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."

Comments

And?

[masternerdguy]

So can apple.

Re:And?

[InsightIn140Bytes]

Windows phone interfaces (and Windows 8 tablet mode) is actually wildly different from iPhone. Android is copying iPhone more than Microsoft. WP7 interface is actually quite cool, and even better than iPhone.

Re:And?

[BasilBrush]

The answer to the question in the title of that article is "No, Apple didn't flip the kill switch".

See the comments at the bottom from several people who can verify that the app did not disappear from their devices. It was only pulled from the store, which is a different thing entirely.

This better not be misused...

[gman003]

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.

Re:This better not be misused...

[retech]

Once given you can rest assured any power will be abused.

Well, no real surprise.

[forkfail]

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.

Re:Well, no real surprise.

[Elbereth]

Slashdot has a long history of shrilling crying out doom and gloom, and it's been wrong on every occasion that I can remember. I don't blame the other guy for thinking that some paranoid rant on slashdot is total bunk. When RFID chips were first discussed on Slashdot, people worked themselves into a paranoid frenzy, suggesting that you microwave any clothes that you buy from a retail store, so that you destroy any errant RFID chips. I laughed then, and I'm laughing now, as I recall it. Slashdot has always had a loud paranoid wing, and most of us have learned to tune them out. Their first reaction is always to predict a wildly unlikely worst case scenario, then rant and scream about how we're headed toward some fascist police state, because their Pentium III has a serial number (that can be disabled in the BIOS). I've heard it all before, I wasn't impressed by it back in the late 90s, and I'm still not impressed with it. The Pentium III serial number, RFID, Vista's DRM, Trusted Computing... these have all been complete non-issues. I agree that there's deeply troubling potential, but let's face it:

1) People generally want authoritarianism. It makes them feel safe and secure, regardless of the reality. Ranting about how walled gardens are evil is just going to make all the Apple fanboys tune you out, rather than convincing them to ditch their iProduct.
2) Security, by design, reduces functionality and ease-of-use. People hate that. Thus, security is generally minimized, unless it's authoritarian in nature. In that case, refer back to the first point.
3) Most -- not all, but most -- authoritarian controls can be disabled. Occasionally, it requires some action that voids your warranty.

Once I realized these things, I stopped caring so much. When I heard XP was going to require activation, I thought it was going to change everything. When I heard that Vista was going to have all kinds of evil DRM, I thought that would finally kill off everything that I loved about PCs and turn them into locked-down consoles. When I heard that Windows 8 was going to have secure boot, I'd shrugged my shoulders and said, "So fucking what? Slashdot has been wrong about everything they've ever panicked about, and I'm not falling into that trap again."

Maybe the Windows 8 secure boot will turn out to be a huge issue, and Linux will be locked out of 90% of all new brand name PCs, but I seriously doubt it. Every other time that Slashdot has panicked over DRM, trusted computing, or other initiatives, it's turned out to be a huge non-issue. If this does turn out to be a legitimate threat to Linux, open source, or the PC architecture, I'll deal with it then, rather than panicking about it now, like some slashbot version of Chicken Little.

What is it with this trend of hostility?

[Lotana]

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?!

Re:What is it with this trend of hostility?

[forkfail]

It's all about money.

A company that can control all aspects of their product reduces cost. So, if MS controls your root access, what software you can load, what you can boot, etc - they make more money because their costs are lower. And the OEM's make more money, which also flows back to MS.

It's not about hate and hostility - rather, it's about maximization of profit. And a result of this is, in the end, a less appealing product that people will accept because it's wrapped up nicely (with a bow and sexy dancing girls selling it), and because a lot of people don't [see|have] an alternative.

Re:What is it with this trend of hostility?

[InsightIn140Bytes]

It's kind of sad actually, as the old Windows Mobiles always allowed you to install anything you wanted, just like the desktop Windows does. Apple can be blamed for this stuff too.

