Vista Security The 'Longest Suicide Note in History'?

rar42 writes "The Inquirer is reporting on an analysis of Vista by Peter Gutmann — a medical imaging specialist. This isn't the usual anti-Microsoft story — just a professional looking at what is going to happen to his computer if it is upgraded to Microsoft Vista. From the article: 'Windows Vista includes an extensive reworking of core OS elements in order to provide content protection for so-called "premium content", typically HD data from Blu-Ray and HD-DVD sources. Providing this protection incurs considerable costs in terms of system performance, system stability, technical support overhead, and hardware and software cost,' says Gutmann."

Comments

Unnecessary Decline?

[P(0)(!P(k) P(k 1))]

From TFA:

If I do ever want to play back premium content, I'll wait a few years and then buy a $50 Chinese-made set-top player to do it, not a $1000 Windows PC. It's somewhat bizarre that I have to go to Communist China in order to find vendors who actually understand the consumer's needs.

At first, I shared some cognitive dissonance with Gutman; China, however, is governed by Chinese and for Chinese: they're allowed to act in their own best interests.

The U.S., on the other hand, is beholden to parasites and corporations; and compelled into an unnecessary decline.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[ravenshrike]

China, however, is governed by Chinese and for Chinese *cough* I think you meant by Chinese Corporations for Chinese Parasites who also happen to hold government positions.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[Anonymous Coward]

The U.S., on the other hand, is beholden to parasites and corporations

*cough* I think you meant by Chinese Corporations for Chinese Parasites who also happen to hold government positions.

Fixed that for you, you quoted the wrong part of his post.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[StrawberryFrog]

China, however, is governed by Chinese and for Chinese

You meant to say: China, however, is governed by a few Chinese and for those Chinese.

they're allowed to act in their own best interests.

I'm not calling the Chinese government corrupt; I wouldn't know. But governing a county in your own best interest is generally neither good nor allowed, that is to say, it's illegal.

The U.S., on the other hand, is ... not all that different?

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[mjc_w]

But the way corporations get money is by spending money to get the power to do what they want. Corporations want power as much as politicians of any creed - they just have less scruples about how they will get it.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[Dunbal]

Simply put, without big countries there would be no wars.

      You are dreaming in colour. Wars happen in all sorts of countries. There have been FEWER wars amongst big countries in the past few hundred years, than little countries. Just the big ones (Napoleonic, Franco-Prussian, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf) tend to be noticed more. Pretty much the entire African continent has been continually at war since the European powers pulled out... these countries are so small they hardly get noticed on the international scene, yet war is happening all the time there. Your comment is unfounded. Sure, the big countries tend to back one side or other in these small wars, but they're not the ones that START them.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Simply put, without big countries there would be no wars.

Countries are simply an institutionalized form of tribalism. In their absence you still get religious warfare, economic warfare, ethnic warfare etc and so on. When hominids were barely off the trees, they immediately self-organized into tribes and proceeded to murder each other over ... just about anything. This is the "natural", genetically influenced, animalistic state of affairs. Peace and prosperity on the other hand are something that requires cognitive efforts to overcome these primeval tendencies. The current sorry state of global affairs, a result of millenia of "progress", should give you pretty good idea of the difficulty of that task.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

Nope, capital (American or otherwise) seeks profit.

Close, you stopped too soon. Capital also seeks a reduction of controllable risk. Ergo, capital seeks power in order to maximize profit, no fetish here.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[mhlo]

U.S. consumers need Chinese slave labor.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[Watson Ladd]

First China isn't really communist. Secondly, no free lunch only applies in Pareto optimal economies, which capitalism is not due to price externalities. Thirdly artists do not receive a lot of compensation for their work in the current system. Fourth, artists do it because they like it, not for the money. Look at George Cloony. Recently he did a period peice because he wanted to. He could have made a lot more money on a mainstream production but decided not to. Fifth, west Germany was a lot more socialist then the US. Sixth, having a large population that is largely shut out of the wealth is a great way to get a Roman political system where huge mobs get raised by rival politicians. It also increases crime. So while your point is good, it needs to be toned down as you overextended with your argument.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[Heir Of The Mess]

Just a thought, but living in a world where we aren't brought up to constantly need mind numbing entertainment spewed at us any time we aren't working might not actually be a bad thing. It seems that people's lives these days are getting dominated by the need to watch fictional lives on tv or at the movies. I think this can lead to people having unrealistic expectations about real life.

I digress though, back to the Chinese. I don't think their economy will be as dependent on Intellectual Property as the US economy is, so the effect you allude to probably won't eventuate so long as the Chinese have such a competitive manufacturing base. Even if it was to be a problem, I don't think that businesses any where in the world care too much past making lots of money in the next year. The Chinese Entertainment industry though is still emerging. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in the world over the next 20 years.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[BakaHoushi]

In the words of Douglas Adams:

People are a problem.

I think I just summed up this entire thread. As well as just about every news story on this (and any other) site.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[foniksonik]

you missed the point or corrupted for your own rant...

What he's saying is that the Chinese vendor knows that all you want to do is play the stupid media on your screen. Why does anyone want to use a Personal (general purpose) Computer to play HD content or games or whatever when a dedicated device can do it better, cheaper and easier... the fact that he references a Chinese vendor is simply a matter of liklihood that the manfacturer of the device would be in China (pretty good odds) not a commentary on anything else.

PCs should go back to being devices for people who need to do computing...

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[cgenman]

Eventually to maintain that growth they'll have to start protecting rights or they'll become a victim like they have been victimizing the rest of the world. How good do you feel paying $10 to see a movie so the Chinese can pay a $1 for a DVD?

It's funny you mention that. I was in Thailand not too long ago, and the price of a legal, licensed VCD was about $1. Legal DVD's were about $40, because they were a luxury item that only the rich could afford anyway.

Companies charge whatever the market will bear. If movie studios think they can get $10 out of an American audience to watch a movie, that's what they'll charge. It doesn't matter what's going on in China, except to say that they'll throw up all sorts of technical and legal barriers to importing their cheaper goods from that region. Likewise, a new CD in Brazil can cost 3 - 5 dollars. Again, legally.

China and other less restrictive countries are looked upon as bastions of IP freedom because there are some major ways in which they are. India, for example, allowed knockoff drugs for a very long time on the grounds that it was immoral to value western company's exploitive drug pricing schemes above human life. Go to Taiwan and *gasp* you can get DVD players that will let you play movies you have legally bought and paid for in any region of the world. You can get CD's in other regions of the world where the corporations convicted of illegal price fixing actually compete with local music companies and pirate CD creators to come to a more reasonable cost structure. Heck, until a few weeks ago you had to travel abroad to get the cellphone you've purchased unlocked from that one restrictive provider.

All of the above seem reasonable, but are completely banned in the US. It's nice to go to a country where the huge companies do not simply write whatever laws they want, but have to contest with the needs of the consumer, who have alternatives to the restrictive legal route.

China is also not communist, but that's another issue.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[BillyBlaze]

Interestingly enough, with unlimited goods such as copies of existing data, it's the reverse: if left to their own devices, people will excercise their right to trade freely with one another, and the only way to enforce Capitalism is at the point of a gun.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

All of the above seem reasonable, but are completely banned in the US. It's nice to go to a country where the huge companies do not simply write whatever laws they want, but have to contest with the needs of the consumer, who have alternatives to the restrictive legal route.

