This is an outrage!

[yavoon]

the justice department suing microsoft again is probably an inevidability. they just can't right now, gotta lick all their wounds from the first time.

[Dinner]

Re: This is an outrage!

Originally posted by Mr. Nice Guy

http://news.com.com/2100-1012_3-5069246.html?tag=fd_lede1_hed

Microsoft is gonna get a kick in the A** for this! I can see another antitrust trial comin' already! This is insane! I'm gonna complain to the Justice Department!

What's outrageous is that I got a gator pop up add when I followed your link.

[Dinner]

It seems like a basically good idea which MS is using to lock out the competetion and insure that everyone must upgrade to the latest version or else they won't be able to access .doc files. This is going to make for alot of incompatability problems and insuring compatability is the only good thing about a monopoly computer standard.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

And what happens when you add Palladium to this? Documents keyed to specific hardware? That's a winner...until you need a new machine.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

(Note also: other vendors will no longer be able to open .doc files without violating the DMCA.)

[Asher]

Originally posted by dv8ed
And what happens when you add Palladium to this? Documents keyed to specific hardware? That's a winner...until you need a new machine.

No, you'd specify the person's key, not their computer. Do you understand how Palladium works? It's like PGP, with more features, and in it dedicated hardware free from viruses, hackers, and intruders.

(Note also: other vendors will no longer be able to open .doc files without violating the DMCA.)

This is a bit of fearmongering. It's true that competing programs can't open Office 11 Professonal" files, but only if they have IRM enabled. And if somebody has IRM enabled, they're doing it for a reason.

[Asher]

double post

[Harry Seldon]

It seems like a basically good idea which MS is using to lock out the competetion and insure that everyone must upgrade to the latest version or else they won't be able to access .doc files.

They do this already. Open a 97 document with a 2000 app then try to open it in 97. Ooops! Time to upgrade!

No, you'd specify the person's key, not their computer. Do you understand how Palladium works? It's like PGP, with more features, and in it dedicated hardware free from viruses, hackers, and intruders.

Ideally. But since it's Microsoft spearheaded I'd like to see it before I belive that. That statement reminds me of the kid that cracked the Celine Dion cd with a marker.

Plus, with hardware DRM, does this mean that I have to use approved development tools when creating software? I don't want to fire up an old Pascal app for kicks only to find out it isn't kosher on my install.

[Asher]

Palladium is disabled by default, and separates programs into three categories: Trusted, Not trusted, and Legacy.

Only programs specifically written for Palladium are regulated by it, and placed in Trusted and Not Trusted. Old applications are Legacy and work just like they did before.

Trusted Applications mean Palladium is turned on, and it protects all of your secure data in a separate, isolated memory pool with its own decryption and encryption logic. It also has a unique key associated with a user, which is portable, and allows you to set items on it like who can access it, no matter where the file ends up.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by CerberusIV
For anyone who works with Office documents containing sensitive information the outrage is not that there will be an easy way to lock it and stop other people altering your documents, the outrage is that it isn't already available as part of Office.

Exactly. I've dealt with numerous situations where other people have made undisclosed changes to wording of draft contracts, and a rather nasty one involving a supposed lender who turned out to be a glorified broker making changes to financial projections I did for a $200 million project.

Alteration can be handled with digital signatures, but access and complex privilege policies can not. This is something that should have been done years ago.

And since it's user controlled, there's nothing monopolistic about it at all.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Harry Seldon


They do this already. Open a 97 document with a 2000 app then try to open it in 97. Ooops! Time to upgrade!

You can save it as the previous version to keep it openable in that version.

[Agathon]

Well well...

I can see three possible outcomes.

1. What Microsoft hopes will happen: The system will work and everyone will find it useful and Microsoft will have extended it's virtual monopoly over personal computing.

2. What the Linux maniacs hope will happen: people will finally wake up and see how evil Microsoft is, sparking a mass migration to Open Source alternatives. Microsoft will go bankrupt and we will all be free....

3. What will probably happen: it won't work properly or nearly at all and thousands of users will end up locked out of their own documents and/or computers for no apparent reason. Millions of dollars will thus be lost. People will complain bitterly and threaten to boycott Microsoft, but they will be too lazy to follow through. The scheme will either be red-facedly abolished or toned down and people will get back to normal.

[Asher]

4. It's already been tested by 600,000 Office 11 beta testers, and it certainly does work. Mac users make doomsday scenerios, Linux users chant about how Microsoft is trying to take over the world, and Microsoft makes more money by giving corporate users what they've asked for for years.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Harry Seldon


They do this already. Open a 97 document with a 2000 app then try to open it in 97. Ooops! Time to upgrade!

I work back and forth all the time with no problems, but then again I dont use very much of the office2000 bloat.

Now powerpoint is a little funky.

[MichaeltheGreat]