-BIOS a while ago, but this is part of their history:
cexx.org/phoenix.htm
Screw those who don't know any better, while they can.
I guess that's the reason why the original IBM PC BIOS contained a BASIC interpreter?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Wow nice that is something I do once a year.
Got Code?
I've read elesewhere that all this is doing is making use of an Outlook "extension" that, on a regular basis COPIES data from Outlook to a seperate area that the "quick check" application in the BIOS can access.
So really, saying that it's providing "access" to Outlook data is slightly misleading. It's actually providing BIOS data to a "shadow" copy of the Outlook data
Come to think of it, it has a Phoenix BIOS. http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/Compaqtabl etpc/us/download/19800.html
"
The QuickLook Utility is a collection of components which allow the user of a Tablet PC model listed below to quickly and conveniently view their personal information manager (PIM) data without booting the tablet all the way up into the operating system."
They probably thought "basic" stands for Visual Basic.
My guess the next thing will be DRM bios in the read only memory, not reflashable. Or bios divided into ROM and flash part, DRM in ROM part of cause. How likely is it that non-ROM bios will be made illegal and posseion of ROM burning equipment will require license ?
RTFA, it will require a plugin in Outlook which basically will export your email to a flat ascii file which can be read by the BIOS. Not exactly the invention of the century, but I guess reasonably practical. If they make the fileformat open, you can program a linux version!!
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
Except none of those technologies actually *exist*. Check Google. That should be obvious, but hey, someone modded this "informative"...
I usually don't have anything much to add, but at the risk of being shown how insignificant my thought is....
Isn't running an "app." from the BIOS kinda like running an OS on a RAM drive? With this technique, isn't the BIOS is just a read-only image of a low-end OS to run a single app?
I mean, when RAM drives are cheap, won't everything be similar to this, except a full-blown OS will run? If so, I'm not sure this has much to do with DRM at all, FWIW. Orthogonal, anyone?
Clemmitt
sigfault (core dumped)
Wait a minute. What you seem to be implying, is storing an OS in a fast (?) non-volatile ram is a bad idea.
:) Hard Drives are slow. ;)
I think this idea, taken to the extreme, is a Good Idea.
I really also even question what we need a "BIOS" for, anyway. It seems.. so.. stupid. It's like a little OS loaded before the real OS is loaded. Is just it me, or is that really stupid?
Why are we surprised about Phoenix mucking up our BIOS? It's not like they haven't done similar things before. Don't any of you remember what they tried to do? You think PhoenixNet was dead until now.
/ 2039216.shtml0 486.html
cexx.org/phoenix.htm
slashdot.org/yro/01/06/19
www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/2
I don't understand why anybody in their right mind still retrieves their mail through a clientside app. Use webmail people! I put squirrelmail on my server and I've never had an email related virus on my windows machine since.
So its not the lesser of two evils, its just one of a bunch of bad alternatives when there are good ones about.
This just says to me that Phoenix is in trouble financially. They make what is essentially a commodity item that is becoming increasingly obsolete. There's no great innovation in the BIOS market because no one really uses the BIOS like they used to. So they're trying to cram new features into it.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
They weren't kidding, were they? The corollary is, then, that all devices evolve until they can read email.
I've been thinking for years about what it would take to get the BIOS to scan the PCI bus, find a network card, hook it to some memory registers, and allow port access. This could be described as a BIOS edition of NetBus or Sub7. Considering that a fully functional terminal program can be written in less than 10k and current BIOS chips have at least 64kb (that I'm aware of) this isn't rocket science to figure that the opportunity is there. I think the most difficult hurdle would be to account for different wiring paths in different chipsets.
/., Symantec, or McAfee to finally get their hands on one and make it public.
Honestly, I can't imagine that it hasn't been done already. I'm just waiting for
Here in the US we *do* live in a police state, you know. And the Illuminati *are* worldwide.
Hehehehe...
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
... that the B in BIOS stands for BASIC
Why don't they just write an entire interface in the BIOS and scrap the OS completely? The BIOS should only be for settings in the hardware.
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
I don't see any p/w or other protection mentioned in the PIM-in-NSBIOS (Not So Basic I/O sys)... so now I'm gonna need a dongle to secure the data?
Amen to all who said vendors should leave the BIOS "basic."[this sig has been trunca
It's not like the BIOS transmits info anywhere else or logs keystrokes. It's seems to be a quick boot access method to get to your PIM data. And, quite frankly - its ABOUT BLOODY TIME.