This sounds great and it got you a score of 5 for "insightful", but it's not true. Consumers are allowed, by US law, to import one copy of any CD, DVD or VCD they want for personal use. It's only when you try to get more than one copy of the same title that you run into potential legal issues. There were some court cases in the 1980s involving imported records and CDs and the US courts ruled that individuals may import one copy of any title for personal use, but if more than one copy is imported, it gets into sticky royalty payment issues. So despite what you think, it's certainly not illegal for US citizens to buy foreign CDs, VCDs and DVDs or to bring them back from trips. I do both all the time and never has US customs interfered with anything I have brought with me or had shipped through the mail.

It's also not illegal in the US to own a region free DVD player. Hollywood hates it and they fought against it, but there's no law against it. I'm no fan of the MPAA or RIAA, but it does no one any good to say that things are illegal when they are not.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[cgenman]

But it is illegal to source your store from overseas, as you point out. So as a US citizen you can buy music from overseas, but what you can't do is walk into a store that sells overseas music.

Likewise, it's not illegal to own a region-free DVD player, but actually getting one is very difficult due to other coercive forces on the market. And to convert an existing player to a region-free one is illegal under US law.

There are other ways the force of law can be brought against the free market rather than the direct "thou shalt not."

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[uradu]

> Companies charge whatever the market will bear. If movie studios think they can get $10 out of an American audience to watch a movie, that's what they'll charge.

Well, that's all great economics theory and all, but it doesn't seem to apply to the music industry. If it did, it would mean that declining CD sales would lead to lower prices, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Instead of adapting to the market, the industry appears to look for other reasons for the decline in sales, leading to legal and political machinations to preserve its old market at the old prices. It almost appears like the industry would prefer to go bankrupt than to follow established market principles.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[P(0)(!P(k) P(k 1))]

Kim Jong Il has almost zero funds, and yet retains power by personality.

Kim's funds may be insignificant in absolute terms; but relatively speaking, while the rest of North Korea is totally dark, he has enough money left over after his cognac, Segways and iPods to fund a nuclear program.

The effect of money is more insidious and less visible than “blind devotion;” instances:

• the Catholic church (in the middle ages),
• Hollywood.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[Damastus the WizLiz]

Any Artist that has enough money to afford a mansion and several cars is getting plenty of compensation.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[ReverendHoss]

Note: Not disagreeing with parent poster. Just elaborating/discussing. To look a little closer to home, and using the base definition of Communism as "From each according to ability, to each according to need", an example exists with the "traditional" American family.

The husband/wife work and contribute their paychecks. As kids grow up, they start contributing more and more to the household, doing chores and what not. Each member of the family takes what they need from the communal resources. At no point in time does a father tell their child "I'm sorry, son. We have enough money to pay for you to see the doctor, but you didn't mow the lawn, so your asthma goes untreated."

Yes, parents have more authority than the children, but they are given that authority under the assumption that they understand/know more than the child. Communism does not mean the lack of structure.

In short, Communism works. What it doesn't do is scale . Anything larger than a family usually doesn't last long. It certainly doesn't work at the national level, as shown by the fall of most Communist nations, and the Capitalization (is that even a word?) of the others.

What we're seeing is the expansion of economies from a national level with few trading partners to a global level is the scaling problems of Capitalism. More specifically Capitalism as we know it. These problems are scaring a HELL of a lot of people, as shown by the rise of socialist governments in South and Central America. The pro-China sentiment being shown is this fear magnifying the benefits of a Communist/authoritarian nation while glossing over the drawbacks. It will pass, eventually.

At least, IMHO. I wonder if the acronym IANAE(conomist) will start increasing in popularity?

Well then don't use it

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

You're not supposed to use a consumer grade OS for mission critical apps anyway. So if you went with a vendor that builds its apps on such an OS, then you are at fault.

Re:Well then don't use it

[ceoyoyo]

Unfortunately there's very little choice. The systems that run medical scanners tend to run some form of UNIX, and you can buy a workstation for a couple hundred thousand that will do the same thing, or you can use the hospital's PACS web front end... which in most cases works pretty much exclusively with IE.

Re:Well then don't use it

[Mike McCune]

Venders build mission critical apps on Windows all the time. It is easier to use what you know than the best tool for the job.

http://www.securityfocus.com/news/6767

The worst case I ever saw in person was at an assisted living facility. Their pull chains (that the residents pull when they are in trouble) was being monitored by a PC running Windows 95 (this was in 2006).

>You're not supposed to use a consumer grade OS for mission critical apps anyway. So if you went with a vendor that >builds its apps on such an OS, then you are at fault.

Dupe from Friday

[ahecht]

Same story at http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/22/172 7245

Re:Dupe from Friday

[SpaceLifeForm]

In this case, dupes are a good thing.

This attack on your freedoms needs to become widely known.

If they dupe this every other day until next June, it is good.

Re:Dupe from Friday

[tygerstripes]

If they dupe this every other day until next June, it is good.

If? You must be new here. Welcome to Slashdot.

Re:Dupe from Friday

[quentin_quayle]

I don't mind that it's a dupe. However, it is mis-titled.

It's not about Vista security. It's about Vista DRM.

The difference is that security is about the owner of the hardware establishing and protecting his control over it, while DRM is about a party A trying to claim some control over hardware belonging to another party B, on grounds that some pattern of bytes which A or a third party owns is currently instantiated, or might at some time be instantiated on B's hardware. When used for DRM, the term "security" becomes a meretricious euphemism designed to mislead an audience about who is securing what from whom.

Priorities

[bigberk]

For the kinds of purposes I'm interested in (research, science) this will make workers question the priorities of the operating system they are using. Is the priority to have maximum flexibility, performance, compatibility and extensibility (*nix) or to have maximum convenience for consumers (Windows).

Without a doubt, Windows is still the most convenient platform for consumers. But the priority behind the design is not purely performance and flexibility, but protecting content and other commercial interests.

We sure know the priority isn't security either

Re:Priorities

[kfg]

Without a doubt, Windows is still the most convenient platform for consumers. But the priority behind the design is not purely performance and flexibility, but protecting content and other commercial interests.

Houston; we have doublethink.

KFG

Re:Priorities

[diegocgteleline.es]

We sure know the priority isn't security either

In fact, if they only wasted the half of the time they wasted in DRM in security improvements...

I mean, if you read the DRM protection work...they completely redid everything that could break DRM, they break compatibility, they're even planning systems that need to re-do the hardware to require encryption on the *system*bus* just to keep hardware hackers from stealing contents at that place and hence making the DRM useless.....

If they had wasted all those efforts in improving security...vista would be the most secure consumer os available

Re:Priorities

[zCyl]

I mean, if you read the DRM protection work...they completely redid everything that could break DRM, they break compatibility, they're even planning systems that need to re-do the hardware to require encryption on the *system*bus* just to keep hardware hackers from stealing contents at that place and hence making the DRM useless.....

The message is clear. They believe their monopoly can be best maintained by catering to producers, rather than to consumers. Consumer choice is not driving that market.

Re:Priorities

[Dunbal]

Consumer choice is not driving that market.

