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Microsoft Can Remotely Kill Purchased Apps
Meshach writes "The terms of service for Microsoft's newly launched Windows Store allows the seller to remotely kill or remove access to a user's apps for security or legal reasons. The story also notes that MS states purchasers are responsible for backing up the data that you store in apps that you acquire via the Windows Store, including content you upload using those apps. If the Windows Store, an app, or any content is changed or discontinued, your data could be deleted or you may not be able to retrieve data you have stored."
I doubt the three people who own one of these devices reads slashdot.
So can apple.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
Although this is laterally related, anybody remember the proverbial NSA Key?
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
I can understand a company wanting, or needing, to provide a way to remove malware or illegal content. I can't say I fully agree with it, but I can understand the need. So the existence of such a system, in and of itself, isn't a particularly Bad Thing.
But this had better not be misused. Unless it's actively and secretly causing damage to the system (sending out spam or whatnot), it had better have a court order to be forcibly removed from users' computers. Maybe even then.
No deleting people's apps just because the seller removed it. No deleting people's apps because of some vague DMCA request. It had better be a legitimate, legally-validated removal.
I think a good way to ensure this would be that, if it is ever used, both Microsoft and the seller have to refund the cost to the user. That won't help much for free apps, but it would really help make sure regular apps aren't pulled back for no real reason.
If it takes you a month's pay to buy a gadget... it's probably money best spent elsewhere.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
They're moving towards a complete lease model as opposed to ownership.
You already lease your software anyway.
This version of Windows will pretty much make you lease your hardware what with the "secure" boot for all practical purposes. And you'll be leasing any administrator access MS might grant you as well.
Check your premises.
Naive popularity will drag horrid ideas like this along for the ride as the future consolidates application control and computing into the "cloud" elements that can crap all over you if you are not getting along.
Don't buy into the hype, so we can prolong the inevitable...but in the end, dumb people will drag us off the cliff and we won't find open alternatives that function in society.
boy do I loathe the thoughtless nature of many...and how it affects my options.
What the hell is wrong with our IT industry and its hostility towards their users? When did this start and where did we go wrong that brought us to this state?!
In some places normal wage is $200-300 a month. I suspect it will be in US too once globalisation and troubles with dollar and euro really start to kick in.
From a customer service point of view it would be bad to just kill user data along with the app. Enterprise level clients really aren't going to put up with that.
if your life is such a big joke then why should I care?
Control as opposed to freedom. Apple had engaged in jailing its users, and made exorbitant amounts of money over it, and all corps are now following suit.
............
When jobs died, we discussed this at length. Many of us told that he set a very very harmful trend with apple, and because of the success that model had with milking the customers, ALL corporations would naturally follow suit. A lot of people objected.
And lo. Microsoft happily is following suit.
Read radical news here
Based off of what Apple does.
Nah, it'll be $20,000 to $30,000 per month, and a hamburger will cost $2000-$3000 by the time the dollar is sorted out.
Learn to love Alaska
Another reason to avoid Windows.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Get off my lawn.
You mean windows update couldn't do this already?
1) you are not 100% reliant and bound to Google for Applications, if you find their "controls" (mocking voice and air-quote) too restrictive, you can simply select "allow unkown sources".
Or jailbreak or sideload. Just as approachable for the technical user (actually a little easier for non-technical people on the iPhone because there's a cottage industry around Jailbreaking).
Also on the iPhone, you are slightly better off since there's a centralized non-Apple store - Cydia.
Google are yet to use it to pull an application for offending their sensibilities or competes with them, unlike Apple.
Unless you want to write gambling or porn apps, which Google does not allow.
Apple also allows apps that compete with them, they start to get picky when there are too many applications in the same space.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It sounds like Microsoft is just explicitly passing the buck for terminating an application to the application's vendor, not like they're trying to assume that capability and responsibility for anything, including malware cleanup. I'd think malware cleanup options would fall under the purview of the anti-virus service providers.