With the coming of widespread wireless availability, the BIOS will soon be able to access your PIM data without needing to boot the full O/S *and* ship a copy of all your email off to the FBI/DHS/ATF/DEA/Microsoft without your knowledge.
And coming from the perspective of US government law enforcement personnel, quite frankly it's ABOUT BLOODY TIME.
I want my machine to do whatever I want it to do. When computers start to behave differently, I'll stop using them. Or I'll start looking for old C64 schematics! I can imagine my laptop shutting me outside my home. Or filling my police record! Do you remember HAL? :)
This just shows what a pile of crap the Windows portable architecture is. My Powerbook hasn't been rebooted since the last time I updated the OS (current 68 days ago). When I open the screen, it's ready to work in 10 seconds. It joins whatever wireless network is available and checks my mail, immediately. When I close the screen, it goes to sleep. This is in stark contrast to the legions of Windows laptop users I know that *know* about 'Hibernate' mode or whatnot but are mortified to use it since they're basically assured of a blue screen or other egregious crash as a result of doing so. But really, instead of fixing the problem, let's move important functionality to the BIOS. That'll be GREAT!
You guys are so behind, phoenix changed name to Firebird and then Firefox a looong time ago.
Hey! The BIOS and I have something in common!
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
Let Microsoft/Phoenix kill themselves.
Did not M$ learn any thing from the Intel serial number in the processor, killing there sells. The only reason that M$ does not want to do the DRM in the OS is that it does not want to have to share the APIs ( because of antitrust ) and can lock in people to M$ to look at there own documents if you go to switch to Linux that your will loose your documents.
I never implied anything about non-volatile RAM. The article is about a mini-OS in ROM or PROM. It's not the same thing at all. Whatever they stick in that PROM will be obsolete in weeks. I don't want an OS in my boot PROM. As you said, the whole "BIOS" is a stupid idea. The boot PROM should be a minimal bit of code that knows enough to read data from a boot sector on a hard disk, a CDROM, and a floppy, then execute whatever it found on that boot sector. Leave the rest up to the OS.
The right way to do what Phoenix is proposing (if it should be done at all) is to change the OS so that it has a 'fast boot mini-mode' that comes up right away without the entire 5 minutes of booting everything. But Phoenix doesn't make OSes, they make boot PROMs. So their solution is to put it in the boot PROM. I'm sure if this was "Subway"s idea they would put a mini-OS in a lean turkey sandwhich and issue a press release that it was a great idea.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
this is nothing but microsoft lock in - why aren't they doing it for other email readers.
trusted computing means microsoft only.
now phoenix can be brought in the monopoly suit as well.
I am getting so sick of the IT industry - I am really thinking of changing carreers.
thank god for linux - it keeps my sanity.
more M$ lock in
birth of new companies, or rise of small ones. Why ? because i will certainly prefer a bios with no crap built in, and many others like me, will create the demand for such computers. Even if most players in hardware scene prefer to sell "secured" products, there will be a huge demand for clean bioses and computers.
Remember what happened when overclocking became something that most guys at least wanted to try ? One by one, all motherboard manufacturers (except Intel of course) began to produce models that allowed better support for overclocking. Now it's easy to modify bus speed by a precision of 1 mhz or something if i'm not wrong. No jumper mess or other weird tricks are necessary ( i remember taping of some parts on my celeron 300 to have 2.4 volts)
So, MS or whomever supports this kind of movements will create a huge push for migration to more open systems. It's not hard to guess that all major apps will suddenly refuse to work on "untrusted" computers. So, that will create another great oppurtunity for open source software, for it'll possibly be the only option to work on "clean" computers.
So there is a strong possibilty forusers migrating to "open" alternatives, which may create a nice **ck y*u effect to MS and supporters of such "trusted" environments
"Perhaps those email-hoxes of old about a virus completely destroying your computer were actually profetic."
Well, those email-hoaxes about viruses spreading in email most certainly were prophetic.
Real life is overrated.
Once you start adding features like this, its no longer a BIOS, its a ROM based OS...
The role of a BIOS is just to provide a abstraction layer between the OS and the hardware ( ok, and to get the OS booted.. ).. thats it.. nothing more nothing less..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
has a built in SD slot....
if a laptop had a built in CF slot designed with intent, you could buy CF equal to your ram, and use it for your suspend/hibernate write out of memory instead of a drive, and it should run a damn sight quicker.. no?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
That "wonderful push technology" *was* very usefull for killing a company I once worked at.