      Consumer choice never drives the market in a monopoly situation. You get what I feel like producing, and you pay what I feel like charging. If you don't like it, tough.

Re:Priorities

[Deathlizard]

The message is clear. They believe their monopoly can be best maintained by catering to producers, rather than to consumers. Consumer choice is not driving that market.

And it's going to hurt them. probably long term and big time.

Zune is a failure vs Ipod because consumers don't want to deal with DRM everytime they want to listen to something, especially when there are hundreds if not thousands of music players that will play non DRM files. Including the Ipod.

Vista will fail for similar reasons. Business is happy with XP and will support it until Microsoft doesn't, and maybe adopt Linux after that. Consumers will only upgrade when they buy a new PC, and will stay around even after support is killed. if Apple starts opening their mouth about vista DRM screwing their music experience, they might just buy a Mac next time. Hell I don't know why Apple hasn't done a "Buy a Mac and get an Ipod Free" deal as of yet. It would definitely get a mac in the door faster.

It's looking the same way for office2007 business wise. I know we look at it and say to ourselves "training nightmare". I'm sure we're not the only ones saying that especially since our business is Higher education. I can only imagine what a commercial business is saying.

Apple and Microsoft had the power. They had the power to give both AA's the finger and work directly with the artists. They had the power to ignore them completely and let the users rip until the cows come home. They had the power to screw these Hi-def DVD formats until they relaxed the standards to work with existing hardware and software. Unfortunately, Apple seems to be giving the RIAA the finger while somewhat bowing down to the MPAA's HD lockdown Schemes, and MS is asking both AA's which lower cheek to kiss in a futile attempt to gain some more exclusive content that Apple's going to get anyway because their the market leader. Even then, all MS is really going to get in the end is more demands from the AA's when they could have easily just stayed the course they were going and force the AA's to conform to the digital age or die.

If there is any time for Apple and Linux to start pushing themselves, now's the time.

Re:Priorities

[donaldm]

If you need a home computer or laptop for research/science you definitely don't need MS Windows unless you have lots of money to legitimately pay for licenses for proprietary software (yes there is is freeware) and if you are a scientist or engineer your data is still effectively owned by Microsoft and/or Vendors who push proprietary solutions. This is definitely not what a professional person wants.

The reason why "MS Windows is still the most convenient platform for consumers" is it is installed on the PC (unless you build it yourself) prior to you getting it, there is little if any choice about it. Basically when you buy a PC you get MS Windows so most people don't know any better, "convenience" and "flexibility" does not even enter into it. With regard to "performance" I have always found a *nix machine to perform better than a MS Windows equivalent.

As far as protecting content and other commercial interests that is a huge joke since if you can "see it" or "listen to it" you can copy it so DRM is effectively useless here unless it is going to be used as a huge stick to beat the population into submission. Use too big a stick and allot a Politicians are facing political suicide.

It is a rare few (unfortunately) who click "No" to the "long winded" MS Eula (my colleagues thought it was quite funny) and then proceed to put a Linux OS on it and no, I did not make a duel boot since the problem with that is there is too much temptation to go back to using MS Windows so a fresh overriding install is best. There are some excellent Linux distro's out there (OpenSUSE 10.2, Fedora Core 6, Centos ..... add your own if you like) so I really don't miss MS Windows and I can do everything I want to do. I will admit Linux games are not on par with the Latest PC games because few vendors make native Linux games (that is not the fault of Linux) but if I want to play a game I prefer console games, so no loss there.

The problem I have now is what to do with MS Windows XP professional with option to upgrade to MS Vista and of course pay for the privilege. All I have is a little sticker underneath my laptop as proof of MS Windows Genuine Advantage. I suppose that is a convenience for Microsoft or the vendor, but at least I won't have to pay for any other MS products.

I'd prefer a less pre-loaded stance

[eschasi]

This writeup would be more useful if the author could maintain even a marginal pretense of objectivity. His constant use of loaded images ("grenade", "suicide note", "violate the laws of physics") works against him, and this butter-wouldn't-melt-in-his-mouth gem actually gave me a sad laugh when seen in context with his full note:

This document looks purely at the cost of the technical portions of Vista's content protection. The political issues (under the heading of DRM) have been examined in exhaustive detail elsewhere and won't be commented on further...

By "elsewhere" he must mean "in other sentences in this document." His facts, which he rarely backs up, are extremely suspect given his inability to separate his prejudices from his presentation. Considered as a persuasive essay, I'd give it a D. Which is not to say that I like DRM. It sucks, and Vista may become an unparalleled disaster because of it. But the author is far more adept at scoring points than he is at making his points persuasive.

Re:I'd prefer a less pre-loaded stance

[aralin]

You know this is a problem when dealing with Microsoft. You come into the process as objective person without prejudice to them and then you study the subject. If you study in a sufficient detail, you will become so enraged by what they are doing and that you are now hopelessly prejudiced against Microsoft. Look at the judge Jackson in the Microsoft trial. That is a person who's living depends on being objective and he got so pissed off by studying Microsoft practices that even he was not able to keep being perceived as impartial and so his ruling got thrown out by court of higher instance.

The most sad part is that Microsoft is abusing this by pointing to every such study as prejudiced and often rightly so. But what is the general public to do now? You either have experts that study the matter and become prejudiced or you have those with only superficial knowledge who can keep the illusion of objectivity but more often than not they do not know enough about the matter. Often to the point to believe studies paid by Microsoft as being a source of objective information. And if you want to keep the illusion of objectivity you need to cite those and it just seems wrong to me.

Sometimes you are just not supposed to be objective. Some topics do not invite that form of discussion. Is the Earth flat? I don't think anybody expects you to present the supporting opinion in equal length. Did holocaust happen? Again, not really a question in need of giving equal space to both sides. So why 'Is Microsoft crooked and do they intentionally cripple their product to harm consumer and competition?' needs any more discussion even after it was affirmed by Findings of Fact published by a federal judge? The matter of do they or don't they has long been settled. At this point the only question should be: "How exactly are they trying to cheat this time?"

Re:I'd prefer a less pre-loaded stance

[elgatozorbas]

Sometimes you are just not supposed to be objective.

Why not?

Some topics do not invite that form of discussion. Is the Earth flat? I don't think anybody expects you to present the supporting opinion in equal length. Did holocaust happen? Again, not really a question in need of giving equal space to both sides. So why 'Is Microsoft crooked and do they intentionally cripple their product to harm consumer and competition?' needs any more discussion...

Disclaimer: I don't want to choose sides here. But apart from being subject to Godwin's law, your argument doesn't hold for 100%. Assuming that 'earth flatness' and 'holocaust realness' are in a set of undisputable facts (most people agree here. anyway: not the topic now), it is imho a subjective act to put the Microsoft stuff there as well. To the NRA the right to bear arms may appear as obvious as the danger of doing so may appear to others.

Re:I'd prefer a less pre-loaded stance

[Cassini2]

It is quite difficult to work in industries were Windows Vista might be used, and not wind up with a pretty mean-spirited anti-Microsoft argument. Typically the train of reasoning goes like this:

1. Power plant uses Windows PC's to monitor "x".
2. If "x" can't be monitored, we shut the power plant down. This is "fail-safe".
3. If enough power plants shut down, then we have to shut down the power grid. Shutting down the power grid affects the entire east-coast. When the power grid is shut-down, we automatically shut down all power plants. This is a fail-safe response. After the power grid is shutdown, it takes a few days to restart things.
4. If we shut down the grid, then several people will die (via indirect sequences of events). At a minimum, many people will be placed in high-risk situations, and large numbers will be inconvenienced.