Re:What is it with this trend of hostility?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

It happened when the likes of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook realised that being the owner of a walled garden (or even a slightly fenced garden) means you can do more-or-less what you like to users once you've locked them in.

A lot of people might be upset, but 97% of them won't do any more than bitch about it on Slashdot/Facebook/Reddit/whatever, and they'll still keep buying. The few who really will vote with their wallets for a more user-friendly alternative or go without products/services that come with nasty strings attached are so small in number that the big players can just ignore them.

That means the platform owners can adopt whatever abusive practices they want to make more money, short of breaking the law enough to lose a major lawsuit. And since the law everywhere is at least a decade behind the implications of modern technology, a lot of things that thoughtful geeks might consider dangerous aren't actually illegal anyway, at least not clearly so.

None of this will change until either a large consumer backlash begins (which is not beyond the bounds of possibility in the world today, but is on a gentle simmer right now) or legislation starts getting written by smart, thoughtful people who think through the implications of modern technology, understand the need to protect consumers, also understand the need to make commerce reasonably profitable, and try to come up with policies that balance these factors in a fair way (and then I woke up...).

Re:What is it with this trend of hostility?

[bmo]

What the hell is wrong with our IT industry and its hostility towards their users?

Because users are completely, utterly, stupid. At least the vast majority of them. 90 percent of people (I'm sure the statistic is higher) don't want computers. They think they want computers. What they really want are magic boxes that do magic things and don't want to worry about any kind of maintenance. Steve Jobs knew this. Microsoft is merely catching up.

And Slashdot is not representative of the "computing" public. What you want, dear Lotana, doesn't count.

--
BMO

Re:What is it with this trend of hostility?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wanting a "magic box" that is low maintenance and does useful things, does *not* make users completely, utterly stupid. I have a car that is pretty much a magic box to me. I can drive it around but I can't fix it. I use electricity but the infrastructure that supplies it is pretty much a magic box to me. Lots of different magic boxes for different people.

"And" ? what "and" ? This is the egg jobs laid

[unity100]

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.

Re:"And" ? what "and" ? This is the egg jobs laid

[bonch]

How did this get modded +1 Interesting?! Has the moderation system completely broken down or what?

"the cloud"

[DoninIN]

The whole point of "the cloud" network computing, etc. Whatever we're calling it these days. Is that they want to keep charging us over and over for the same thing. They want us to rent everything from them. The computing platform, the phone, the device, the apps, as a result they can even own our data. Have fun with that if you want to a digital serf. You can opt not to use a lot of these gadgets, they're bad business models, and one can be a nerd without owning all those faddish gadgets.

Get off my lawn.

Re:doubt it

[forkfail]

The app store isn't just for Windows Mobile. It's for all of Windows 8. Which means that the summary missed the big ramification: as of Windows 8, you will absolutely no longer exclusively have root for your hardware.

And I'm guessing that the majority of folks here have at least one windows box.

Re:doubt it

[nomel]

Nobody will be forcing anyone to use metro or buy any of the walled garden metro apps. It's just a program that lets you run the sandboxed metro apps. Close it or boot into the standard desktop. Most metro apps will support windows mobile devices and the desktop.

To the vast majority of users that download and try all the free apps they can click on and who don't know or care about any of this, being able to fix a "my phone is infected and doesn't work!" type scenarios is absolutely a feature.

Also, I doubt any os provider will want to be in the spotlight for causing mass network outages after some trojan decides to activate on 100,000 phones, with no way to stop it.

Re:MS OS stable long enough to remotely kill app!

[DeathFromSomewhere]

You mean this? They "defeated" it by turning it off. Pretty serious exploit I think.

Re:doubt it

[DeathFromSomewhere]

They have said that the only way to get metro style apps is through the store, but I don't think a developer unlock will be required to run apps that you have the source for. It would kill the point of visual studio express.

Re:doubt it

[lightknight]

And Ballmer's sad parade of preferring DRM over any other form of innovation nears its end, with the death of Microsoft.