Note I said service provider. Like it or not, maintaining a secure system means subscribing to maintenance services for a lot of the software you need. You haven't been able to "buy" a lot of critical services for a long time. This is not a new delivery model by any stretch of the imagination.
Even Linux relies on service providers -- the distribution packagers and testers.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I've already lived this with iTunes. I bought iFitness (more here. During an iOS upgrade there was some sort of issue and PC backup turned out to be corrupt and couldn't restore the apps. "No problem," I thought, "I downloaded all of these apps from the store, I can just re-download everything."
Nope, despite being one of the five best fitness apps it was pulled from the market for unknown reasons. Some claim it was banned for posting fake positive reviews, but that seems completely unnecessary considering how much praise iFitness received.
Because of that I no longer trust my phone or the "cloud" to keep my data safe.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Secure Boot is already broken. A Secure Boot system will give the user the illusion that their machine is safe and they will pay dearly for it.
Some operators also lock that feature out
Which? AT&T relented on this half a year ago in response to overwhelming customer demand for Amazon Appstore and issued a firmware update reenabling "Unknown sources".
so you have to jailbreak it
Even on devices that have no "Unknown sources" checkbox, a user can still connect the phone to a PC with a micro-USB cable and sideload with adb install or with a GUI wrapper around adb install. Google requires that a device let the end user access to Android Debug Bridge before Google will allow the device's manufacturer to install the Android Market application. You just can't run other app stores like AppsLib, Amazon, Soc.io, and SlideME without the checkbox.
For Windows phones, there's an $5 app that does let you run any app you want.
Does it expire, or does it work for the useful life of the phone?
Android doesn't run on your desktop.
True, I don't have the x86 port of Android 3.2 installed in VirtualBox on my desktop PC. (Nor can it run ARM-specific NDK apps.) But I can install it if me want.
And I'm guessing that the majority of folks here have at least one windows box.
I have several. The flowers love the sun and the heat from the house keeps them from perishing on those freak cold spring nights.
have root access to them.
10 hamburgers per month?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Smartphones remotely abuse the user (in all way)
In other news, every major corporation with an app store retains the ability to remotely nuke apps you've purchased. While it's most likely because they want to force you to keep buying apps over and over again, while stealing goods you've paid for... there also is the slight possibility they've retained that ability so that if some nasty virus breaks out, they can stop it before it infects every device in their ecosystem. Either way.
This really sucks, next MS will remove the win32 environment from Windows 9
After reading the article and the comments on this page, I have decided to give up. I've smashed two of by backup HDDs with a hammer, unplugged my headphones and placed them on my dog (he may eat them later), glued all my install CDs together with superglue and placed it near the front door so I can use it as a doorstop, removed mingw and eclipse, downloaded visual C++ express, deleted visual c++ express, repartitioned my primary hard drive to contain 42 partitions, rewired my box to avoid having to use the stupid PSU (CPU now connects directly to a wall socket), eaten a pen (quite tasty, but the ink stain around my mouth is annoying), smashed my keyboard because it's not necessary anymore -- I will just touch my monitors; smashed my monitors and thrown them out the door because they did not support touch, put the mouse in my underpants (I dunno why, but it does feel good). Bought a Commodore 64 off of EBay.
I feel much better now.
There's a Windows phone now? And it has apps too? Plus the data you upload to Microsoft servers can be deleted by them? *And* they put a killswitch in the phone to uninstall apps remotely?
;)
...seriously, this is exactly what everyone else does, following the shitty example that Apple and Amazon set for them. I know you can jailbreak an iPhone and turn off the killswitch with a swipe of the finger, but I doubt anyone cares enough yet to jailbreak a Windows phone. But they will. Whether there are ever enough apps in the Windows Store to make Microsoft have to wipe one from the few phones they sell is another question
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
This sounds like it should be an active directory feature, not something for Microsoft itself to take advantage of. IT departments allowing iPhones, ok. But now they are just going to hand the keys entirely over to Microsoft?
Sig: I stole this sig.
10 hamburgers per month?