What would it take to shutdown a network of identical Windows PC's making up a power system? A piece of malware, a rogue anti-virus update, etc. It really wouldn't take all that much to wipe out the power grid for the east coast. A series of inept coincidences could potentially succeed.

As a Professional Engineer, a person who is supposed to be able to advise companies on this stuff, it is extremely difficult to avoid sounding excessively alarmist. I work on industrial applications that are supposed to be fairly high-reliability. It is very difficult to keep Windows PCs isolated from the outside world. If you don't isolate the PC's, then you are vulnerable to Windows service-packs and Windows Anti-Virus software shutting down your production line. How do you even explain the problem to people? Everyone uses a Windows PC, and a Windows PC could never hurt them, right?

What do I recommend? I don't know the answer. Mostly, I try not to think about it too much. With the large amounts of specialized Windows software, it is difficult to think of any easy fixes.

Re:I'd prefer a less pre-loaded stance

[quux4]

The content is designed to be viewed, therefore it can be accessed and someone will do so. There is no way to protect the content in question AND allow it to be decoded and viewed.

Technically, you are right. But as is common in the nerd gatherings, you've kinda focussed on the technical point whilst missing the overall goal. The goal of all that Protected Path stuff is not to eliminate piracy; of course that cannot be done. The goal is to reduce piracy; and this is accomplished when that 'air gap' is created. So now, pirate copies of that DRM'd media will need to travel the 'air gap' from monitor to videocam lens, or from speaker to microphone. That's gonna be noticeable to the end-users. Pirates will also have to do this airgap duplication at human playback rates, and in a quiet room (no busses driving by, planes overhead, etc) - no speeded-up duplication at hard disk copying rates over totally silent wires.

DRM isn't an attempt to break the laws of physics; saying so just helps lump you in with the people who have no problem with vastly overstating their cases as a matter of course.

A biz idea for the new year

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody ever asked for Vista. Nobody wants it. I'm tired of MS trying to ram it down our throats.

Did you know DirectX 10 will only be released under Vista? Even if you have the latest and greatest G-card and a fast system, sorry, if you run XP you'll be stuck with DirectX 9. There's no technical reason for this. It's just that MS wants you to 'retrograde' to Vista.

How about someone do a web site reselling old XP licenses? eBay refused to do this because MS asked them not too. How about someone will some guts and enterpreneurship takes a go at this. Could be a huge market for XP resales especially to businesses?

As for games developers, do what I do: Switch to OpenGL next release.

Re:A biz idea for the new year

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's an interesting tidbit from the WINE folks:

Direct3D10, which will ship with Windows Vista in a few months, doesn't seem to be a large cause for concern. At first glance it appears to be more of an evolutionary change rather than revolutionary. New shader support will be needed, but extending ours once OpenGL supports it should be pretty easy. Stefan mentioned Microsoft is currently offering a lot of incentives for Windows developers who develop D3D10-only games since they'll only be usable on Vista - there's no plan to backport D3D10 to XP. Dan Kegel asked if that means we should port Wine's forthcoming D3D10 implementation to Windows, which would be relatively easy when we switch to WGL.

Not an "upgrade", just a different flavor

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft was legally forced to remove version numbers from Windows as the software they ship was technically no longer improved.

Cat got my tongue!

[RAMMS EIN]

``This isn't the usual anti-Microsoft story just a professional looking at what is going to happen to his computer if it is upgraded to Microsoft Vista.''

Doesn't any professional investigation of Vista inevitably end up being an anti-Microsoft story?

(Just kidding. I actually think Microsoft put a lot of good things in Vista - although I'm not convinced it's a good product, and I'm definitely not dying to use it)

Primary Sources, FTW!

[Grym]

Here's a link to the actual paper referenced in the article.

I would post the entire paper, but it's too large. Here are some notable excerpts:

However, one important point that must be kept in mind when reading this document is that in order to work, Vista's content protection must be able to violate the laws of physics, something that's unlikely to happen no matter how much the content industry wishes it were possible. This conundrum is displayed over and over again in the Windows content-protection specs, with manufacturers being given no hard- and-fast guidelines but instead being instructed that they need to display as much dedication as possible to the party line. The documentation is peppered with sentences like: "It is recommended that a graphics manufacturer go beyond the strict letter of the specification and provide additional content-protection features, because this demonstrates their strong intent to protect premium content". This is an exceedingly strange way to write technical specifications, but is dictated by the fact that what the spec is trying to achieve is fundamentally impossible. Readers should keep this requirement to display appropriate levels of dedication in mind when reading the following analysis.

Vista's content protection mechanism only allows protected content to be sent over interfaces that also have content-protection facilities built in... Since S/PDIF doesn't provide any content protection, Vista requires that it be disabled when playing protected content. In other words if you've invested a pile of money into a high-end audio setup fed from a digital output, you won't be able to use it with protected content. Similarly, component (YPbPr) video will be disabled by Vista's content protection, so the same applies to a high-end video setup fed from component video.

Alongside the all-or-nothing approach of disabling output, Vista requires that any interface that provides high-quality output degrade the signal quality that passes through it. This is done through a "constrictor" that downgrades the signal to a much lower-quality one, then up-scales it again back to the original spec, but with a significant loss in quality... Amusingly, the Vista content protection docs say that it'll be left to graphics chip manufacturers to differentiate their product based on (deliberately degraded) video quality. This seems a bit like breaking the legs of Olympic athletes and then rating them based on how fast they can hobble on crutches.

Vista's content protection requires that devices (hardware and software drivers) set so-called "tilt bits" if they detect anything unusual. For example if there are unusual voltage fluctuations, maybe some jitter on bus signals, a slightly funny return code from a function call, a device register that doesn't contain quite the value that was expected, or anything similar, a tilt bit gets set. Such occurrences aren't too uncommon in a typical computer (for example starting up or plugging in a bus-powered device may cause a small glitch in power supply voltages, or drivers may not quite manage device state as precisely as they think). Previously this was no problem - the system was designed with a bit of resilience, and things will function as normal... With the introduction of tilt bits, all of this designed-in resilience is gone. Every little (normally unnoticeable) glitch is suddenly surfaced because it could be a sign of a hack attack. The effect that this will have on system reliability should require no further explanation. Content-protection "features" like tilt bits also have worrying denial-of- service (DoS) implications. It's probably a good thing that modern malware is created by programmers with the commercial interests of the phishing and spam industries in mind rather than just creating as much havoc as possible

Re:Primary Sources, FTW!

[oostevo]

Damn, should have used preview. The working link is:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/D/6/5D6EA F2B-7DDF-476B-93DC-7CF0072878E6/output_protect.doc

Since when is Gutmann a medical imaging specialist

[The Monster]

From TFA:

"Peter Gutmann's report describes the pernicious DRM built into Vista and required by MS for approval of hardware and drivers," said INQ reader Brad Steffler, MD, who brought the report to our attention. "As a physician who uses PCs for image review before I perform surgery, this situation is intolerable. It is also intolerable for me as a medical school professor as I will have to switch to a MAC or a Linux PC. These draconian dicta just might kill the PC as we know it."