Were I in charge of MS, my first standing order would be to rip out all DRM components from the OS, and dispatch any board member that disagreed with me. Followed shortly by my second order, which is to quit hiding / moving the fricking control panel every time we release a new version of Windows. And my third, and probably last order, before the shareholders revolt, would be to complete the migration of all OS functions to managed code. I say last order, as it would take several additional years to complete, during which the shareholders will no doubt lose confidence in my long term plan, and act to replace me.

At no time, during my reign, would I forget that the company was founded on a simple principle: personal computers. More specifically, the importance of personal computers, as a paradigm, as opposed to mainframes, how the two differ, and why the personal computer propelled the company to success in the first place. More importantly, however much I might be annoyed with piracy, and given to personal fantasies of turning pirates into paying customers, I will be aware that every person who runs a pirated copy of my software is not running a copy of the competition's. Additionally, I would be mindful to exercise every opportunity to utilize the underlying OS and hardware to provide a better "experience" to the end user than could reasonably be fabricated through a web browser.

Re:doubt it

[ozmanjusri]

Nobody will be forcing anyone to use metro or buy any of the walled garden metro apps.

Of course not.

Not yet, anyway.

Re:doubt it

[tomhudson]

Did the shelf life of XP and 7 just increase?

XP will be around for a LONG time after Microsoft stops with the updates. It's not like it's going to suddenly stop working on April 9th, 2014. Microsoft by law can't "remote-kill" it, any more than they could DOS, WIn3x, and Win9x (there are plenty of those still running). And it's not like you're going to hit update.microsoft.com after the EOL date.

I expect to see all the AV vendors branching out into "protecting" your now unsupported XP as part of their enhanced anti-virus suites. Businesses will snap it up rather than pay the cost of fixing their software against the latest moving target.

Re:doubt it

[symbolset]

They have made no announcement....

You may as well put a period on that and come full stop. They're thrashing about figuring out how the hell to deal with the current environment, and in the aggregate have no clue. The rumors are trial balloons, and they're hilarious. "What the hell? The world went mobile and we didn't get the memo? What's this app-store shit? What the fuck is a repository? Why didn't Intel tell us this was coming down the pike?"

From my perspective it's a beautiful thing to watch, made more delicious because I warned them here and there, but they were too stupid to understand. Not that I made it easy: I don't like them and knew they wouldn't get it.

Re:doubt it

[mcgrew]

The problem starts when you actually click "control panel". It is not rationally or logically laid out, and Win 7's is nothing like XP's. You have to hunt for everything, and many functions are several mouse clicks down.

What's worse, there are things that should be in the control panel that aren't. I searched Control Panel's mouse controls for a month before I found out where to disable the Acer's "tap to click" abomination. It wasn't even in the goddamned control panel at all!

And it's not just the control panel, it's in their apps, too. From IE1 to IE 6, "settings" was moved to a different menu location in each release. It's been under file, view, edit, and help. It was once its own menu item called "options", which has been renamed "tools". This is exactly what the GP is rightfully bitching about.

Back in the nineties when my employer decided to dump Corel and go with MS, I took an Excel class because I knew I'd be migrating. The class was worthless, because we got the next release of Excel and it was nothing like the previous version, which was what was taught. Happily, though, I didn't even need the class because the new version of Excel was more like Quattro than it was like the older version of Excel -- including where they randomly stuck shit in the menus.

And people say MS software is user friendly. What a load of horse shit. It's user HOSTILE. Telling you that you have to do it my way or not at all is NOT friendly, it's arrogant -- HOSTILE. I want my computer to obey ME, not the other way around.

If you work for MS, please tell your idiot bosses to knock it the hell off. It's way past the point that the average user says "this program is hard to use so it must be complex and good," which is what they seem to be doing.

I guess I'm spoiled, having run both Linux and Windows for so long. Linux is just plain better, period. I would guess that Apple may even be better than Linux, but I have no experience with Apple..