It's too many already, I know. Hold your hope, my friend, have patience... maybe will go lower sometime.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
All proprietors have had this power since people ran proprietary software on networked computers, regardless of OS. All that's required is a networked computer (commonplace since Internet access became popular) and a program running with sufficient privilege to do something (easy to do with any installer, probably easy to gain this level of access post-install because most users run with admin logins and will type in their password when prompted). Thus all the insecurities and lack of exclusive control people are talking about in other subthreads have existed for a long time. As long as you ran software you had no permission to inspect, modify, and share, you may have never been the sole admin of your computer. And you'll never know the details of the controls the proprietors possess.
Digital Citizen
Microsoft warns users to backup their data. In other news, the NOAA warns that rain may make you wet.
Better off? Do you realize that there are a whole range of non-Google stores available for Android
Yes, I do. That's why the iPhone user is better off, because rather than hunt all over the place they can find pretty much any interesting non-app store approved app in Cydia.
Not to mention that while all those things you mentioned are about whole different apps, many "apps' on cydia are custom mods of existing applications, which can be much nicer - you get to use an app that was already pretty good but with enhanced ability.
A Jailbroken iPhone is more customizable than Android thanks to the use of Objective-C with easily injected code.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't trust any of the large corps as far as I can throw them. Any important work/data I use some form of Linux for -- lately I've been using Mint since the Ubuntu fiasco. If I can do it in Linux, I do do it in Linux. I have a Macbook Air that triple boots Win7/Mint/Lion, and stick to Lion for casual fun stuff because the OS is pretty, but I only trust one of those three for "Stuff That Really Matters" tm
Which is why a highly secure, DRMed box is good for the general population, as the wise visionary Steve Jobs predicted. Strong DRM security also hinders malware, and black hats. Why should the average, stressed out adult expend mental energy, when for a small fee, skilled professionals in Redmond can make most of the problems go away. I think Microsoft is missing a big opportunity in making xbox 360 'office appliances' for big businesses.
I'm more concerned about the loss of IT jobs.
I have no Windows boxes. Only rarely will I find something that causes me to run it in a VM. I just don't like it at any level. Never have. Oh, I have tried to have a Windows machine many times. But after the first or second time I have to nearly rebuild the damn thing due to registry screw-ups, malware or just bit rot they tend to get scrapped completely and replaced with Linux.
I am mega-creeped by this trend that the OS and/or hardware vendor somehow gets to tell me what I am allowed to run on my own machines and gets paid usurious rates to do so. This is not remotely in keeping with the Computer Power to the People meme that set myself and so many on fire back in the 70s and 80s. It is as if the government via the corporations are herding the sheeple into the slaughter chute. Especially combined with such near open declarations of war as SOPA.
The GP was John Titor. Please ignore.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Now that remove disinstallation is built-in, how funny will it be to have a next generation troyan/virus which will remotely deactivate your software, hijack your computer and request a ransom.
Apple first used it in 2009. for nudity (to us Australians who aren't afraid of the human body, this seem pants on head retarded).
here's another from 2010
So it seems your information is a bit out of date... and completely fabricated.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
That if I purchase an Backup-Application...I need to keep a backup of the backup?
All your apps are belong to us
This kind of removal of rights makes your bum sore just thinking about it. It's as if the T&C read 'you agree not to disconnect your ass... by saying NO, NEVER, YOU BASTARD, you indicate your acceptance of our terms... p.s. we have bigger lawyers than you... do not disconnect your ass from our equipment.'
It is not your device because you do not control it. Period.
How many trips to McDonald's per month do you think the average McDonald's worker in China can afford?
Learn to love Alaska
I know that the number of times that this has been mentioned here probably exceeds my /. ID, but WINE does work remarkably well *most* of the time. Sure, there are still some things that either won't run, or run badly. Some things require hitting up google and using winetricks but otherwise run fine (including pretty much every game that I care about). Why not try it in a VM and see if it works well-enough?
To be fair, though, I really think that things in the Windows/Mac worlds are as dire as a lot of people here tend to think. Or maybe I'm just being overly optimistic.