Gutmann is a CompSci guy who has been a biggie in the crypto community since about forever. You'd think an 'editor' would know that. Alas, Slashdot has people with the title, who don't do a job that deserves it.

Medical Imaging Specialist????

[perry]

Peter is a security guy. He's written widely used crypto software. He is not a medical imaging specialist. Where did /. get the idea that he's a medical imaging specialist???

Re:Medical Imaging Specialist????

[Pinky3]

From a quote in the Inquirer article. ",,,INQ reader Brad Steffler, MD, who brought the report to our attention. 'As a physician who uses PCs for image review before I perform surgery, this situation is intolerable.' "

OK, so the submitter couldn't distiguish the quote from the INQ submitter from the subject of the article, but at least he didn't make the whole thing up.

Al

biased analysis, with a crunchy core of truth

[Anonymous Coward]

The tone of the article and analysis is very slanted, but the one basic statement that cannot be argued with is the following:

"...spend time implementing large amounts of anti-functionality when it's already hard enough to get things running smoothly without the intentional crippling." The days of PCs as a general purpose, low cost, programmable machine are done if content protection at the hardware level becomes reality. Things *barely* works as it stands, you can't add all this complexity and intentional obfuscation and think it will continue to work.

obviously fud

[farker haiku]

fta: Disclaimer
Any opinions expressed on this page are not in fact mine but were forced on me at gunpoint by the University of Auckland.

He a shill! :)

Re:Vista is a fantastic piece of ...

[fishbowl]

>PS: Linux users are breaking the LAW every time they watch a DVD using their OS.

Untrue.

Distributors of some types of DVD decoding software may be doing so in violation of civil statutes in certain jurisdictions, but I must ask you to cite the specific prohibition you claimed in your PS:. Chapter and verse of the applicable law, please, don't waste our time with "DMCA". I know all about the DMCA, the DVD/CCA/CSS issues, etc.

Peter who?

[pedantic bore]

No matter how good a medical imaging specialist Peter Gutmann happens to be, I think I'm going to wait for some security experts to weigh in on Vista issues before I jump to any conclusions.

Re:Peter who?

[Thanatopsis]

You realize the original poster confused the original computer science guy with some one commenting on his article right?

BTW the link to the paper is here.

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_c ost.txt

Progress requires that RIAA/MPAA be screwed over

[ConfusedSelfHating]

The record and film industry do not want new technologies to be available to the public. They will fight bitterly until the last, until the new medium is forced on them. And then they will make money on it. Think of home video. The film industry brought the VCR manufacturers all the way to the Supreme Court until they lost. Now the film industry makes significantly more money in home video sales than in the theatres. Technology must be imposed non-consentually on the content providers. The manufacturers need to release their products regardless of the complaints of the content providers.

I don't know why Microsoft is bending over for the media companies. They should just publically state that any mandated copy protection will hurt the ability of corporations to develop their own proprietary software. I'm sure there is at least a dozen companies which will gladly provide written statements about how the copy protection hurts their business. Microsoft then gives the media companies the middle finger. Pirates rape the media companies in innovative ways by releasing the content in manners not approved by the owners. The media companies are forced to create new media delivery methods to match consumer demands. This increases their revenues which were stagnant because of media executives who couldn't innovate their way out of a paper bag. The consumer benefits from new options in the market. Everyone benefits from the rape.

I don't believe piracy for profit should be legal. However, I don't believe that non-profit piracy is that bad. Many people would never purchase the movie or television show. Many people later purchase the legal version of the pirated product. For example, let's say a Slashdot reader named Jim missed out on the first 8 episodes of Heroes. He had heard it was a really good show, but didn't want to watch number nine first. Let's say that Jim downloaded the episodes in non-approved manner and watched them. Now Jim is a loyal Heroes watcher. Or let's say that Jim downloads technical books, finds which ones he likes and then purchases them online. Does Jim contribute to the media companies bottom line or does he hurt the media companies bottom line?

I'm new here but...

[monoqlith]

Could someone please like, read....something before they post a summary? I found no indication that Gutmann is a medical imaging specialist from his web page or report. He's a computer scientist who specializes in compression and encryption, which actually makes him a little bit qualified to perform a professional review of the new operating system.

The only thing remotely medicine related here is a quote from 'Brad Steffler MD.', a surgeon who claims that Microsoft's restrictive DRM methodologies make it more difficult for him to do his job.

It was supposed to be a C3 O/S !!!!

[Cassini2]

Many industrial and medical applications run on Windows. You forget that Windows NT was advertised as a high-security C3 operating system. Many applications were ported on this advertising. Some of the lock-down permissions in Windows NT were pretty draconian, and worked really well.

With Windows Vista, Microsoft appears to be completely abandoning any pretense of high-reliability.

Many industrial and medical applications have fairly high reliability requirements. Using commodity software and hardware has some cost and reliability advantages. It is easy to source replacement parts, and implement hardware redundancy. Being able to easily obtain replacement hardware is a big advantage if downtime costs are large.

The problem is that Microsoft appears to have abandoned the high-reliability sector. Windows XP has a continuous stream of rolling updates for both XP and the Anti-Virus packages. The result is that your high-reliability application can stop working for no apparent reason. From all indications, Windows Vista will make this worse.

Recently, I have been looking harder and harder at Linux. Linux offers a much more stable platform, and I can customize the installation to make it much more difficult to corrupt. The issue is that such a high software investment has been placed in specialized Windows solutions, that it is difficult to port everything to another operating system overnight.

Re:It was supposed to be a C3 O/S !!!!

[AceJohnny]

If you want reliability, go Sun. That's their field.

I just the other day got a Redhat Linux Quad Opteron with 4gigs of RAM crash under me. RAM was full, OK, but swap wasn't. What's worse, the logs had stopped filling a week before. The Sun server was happily chugging along with 2+ *years* uptime under similar loads.

Now realize that Sun doesn't give you high speed, no-siree. The reason I had stuff running on the Linux box was that it was easily 5 times faster than the Sun station.

Hey, Sun servers are fabled to be able to hot-replace a burning RAID card. What else could you want? ;)

The only reason to shun Sun in favor Linux would be economical. The only reason to shun Linux in favor of Windows would be for desktop use. Although, I don't know the comparative prices of Win Server 2003 and Redhat, so I guess there could be economical reasons there...

Re:It was supposed to be a C3 O/S !!!!

[twiddlingbits]

If your Sun system has been up 2+ years it is at least 3 chip generations old and comparing that to your new Linux box is unfair. Try running Linux on a SUN Quad Opteron and I bet you'll find it kicks ass. They have some awesome benchmarks with Solaris 10 x86 and Linux on the Opterons.

Elimination of Open-source Hardware Support

[richard_weller]

Sounds like a good case for a anti-trust trial in europe :-)

I don't know if that's all a good idea...

[Svartalf]

...but from the PR standpoint, it's a WIN. I'm all for discouraging Windows use, but I'm also one for personal
choice. And if it means someone has to give people crutches in the short-term to score points in the long run
so be it.

if its a good OS, todays ver is the final

[cheekyboy]

Look at linux... its not like we have Linux 3.0 and Linux 4.0 where nothing old works.

