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Metadata in Vista Could Be Too Helpful
linumax writes "Windows Vista will improve search functionality on a PC by letting users tag files with metadata, but those tags could cause unwanted and embarrassing information disclosure, Gartner analysts have warned. Search and organization capabilities are among the primary features of Windows Vista, the successor to Windows XP due out late in 2006. While building those features, Microsoft is not paying enough attention to managing the descriptive information, or metadata, that users can add to files to make it easier to find and organize data on a PC, according to Gartner. 'This opens up the possibility of the inadvertent disclosure of this metadata to other users inside and outside of your organization,' Gartner analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald wrote in a research note published on Thursday."
Yes, it is a beta product. Which means someone within M$ is wondering why it hasn't shipped, yet.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
.. about what MS decides to incorportate in its proprietary platform. The more user-hostile, privacy-invading, insecure, and unreliable it is, the more people will finally realize that MS completely sucks and will consider taking the bit of extra effort that MS currently makes necesarry for them to choose to use something *other* than MS. And once enough people choose away from MS, the more people will support the rights of end-users to have a market that isnt monopolized by one vendor.
So go ahead, MS, fuck over your customers in any way that you want to, or are paid by RIAA/MPAA/BSA to. The more you fuck them over, the less customers you will have, and the better the overall health of software technology will be.
You have to put up with a certain amount of fucking over to stick with MS, It just seems that some people are willing to take more than others and still remain loyal. Of course some poor ignorant fools will stick with them till the end, and I pity them.