[1] It's spelled "You're"
Every app store is able to remotely kill purchases, either explicitly or by "updating" the app to a null state. I expect the main reason is damage limitation for malware, but beyond that it could be used to fix billing screwups, court ordered removals and so on.
2009: Your article talks about people being able to run the app still. The app which therefore hasn't been remote wiped. It doesn't work because the head-end it talks to was taken down. That was owned and run by the app vendor, not Apple. This is clearly not remote-kill; this is the risk of any head-end reliant app from any vendor anywhere. See also: http://www.pcworld.com/article/167383/update_apple_pulls_hottest_girls_porn_app_from_itunes.html?tk=rel_news
2010: Note the "Update: No" in http://www.razorianfly.com/2010/07/08/did-apple-just-use-the-ios-kill-switch/
See? We can both cherry pick random unsubstantiated Google search results.
TTBOMK there has been not one single verified, independently documented, uncontested example of a remote-kill on iOS. Numerous apps have been pulled from the store, though.
Who cares? China is in no danger of making McDonald's the best available option for any part of its population.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I've had an iOS device for 3 years. During that time, Apple have had the ability to remove serious malware should it ever get onto my device. However they've never used it as their security measures have prevented any malware getting that far.
And somehow this means I don't own my iOS device?
Your message would be better finished with "I'm insane." than "Period."
It seems strange that Microsoft is now aspiring to be as evil as Apple. We have come a long way in the last ten years.
((Hey Slashdot, remember you were so proud of your new changes? Can you please have your "Experts" check the summaries now?))
Back on topic. Yes, this is huge (if it goes through, floating "trial balloons" is the new hotness.)
"Microsoft can remotely kill your apps and all your content?" What kind of grab is that?
This stuff is accelerating. "There there user, here's a lollipop. You didn't want your data anyway, because we don't like that you're writing something that makes us look bad. Look! It's a Blog Post! We'll kill your browser! No Internet for you!"
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Theoretically they can do anything they want with your device remotely. But they just do not use this "feature" at the moment :) You're still insist that you own your device? Well, may be RMS, other GPL-centric people and I are insane, but you own only a piece of silicon and plastic. :)
I can't remember the last time I actually purchased software for Windows. Must have been the copy of Office I bought back around 2003, which I'm still using under Vista. Everything else is open-source/free. I don't think there is anything for Windows that is actually worth buying (that I couldn't find an open-source equivalent, or better, for).
No, MS cannot, and never will.
If you ever wanted proof that utilizing the "cloud" is a bad idee, let this add to the stack of evidence.
Control, Control, Control. Once you purchase stuff that requires some sort of connectivity to their network, you are at their mercy.
The only solution is to establish your own network or cloud, and run an OS and applications that have no such requirements.
Theoretically they can do anything they want with your device remotely.
No, they can only do those things for which there is a mechanism.
But they just do not use this "feature" at the moment :)
As I said: because the system they use, that you disdain has been very successful in keeping malware off the device so they haven't had to use it. Unlike the far more open Android, which has had plenty of malware.
Well, may be RMS, other GPL-centric people and I are insane
If you're grouping yourself in with him, I'm even more convinced.
The stealing of one's private data from a personal computing device is a felony computer crime.
So how do you deal with XP re-installation when MS will no longer activate it?
WOOSH!
You must have had a worse week than me if you're so grumpy you didn't get the joke.
Free Martian Whores!
"The story also notes that MS states purchases are responsible for backing up the data that you store in apps that you acquire via the Windows Store, including content you upload using those apps."
What?!
Is this even English?
Other than that, what did we expect? Every day our choices and freedoms are wittled away little-by-little. Make it pretty or make it scary and the sheeple will buy whatever you're selling.
And, yes, that goes for every single person who bought into Apples "eco-system".
I'd rather have the choice to download virii. Doesn't mean I want 'em, but it's better than no choice.
And, as we've seen, once something (business model, clothing line, etc...) becomes popular (regardless of the harm it does) everyone else will copy it to try and emulate it's success.