Its still linux. 8 year old stuff still compiles mostly, its fluid.

If windows was so great, it would stay at one version XP forever, with unlimited updates forever, SP4 SP21. etc...
Just because they are forced by marketing to make a new version is admiting its core is crap and needs a rewrite.

They could just as easily update/replace portions of XP gradually, six monthly. And make sure each other component isnt
too tied to others. ie WMP shouldnt need IE7 or something else... it should be detect and use if available.

This whole idea of , lets stop current dev and all new dev is placed into a new 'version' edition is total marketing crap, and
old school stuff of the 80s. Modern complex systems should never have a major rebuild, its always small step updates, like real
biological evolution.

OSX is basically the same, but again its articially versionized because of just new components added, and the silly side effects like
newly compiled made software not working on old OSX's even if they use no new features, thats my biggest pet pieve of OSX. Sometimes
its only the result of the installer package, not the code it self which would work fine. If X library is less than version Y, then dont use
those features.

Btw does apple make the old OS10.1 and 10.2 upgrades from 10.0 FREE NOW? what about any one left in 10.2 land, do they get a free 10.3 upgrade
once 10.4 is widely installed? Having too many versions installed out there should be a worry for them, they should allow all 10.3 machines to upgrade
for free. It would surely be cheaper to have no support for pre 10.3 if you provide free upgrades.

Re:if its a good OS, todays ver is the final

[dspisak]

"8 year old stuff still compiles mostly, its fluid."

Uhm, so is Linux the bedrock of computing or is it the agile warrior able to adapt to its changing foes? I'm a bit confused.

I don't know what 8 year old code you think would still compile against todays Linux. Between major changes from the pre 2.0 kernel days to now I can think of plenty of code that would break.

And then you've got your personal best friend in the world, a new version of glibc just around the corner to break things once in a while, but thats not Linux per se since Linux is just a kernel. But its all of the FOSS/FSF software that makes a Linux DISTRO.

Now show me a piece of 8 year old code that will compile on a current distro without barfing or having its ./configure script changed and I might begin to see your point. But I doubt your argument holds true for enough pieces of FOSS software to be truly relevant.

if you want to read LSNiH then just read the EULA

[RobertLTux]

http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/useterms/defa ult.aspx
this is a microsoft hosted page that you can pull up any EULA you want (MS products only of course)

Microsoft requires the right to DISABLE YOUR COMPUTER if it fails a validation check (WGA BOFH style anyone?)

Re:Not trolling....

[celardore]

Legally circumventing the TV licence fee.

If you're watching BBC programmes in the UK then there is no such legal circumvention. The law is very comprehensive in that area and has covered computer viewing for years.

You're wrong. The TV licence covers the receiving and recording of broadcasts as they are being broadcast. I've got the documentation on my lap right now. The website clarifies this here. This does not cover the shows that are available for viewing on BBC sites such as BBC Two's Watch Now. (IANAL though)

I don't much care for the TV licence.

Chinese DVD players

[tgibbs]

I currently have a Chinese-made upconverting DVD player. Chinese made because the US and Japanese manufacturers have knuckled under to the demands of the entertainment industry that no DVD player will output HD content over component video cables. (Now think for a moment just how mind-numbingly stupid this restriction is. Upconverting DVD players don't actually output video in true HD, because the movie isn't on the DVD in HD in the first place, and no process can add more information that was there to begin with. All an upconverting DVD player does is interpolate. An upconverted signal is the absolute last thing that any pirate could want, because it massively increases the amount of data required to copy the signal, without adding any information. So the entertainment industry, out of sheer ignorance has added a completely useless restriction that imposes considerable inconvenience on the consumer. Many older HD TV's only have component inputs, and even newer ones typically have only one HDMI or DVI input. And HDMI/DVI switchboxes are much more expensive than component ones. So consumers end up switching cables, shelling out extra money for switchboxes--or doing what I did, and buying a Chinese DVD player that is oriented toward the consumer instead of sucking up to the content industry.

Re:Chinese DVD players

[ConceptJunkie]

You're assuming that this is all to prevent piracy. The real truth is that the media companies simply hate us.

Re:Chinese DVD players

[pclminion]

Can you please close that opening parenthesis? I think I just blew my stack.

Wow, that's insightful

[Travoltus]

The world never had any entertainment before the dawn of DRM & copyright.

[sarcasm off]

Re:Wow, that's insightful

[mcrbids]

Granted, I'm against the US' current copyright laws, but the simple fact is that China IS rampant with copyright violation that does nothing but make the illegal publishers rich.

What? Are you retarded? Other than the 100-ish year lifespan, copyright law is the one (of three) branches of "Intellectual Property" that actually gets it right!

All copyright says is that whatever you right is yours, from the moment of inception. Simple and easy. What about that are you against?

If you want to be "against" anything, try patents (which make an idea that you might legitimately and independently arrive at owned by some other guy who came to the same or similar idea by whatever means before you) or trademarks (which all but cancel copyrights in some cases, because while the copyrights of a work might have expired, trademarks do not, so even if/when the Disney "Steamboat Willie" movie is no longer copyrighted, the trademarks of Mickey Mouse remain intact preventing "unauthorized" reproduction...)

Pick your fights, and fight about something where you might do some good. Alternatively, take the time to figure out what you're talking about before being "against" something....

Re:Wow, that's insightful

[pyrrhonist]

Unfortunately, you're wrong. Copyright law in the US does not say that what you write is yours.

No, he's correct. It says in layman's terms that:

Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work. Only the author or those deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright.

So, if you write something, you own the copyright. You may notice in the article you linked to that Courtney specifically mentions print authors owning copyrights for their works. You can do what you want with the copyright, however, and that's where the confusion lies.

More often than not, what you write belongs to the publisher. That's why you see musicians complaining bitterly that "the band owns none of its work" (quoted directly from that article).

If you read the article, you'd know that the band owns none of its work, because it sold the copyright for its work to a record company in return for distribution, promotion, and royalties. That's the beauty of copyright. As an author, you can do what you want with your property. You do NOT have to sell it to a record company, and they can't TAKE it from you. You can, however, sign a recording contract wherein you stipulate that you relinquish certain rights in return for the record company's services. Note that many musicians *do* own the copyrights for the music they created. You may give up your copyright in two ways:

You can create a work for hire:

In the case of works made for hire, the employer and not the employee is considered to be the author ...if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire.

You can transfer the copyright:

Any or all of the copyright owner's exclusive rights or any subdivision of those rights may be transferred, but the transfer of exclusive rights is not valid unless that transfer is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner's duly authorized agent. Transfer of a right on a nonexclusive basis does not require a written agreement.

In Courtney's case, she transferred her property by signing a recording contract.

The contrast between the US Constitution (which favors authors and inventors) and US law (which favors publishers and employers) could not be more striking.

It's only striking, because you misunderstand the Constitution. The Constitution provides for copyright, but more importantly, doesn't stipulate what you can or cannot do with your property. Thus, the laws regarding transfer and works for hire fit perfectly within the bounds of the Constitution. There is no disagreement or hypocrisy.

Source: U.S. Copyright Office

or, you could...

[Kaenneth]

use Vista, but not DRM content...

Is there anything limiting the use of high quality, non-DRM'd media?