Yes, that good old MS *innovation* at work again.
emt 377 emt 4
It will read your email, without you having to start your car!
You know you need that!
emt 377 emt 4
You read it here first.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Once you lick the lollipop of mediocrity, you'll suck forever!
All the Toshibas I have used have had a very simple sleep process:
1. Sleep
2. Awake
3. BSOD
Haven't had this difficulty with any PowerBook I've owned, and I've owned four, even the famous Exploding PowerBook 5300.
So yes, instead of fucking around with DRM, perhaps the BIOS makers would do better to make the fucking BIOS that's already there work. Perhaps.
sulli
RTFJ.
The parent poster is not actually being serious, he's suggesting improving Windows' hibernate/resume support to the point where you could turn the computer on and be where you left off in a matter of seconds.
Well, I thought it was kind of obvious, anyways.
With all their previous initiatives with MS that they are now a firmly entrenched MS shop now. Are there even other bios manufacturers anymore? And if so, which major MB manufacturers don't use pheonix bios so I can speak with my wallet?
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
If they keep this up, pretty soon you'll be able to turn your PC on, and it'll load an entire operating system!
Wait...
For a moment I thought this was about privacy issues with what is now "Firefox".
Would be a lot more useful if the BIOS booted your PC in about 5 seconds so you didn't need to bother with such silly BIOS features. Hibernation brings laptops out of standby fast, why not leverage this method to speed up the booting of PCs? sure you'd have to recreate the boot image in the flash ROM after an upgrade of system files, but that wouldn't take long.
But the original IBM PC BIOS was written back when the internet wasn't even a wet dream yet, and concepts like live updates weren't even born. Notice that the feature didn't live on into the 1990's. There's a reason for that.
Chris Knight is my hero.
As more and more services get implemented in BIOS, the more likely we will need to patch BIOSes for security problems. This is of course more difficult and risky than patching an OS.
m
I personally believe than services should be migrated away from BIOS altogether, and BIOS should only play a role in bootup.
some detail on BIOS and trusted computing can be found here
http://www.marzenka.com/trusted_computing_bios.ht
Lessee.... Software vendors are ready to sell us out to the marketers and anyone else; OS vendors (okay, "vendor") are ready to sell us out; even BIOS vendors are ready to spy on us. Maybe we need a GNU BIOS project.
Maybe I'll just go back to my Olivetti typewriter!
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
Use your PDA for storing contacts
But I'm not a homersexual, so I don't own a PDA.
the B in BIOS stands for BASIC
Then why do so few PCs have a ROM BASIC interpreter? It seems that some platforms have gone to Open Firmware, which could be termed FIOS, for Forth Input Output System. But imagine... VB.NET in ROM?
...unstable that you don't want to boot into it, or you can't sleep from it, then it might be useful to have this stuff in the BIOS. I recommend getting a decent OS installed.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
"You keep using that word!" the Spaniard snapped. " I don't think it means what you think it does."
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
That means, your anti-virus product hasn't been launched yet, but you can still read that funny mail telling you to "see this amazing attachment".
They aren't providing a Win32 api, none of the common Windows viruses will work.
That means, if you can fake that you're really just the BIOS requesting the information, you can make a virus that can access all the information it needs - undetected.
Except that it's probably easier to get at that information any other way. BIOS is in ring 0, virus is in ring 3. BIOS can do anything.
we keep extending the BIOS until it's a fully featured OS in it's own right
Not sure if you were aware of this when you said that, but Pheonix has plans to incorporate a browser into their BIOS's. So it looks like that means full internet connectivity built into their BIOS.
Why is this a bad idea to me? Well first is one of principle - they are duplicating the functionality of the OS. This offends every particle of my OO code reusing, database normalising, C++ memory conserving Soul... but it might not bother you.
The manifestations of violating this principle however are clearer. How far can we cut down the functionality for the BIOS version? If we have networking capability, HTTP protocol handling, filesystem handling (neccessary for a browser to download anything for keeps, cache anything, etc.) then hadn't we better include some firewall software in the BIOS. And if our BIOS is this sophisticated then we're going to have to improve on the basic nature of BIOS virus scanners. Where do we draw the line?