I can only hope that, like all "trends", this too shall pass.
"Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
XP will probably be around for as long a time as ReactOS needs to emulate it well. Then it will vanish, like MS DOS vanished after FreeDOS got good enough.
But the old software will stay running. COBOL didn't go away, VB won't either.
Rethinking email
First, they probably never purchased the apps but got a license that allows them to use the app. That license grants the user certain rights, like numbers of copies a user can run, on what device, on what day and in what rooms of the house. Certain users abuse these rights,
Second, Microsoft doesn't kill apps. Apps are like children to Microsoft. And if you mistreat them you might lose custody.
Finally, "remotely kill" sounds like a drone attack, but Microsoft is just helping the users to avoid running apps they shouldn't. A more neutral term would be "Microsoft can remotely assist users to disable apps."
P.S: I'm also looking for a new job, anything near Seattle would be swell.
I did not fail to notice that you purposefully avoided using the W word in this other context lest you be sued for trademark infringement.
Well played.
Actually, the flowers have been champing at their collective bit to sue Microsoft.
Not because of their prior art - it's because they bought Windows Vista and they still had not gotten over Widows ME, or hearing the name "Zune" (no need for bees - 300 foot projectile pollen would result whenever they heard the name "Zune") .
You do, as you are the one focusing on 10 hamburgers per month as if that was notable. Try slightly longer posts that explain what you think, rather than just imply something about others without any of your own thoughts revealed.
Learn to love Alaska
Maybe he meant "the wrong that belongs to you"? Hard telling what anybody really means on the internet, since so many these days are semiliterate at best.
Free Martian Whores!
the fuck happened to those?
I was pointing out that if McDonald's-quality hamburgers had a price equal to 1/10 of average monthly salary, literally no one would buy them, so either there will be no hamburgers or their prices will be lower. Inflation can go to ridiculous levels, but the given proportion can't happen.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I can't help but thinking if it isn't time to forget the Microsoft/Apple/Google lock in and go all W3C. Programmers of the world would do well to forget Microsoft/Apple/Google lock in via the app stores!!! Use W3C web standards to code your applications current and experimental (HTML5 etc.). Use and/or create alternate payment channels to get paid for your creations, why should you pay someone 20-30% for selling your creation ? Utilize the app stores of these giants only so long as it is convenient for yourself to do so, do not let yourself be lured into letting them control your creations and your revenue. You still have some freedom left - Why don't you use it ? The web is still open and needs to stay that way to ensure free and fair competition, but it will only stay that way if you keep coding to open and accessible standards and only if you do not allow yourselves to be drawn completely into the ecosystems of the aforementioned giants who have themselves and not you as their primary focus.... I could go on and on but I'll leave it here and leave with you my strongest wishes for you to code open source applications according to open standards and making sure you create a decentralized distribution system to ensure maximum exposure and minimum control of others over your creations. Allowing anyone the opportunity to completely kill your application because some lawyer says so is insane and customers allowing a company to remotely delete products they purchased... well... It hurts my brain to find a reason as to why you would allow them this liberty... must be apathy to all the long EULA's that people never bother to read because no sane person would surely not let anyone sell them a product only to take it away without even asking permission or offer a refund... please say they would'nt
MS, ALS, Aphasia ? http://globability.org - Me http://einarpetersen.com
Inflation can be local to a currency, as opposed to global. So, if beef is worth $5 per lb 1980 dollars, then a burger will cost about $5 retail for a 1/4 pounder with minimal markup. Now, if beef were $50 per pound, what would the burger need to cost? What happens if that $50 were actually $10 1980 dollars and $40 inflation, and the $5 became $10 because the demand increased internationally or, as you point out, there would be massive changes to eating if people couldn't afford burgers, so perhaps the beef makers changed crops, sold out, or collapsed, affecting supply.
I do agree that 1/10 is high. It would take more than just simple inflation to get that, but have no doubt, when the inflation hits the dollar (and it can't be helped now), it will be anything but "simple." It's about 1/100th monthly wage in China for a burger meal now. I was making the point that the livability in the US will be worse than China once the inflation hits.