Mainly, I think it's a question of complance with laws like the DMCA, and not getting sued. if the RIAA sues hundreds/thousands of individuals for large amounts of money, do you think MS wants to have to defend a case that they 'aided' copyright violations?

I find it hard to, in the same breath, fault Microsoft for violation of the law for extending their markets, and fault them for not disreguarding the laws reguarding others IP.

Imagine what would happen to the market for iTunes purchases if Windows had the built in ability to crack iTunes content protection...

Re:or, you could...

[DragonTHC]

yes actually there is.

when you attempt to add non-drm'd media to the media library for vista media center, it ignores that content.

that's my experience.

Of course there was entertainment...

[NotQuiteReal]

Back before DRM and copyrights there was Banjo music.

Live banjo music, played by relatives, close relatives. Very close relatives.

You don't get it

[njdj]

I don't know why Microsoft is bending over for the media companies.

They're not. Microsoft has a monopoly. They can tell anyone to get lost.

But "compliance" with "requirements" of the RIAA and MPAA is perfect cover for their real game plan, which is to eliminate Open Source (Linux, etc). If Microsoft simply pressured hardware manufacturers (video cards etc) never to release specs, and also to spend billions making it impossible to reverse-engineer their programming specs, just to stop programmers from developing Linux drivers, they'd lose an antitrust action in court.

But by wrapping the plan up in the excuse that it's to meet RIAA and MPAA requirements, Microsoft has a perfect defense.

ah..well....ermm....no

[Warg! The Orcs!!]

Warfare is endemic in Humanity.
From the Book of Joshua (abbreviated)...

Chapter 6 -
1. NOW Jericho was straitly shut up because of the children of Israel: none went out and none came in.
21 - And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.
24 - And they burnt the city with fire and all that was therein.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? This is almost pre-historic siege warfare and what could be described as ethnic cleansing. I'm not picking on the Jewish Nation, it's just that they were kind enough to record their deeds where so many others did not. The archaeological record shows many examples of pre-historic walled cities that were destroyed in sieges, so from the earliest days of 'civilisation' we have fought each other.

Re:Not trolling....

[necro2607]

"The technology in Vista also doesn't PREVENT you from doing anything, it has the 'requirements' so that HDCP content CAN BE PLAYED, something NO OTHER OS OFFERS!! It takes away NOTHING..."

Whoa, wait a second...

From the Wikipedia page on HDCP:

"HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc players allow content providers to set an Image Constraint Token (ICT) flag that will only output full-resolution digital signals using HDCP. If such a player is connected to a non-HDCP-enabled television set and the content is flagged, the player will output a downsampled 480p signal."

That sounds like it's taking away quite a lot. That sounds like it's making it so all of your HDCP-"protected" videos can only be watched at a maximum resolution of 640x480. Even worse, "downsampled" pretty much means "scaled down using some cheap commodity chip that pixelates the crap out of your video".

Were you actually being serious when you were trying to make it seem like HDCP is a feature in Vista actually beneficial to users in any manner at all? Buying HDCP-"enabled" products is just paying up your protection money so you can watch your legally purchased videos at the resolution you paid for.

In fact, buying Vista or other HDCP-enabled products makes it that much easier for companies to prevent you from doing what you want with the media you spend your hard-earned cash on. Hey, it's your choice if you want to maintain the idea that DRM is a good thing, but somehow I have a feeling you're not going to feel so good in the end when you're locked into such crippled technology.

holy sh!t!!!! From the MS output_protect.doc

[mseidl]

From http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/stream/output _protect.mspx

From the doc

"By contrast, the Windows-based PC is designed to be an open platform. Anyone can load software on it; it is easy to write software for it, because all the interfaces are well defined and published; and there are many good software tools available."

Open platform? By who's definition?

LOL!

You're all missing the point . . .

[mmell]

Who is the primary adopter of Microsoft Operating Systems? Businesses!

Let me say that again: Businesses!

Most businesses aren't concerned that their employees may not be able to view HD content on their desktop PC's, as that is not what they hire people to do (in general). As long as Microsoft can assert that a desktop machine running Windows Vista will continue to be able to fulfill enterprise business requirements in a stable, reliable way there will be plenty of businesses perfectly ready to plunk down their money to get what Microsoft promises will be "the most stable and secure computing experience to date."

Better have a look at Microsoft's balance sheet - somehow, I doubt that the majority of profits come from individual user sales! Their big bucks come from per-seat volume licensing of OS and productivity products - that's their bread-and-butter! I don't think a financial clearing-house, or a medical supplies company, or your average insurance office will really get sweaty about HD-DVD playback being broken because there's no HDMI interface to the ol' VGA monitor.

Before the masses point out that there are plenty of productivity killing traps in Microsoft Vista (and there are), Microsoft will simply assure businesses that as long as their hardware doesn't change drastically they can expect their machines to continue operating flawlessly. The relative truth or falsehood of that assertion is irrelevant; Microsoft will say it and businesses will accept it. There are way too many large organizations with PHB's at the helm for the technically savvy to prevent this from happening. After that, those businesses which were insightful enough to avoid the "Microsoft upgrade cycle" will ultimately be forced to come along by way of remaining compatible with the rest of industry.

Don't like what you see in Vista? Too bad - once it's entrenched in business it'll make inroads in the home (how many /.'ers use software at home similar to their employer's software so that they can be more productive at work? I, for example, run openSuSE at home because my employer uses SuSE Linux Enterprise Distribution in the workplace; it lets me be more productive at home and at work because I can leverage what I learn in one environment to the other).

Re:You're all missing the point . . .

[serutan]

The issue isn't the ability to play HD content, it's that the author believes Vista's DRM-centric design threaten the viability of Vista itself. The numerous interlocking DRM measures impose design restrictions on everything from device drivers to circuit board layout. Versioning requirements will prevent device manufacturers from using generic approaches to anything. Small glitches that occur routinely will set off threat flags that will abruptly cause entire devices and subsystems (including motherboards) to either stop working or switch to minimally functional modes. (That was the source of the medical imaging comments.)

I think the author's general point is that the DRM that saturates Vista will cause so many things to break, that everybody from end users to hardware and software vendors will find Vista to be more of a pain in the ass than it's worth. In my opinion, some good might ultimately come from this. The general public was warned about the content industry running Congress, but it shrugged off Intellectual Property activists as "pirates" or socialists, and just sat there while the RIAA and MPAA literally wrote legislation. Tangible inconveniences, perhaps even large-scale disasters, will get people's attention where discussions of the philosophy of copyrights and patents did not.

Re:No S/PDIF?

[Rimbo]

Don't need to borrow a Mac, I own four (one of which, due to a careless incident involving irreplacable single-malt scotch, is defunct). So now you're wondering, "Dude, you've got... Macs... up the wazoo... whyyyyy?"

The reason is, building a music workstation is a massive money and time investment. Money, because buying the proper cabling, software and gizmos is expensive. Time, because learning how to use that equipment properly doesn't happen overnight.

Since I really just do music production for a hobby (and the occasional vanity CD), that means I invest in new software and hardware once every, oh, ten or twelve years.

We're in year 6 for the old system.

Because of the need for an entire industry to work together, audio interfaces change even less often than that. MIDI is still the only way to get control data to and from legacy equipment, and is thus a required portion of any setup. S/PDIF will be around for a long time because it's more than good enough for pro recording quality and it's a standard.