So yes - you are right in that you're starting down the road of a full OS in ROM and it looks like that's what they're planning.
Now much as I liked my old Spectrum 16k with it's ROM OS, and much as I liked the way it booted in 0.5 seconds, is it suitable to modern use? No! And the reason is that that ROM could never be upgraded.
Now a modern BIOS can be upgraded, but what we're talking about here is much more than the usual upgrade. Do you really want to be getting Security Updates for your BIOS in the same way you do for your OS?
And there is one other problem with this. And to many on
It's a whole new uphill struggle, just when you thought we'd got to the top.
Give me a simple BIOS that does the minimum. I'll have the OS do the rest.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
I mean, we've got the OpenBIOS project, Linux BIOS, and FreeBIOS.
Isn't it time to cut out the last bits of non-free software in the computer?
Evan Prodromou | evan@prodromou.name | http://evan.prodromou.name/
A better, and actually quite sensible, solution, would be to have a number of highly specialized mini-operating systems on your computer: One that runs in text mode and boots in a few seconds, for checking email, or remotely logging into another machine; one that boots even qicker, for taking notes at a meeting; another one for watching DVDs (I believe Linux is making inroads here already...); a third one with the capability of browsing simple web sites (no Java, Flash, etc.) Of course what I called different operating systems will probably just be one and the same operating system, with different services enabled. All that's needed is actually the possibility to start the OS in different configurations, and the ability to shut down all but the most essential services (which shouldn't be many).
My trigger finger is getting itchy, I really want to start the killing and maiming and martyring over DRM, trusted computing, and other facets of Fascist Amerika.
I'm serious. Let the bloodshed begin with a nuke on Washington.
it only going to be optional untill they get enough people on it. if they didnt make it optional they would scare away users like the pentium cpu id did (yey for AMD)
when its no longer optional, things will be alot harder for free software.
fortunately some other countrys are begenning to see bill for what he is. so the US may end up being the only country in the subtle orwellian nightmare. (maybe more huxly like, our chains will be golden)
unfortunately apple is too expensive for most people
Whilst the BIOS will show virus ridden email, it will not execute virus content,
When "showing the email" can mean rendering fonts, HTML, flash, images, and the like, the line between "executing" and "showing" gets blurred.
Hmmm... I don't know what it is, but the two machines I just tried it on came back up in 8 seconds and 10 seconds respectfully. Might it be that the machine cut costs somewhere on the hardware, slowing the process down?
FYI: The machine that took 10 seconds had a commit charge of 290MB.
He himself admitted it was an error, but a cool-sounding one. I wouldn't call it a "prediction" :-)
Freedom: "I won't!"
Wait, there's more:
- Phoenix DRM sells drugs to your kids !
- Phoenix DRM kills your dog !
- Phoenix DRM sleeps with your wife !
- Phoenix DRM lights your house on fire !
etc...
how about: This one?
"Phoenix DRM Reads Your E-Mail" is very misleading. I would recommend changing it as soon as possible. It is not "Your E-Mail" but only Microsoft Outlook data format on a Microsoft Windows partition and file system! I realize that uneducated people often say "e-mail virus" when they really mean "Microsoft Outlook virus" but this is Slashdot for god's sake, not FOX News!
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
I checked and this is true: I use Mutt on ext3 and it seems that I am safe, contrary to what the headline seems to imply. Please mod parent up. Very true.
I wouldn't call [Stephenson's BIOS expansion error] a "prediction"
Dr. Freud would have.
Modern laptops cache the video image that was visible upon shutdown and restore it to give the image of instantly waking up. The idea is that you aren't going to *do* anything significant for a bit of time after you see the thing awake, and during that time the rest of the wakeup can be finished.
Not that that's a misfeature -- it seems to work reasonably well -- but there's no way to "instantly" wake up a laptop. You have to read much of the contents of RAM back from the disk, one way or another.
May we never see th
The application cannot open or manipulate attachments, such as Adobe Acrobat .PDF files.
Every time there is an announcement made about something that is so very obviously a BAD thing we get people like this asshat, trying to pretend that it's a good idea.
People like this would praise prison rapists as freedom fighters who want to rid jails of constipation.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
In order for users to get the proper MS Outlook[1] experience the next version of the BIOS will support Visual Basic. :)
BTW: Phoenix has done spyware before.
[1] AKA Microsoft Lookout & MS Lookout Express.