Learn to love Alaska
Well, you are :) But how you can be so sure about things they can do and can not do with your computer? Can you read source code of entire shit that installed on? Do you use crystal ball?
OK, forget my paranoia. Microsoft and Apple are very good people, the can not do such shit to you. What about malware authors? Are you sure your Windows computer is not infected?
Insanity sometimes is near to genius... But stupidity never. :)
Well, you are :) But how you can be so sure about things they can do and can not do with your computer? Can you read source code of entire shit that installed on? Do you use crystal ball?
How was the spyware behaviour of Carrier IQ discovered on Android? It certainly wasn't by examining source - that bit of Android phone software wasn't ever released as source.
Now, if beef were $50 per pound, what would the burger need to cost? What happens if that $50 were actually $10 1980 dollars and $40 inflation, and the $5 became $10 because the demand increased internationally or, as you point out, there would be massive changes to eating if people couldn't afford burgers, so perhaps the beef makers changed crops, sold out, or collapsed, affecting supply.
Inflation does not add anything to cost, it multiplies everything by approximately the same coefficient, so the ratio between average salary and cost of common locally produced and locally consumed product will stay the same. By itself, inflation causes harm by devaluing cash in reserves and in transactions, and reducing effective buying power of population because prices adjust faster than salaries. It is harmful but not THAT harmful for the consumer. If this process went so ridiculously that commonly consumed product became unaffordable, there wouldn't be any "adjustment" of supply -- the product and all its producers will be completely wiped out because their ability to produce is dependent on economy of scale.
It's about 1/100th monthly wage in China for a burger meal now.
That reflects the fact that it's not a commonly consumed product in China.
I was making the point that the livability in the US will be worse than China once the inflation hits.
Actually it would be far worse than in China, however crappy food will be still affordable (as crappy Chinese food is very much affordable in China, and was affordable in far worse times).
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Inflation does not add anything to cost,
Thanks for putting that first so I could dismiss everything else you said without even having to read it. Inflation devalues the currency inflated. So any commodity desired internationally will increase in cost (not just from the inflation requiring 10x the number of that specific currency, but from the international trading effect as well). That was a core idea to my point, and you obviously didn't get it, so whatever you are responding to isn't what I said, but what you think I meant (which wasn't what I meant).
Learn to love Alaska
Thanks for putting that first so I could dismiss everything else you said without even having to read it. Inflation devalues the currency inflated.
That's multiplication, not addition.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
2+2=2*2, whining about the math sign when the results are the same is absolutely insane. Why not look at the the fact that the results are the same?
Learn to love Alaska
The result is, inflation in otherwise perfectly functioning economy (all prices, be it raw materials, products or labor, can adjust instantly), only affects money accumulation and loans, both of no direct importance for the overwhelming majority of the population. Arguably it can be even a positive development, as all properly working investments would be preserved because returns from them will reflect new prices thus compensating for inflation, while non-working "mattress money", consumer loans, bogus investments, etc. will lose value.
In reality, of course, inflation is more harmful because price adjustment is neither instant nor balanced. Salaries adjust the slowest and prices the fastest, so most of the population is usually impoverished despite having little or no savings, however this is a secondary effect, it can not possibly produce "10 hamburgers per month" prices even if inflation itself will multiply prices by millions.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
this is a secondary effect, it can not possibly produce "10 hamburgers per month" prices even if inflation itself will multiply prices by millions.
It does when nobody wants your currency and much of your goods are imported. Currency trading is a commodities market. People don't buy pork bellies (or dollars) if they think it will go down next week. And inflation makes that happen. So a little extra inflation will weaken the currency to a greater effect than the inflation alone. So the beef on the international market won't be sold to the guy offering $20 worth of dollars if someone else is offering $30 worth of Euros (even if locally they are equivalent amounts, the trading value varies more).
Learn to love Alaska
No, I'm always correct. That precludes that particular option ;)