What's ironic is that DirectX had become such a terrific multimedia I/O system that Windows was becoming a much more capable system for music development than Mac (and it pains me to admit that). And both are light years beyond what Linux can do. Good LORD is sound ever a mess under Linux.

So the point is not just that I won't be buying Vista to replace XP on my music machine anytime soon; the point is that 4 years from now, when it comes time to replace my existing music machine, I will be effectively locked out of any Windows-based solution.

Of course, a lot can happen in 4 years. Maybe Microsoft will realize their error and un-gimp their OS by then. Maybe Linux will have a sound architecture w... I can't even finish that sentence, let's stick to reality. Yeah, the next machine pretty much has to be an Apple, provided Apple doesn't do anything goofy like this.

Brief Outline of Medical Imaging Information Flow

[Ears]

This is part of the subtext both of the original article, and of this most recent post, so I thought I'd share what I know about it. FWIW, I'm a radiologist--that is, an MD who interprets the results of imaging studies--and an informatics geek.

Images are created on whatever imaging device--CT scanner, MR scanner, ultrasound machine, digital X-ray machine--and manipulated by the device's controlling system to do simple annotations, reformatting, etc. This is typically a Unix-based system running custom software designed and maintained by the device's vendor. The images are not usually interpreted on these systems.

From there, the images are sent to the PACS (Picutre Archiving and Communication System), which is just a gigantic central image database. These also tend to be Unix-based systems.

There tend to be two front-ends for looking at images in the PACS database. The first is the radiologist's interface, which is a high-end video workstation dedicated to showing medical images with the greatest possible fidelity. Most systems I've seen are Windows-based (Windows 2000, in our case) and run software which was built by the the imaging system vendors in the late 1990's. Much is made of the "lossless" nature of the images which are displayed; for example, when you log into such a machine, you're warned about how "This is a medical device" and that you shouldn't mess with it. Much is also made of "diagnostic-quality monitors" and high-end video cards to drive the monitors. This is an artifact from the early days of digital imaging interpretation in radiology, when there was a great deal of concern about whether the quality of the digital images would be adequate for us to figure out what was going on in Grandma's chest X-ray if we weren't looking at a piece of acetate. Most of these concerns have died away, as the differences in resolution and dynamic range turned out to be relatively minor and the added conveniences of being able to manipulate the images digitally turned out to be huge. For example, the new LCDs I seen being put on PACS workstations are off-the-shelf Dell 22-inchers, as far as I can tell.

Finally, there are "non-diagnostic" interfaces to the PACS images, which do tend to be web-based. These are so non-radiologist doctors can look at the images, too. Some are IE-based, and use an ActiveX control to display the images, and some use a Java applet. These are displayed with lossy compression (since someone might want to look at them from off-site via a VPN), and officially are not allowed to be used for interpretation. And in fact, I wouldn't want to; it's a lot harder to see subtle things on them than on a full-blown PACS workstation. Part of that is just the interface (it's hard to use those stupid ActiveX/applet things) and part of it is crummy/mis-configured monitors, but I suppose compression artifacts could also play a role.

So, to review: you go see your doctor, Dr. Smith, in her office, and she orders a chest X-ray for you because you're coughing and have a fever. You come to the hospital, and the nice technologist takes frontal and lateral view of your chest on the digital X-ray machine. He then goes back to the X-ray control room, and sees that the images are pretty good, and so he sticks your name on them, and a marker of the date/time and his name, and so on, and then sends them to the hospital's PACS system. I (the radiologist) am working at my PACS workstation, going through the long list of all of the CT scans, MR scans, and X-rays taken in the hospital. I get to your chest X-ray and look at it; I don't seen any sign of pneumonia, so I write a report (the subject of a whole different set of informatics) that basically says "Clear lungs" and that gets entered into your electronic medical record. Then, Dr. Smith back in her office can see your X-ray via her Web-based interface. If she wonders about something she sees, she can call me up and say, "What's that stuff at the left ape

Re:Have ANY of you READ the article in question?

[BLKMGK]

Some of what he says is actually correct. While I won't respond to everything you've posted I'll try to answer some of it so that you can at least get a sense of where the guy is coming from. Note that I'm not saying I agree or diagree with his position but I've been forced to research VISTA a good bit for work so I'm not completly clueless as to what's in store for us :-(

1) Laws of physics. Yes actually he's right. You see DRM is supposed to prevent us from being able to copy signals that are in the end analog. In order for it to actually work 100% we would have to have our ears replaced with digital jacks. Obviously not going to happen so in order for this to work Microsoft must have found a way to prevent you from using a microphone to record the audio (for instance). This is why folks says that for DRM to work it must break the laws of physics - this isn't just Peter saying this. I'll also note that some cmopanies have claimed to have the ability to close this "analog hole" buit to date nothing has materialized that actually does it.

2) Driver signing - in 64BIT VISTA Microsoft says all drivers must be signed. In 32BIT it's optional but encouraged and we'll get the usual pop-ups. If a driver is found to be vulnerable yeah they probably WILL kill it's certificate. Why? Because they are bending over to the media companies like CableCard and will not wish to lose that certification. An example of how far companies will go to get these certifications can be found with the TIVO S3 where they threw out significant functionality (Tivo2Go) in order to become "certified" and in their addition of DRM to retain their Macrovision license. Microsoft has now made themselves subject to much the same arm twisting... BTW, the MS blog I read that mentioned driver signing stated that they did this in 64BIT because there was little chance of breaking backwards functionality and that they couldn't quite do it in 32BIT but really wanted to. I do not know if 64BIT is required for the advanced media features but I'll bet that signed drivers will be required throughout for the advanced stuff to work on 32BIT.

3) Broken hardware... I will point out the HDMI video cards that turned out had an HDMI capable chipset (HDCP and all) but no hardware keys for the HDCP that sort of screwed the consumers. Yeah, they do sometimes ship "broken" hardware and when folks found out their spiffy vid cards wouldn't be compliant they were pretty pissed off!

4) Killer NIC card? I know some hardcore guys that play in tournaments considering that thing. es, a few milliseconds makes a difference to them and yes they run HIGH end video cards as a result. It makes no sense to me either but if the price were right I might consider that card too :-)

5) Installing Blu Ray of HD DVD drives in the system doesn't matter. All of this DRM crap is in there working anyway and the addition of this hardware doesn't somehow suddenly turn it all on. This is part of his ppoint, the system could be more fragile because of these design considerations. As I understand it the DRM drivers all run at a special priv level seperate from the others - now that seems like an odd decision to make if you were trying to build an optimal system for the user doesn't it? I would also point out that there are other DRM contents out there over and above that which comes on physical media. I own a Buffalo Linktheater and it can play a TON of content. However certain DRM'd WMA files tip it right over because the damned media wants to phone home for authorization blah blah. You can get screwed by stuff like that without ever having installed goofy DRM'd hardware. Windows Media Player has been chock full of this DRM crap for awhile on XP if you've been paying attention.

On the flip side Microsoft has REALLY worked hard to make Vista more secure. Buffer overflows may have just been shot dead - memory space shuffling, NX bit for the OS, signing of code, canaries in the stack, no more users running as admin all the time, the lis