More goodies from Microsoft
Two new interesting things from microsoft on slashdot today:
Microsoft's patent application for an 'advertising services platform' (possibly an API?) built-in to the OS.. According to the article, it can even scan the contents of your documents and your personal information to in order to better shove more ads down your throat. How nice.
and:
In the name of assisting criminal investigations, Windows Vista doesn't seem to delete things when you tell it 'delete'. I don't know about you, but I prefer to have control over my computer, and not to have it presume I'm guilty.
People wonder why I'm so intent on open-source software. It's not just about having software that doesn't crash all the time, software that you have to buy until the end of time in order to maintain access to your data, or being able to hack in a feature if you need it. It's not. Your computer should do what you tell it to do. This is the kind of thing that scares me to death. It should scare you, too.
And before anybody tells me that 'Mac OS is better than Linux', be reminded: Apple is just as bad in this department as MS, just about ten years behind it.
The final point I'll make against this sort of 'panopticon' technologies: Where is this information being stored? As soon as someone breaks it, they'll have high-level access to your stuff. Particularly the advertisement API that will scan your documents. And data that's kept around longer than it should can have repercussions. If you're using Vista and delete/shred a file that has personal information on it that's usable for identity theft, and the OS keeps a copy, how long do you think it will take before *that* archive becomes a target for malware? After all, the rootkit fiasco didn't fare so well. What was that again? "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?". I'll tell you why they should care about it: Because malware will use the rootkit to hide itself, that's why.
Comments
I'll be the last person to advocate using Microsoft software, but you paint a bleaker picture here than I think is justified.
"In the name of assisting criminal investigations, Windows Vista doesn’t seem to delete things when you tell it ‘delete’. I don’t know about you, but I prefer to have control over my computer, and not to have it presume I’m guilty."
The three technologies that the slashdot article describes are Shadow Copy (on machine backup), transactional file system access, and Instant Search. None of these technologies are inherently evil. I can't imagine implementing instant search without a cache. TxF is doing logging - for applications that choose to use it. This doesn't surprise me; transactions are descendants of DBMSs, and every DBMS logs everything. For a less sweeping version of the same thing, go look at any open source journalled filing system. As for shadow copy, it's a backup tool. Backing up files is hardly new technology.
I'm not sure why it's so insidious when Microsoft does it, but open source software can do it without a problem. Each of these features is documented. Sure, maybe they shouldn't be enabled by default, but the majority of users would choose to enable it if prompted anyway, because "protecting my information from loss" is a Good Thing.
Microsoft has done some pretty terrible things, to be sure (inserting the GUID that uniquely identifies a computer in Office documents comes to mind). But these don't bother me the way that did.
am i the only one that thinks apple's time machine (rip off of volume shadow copy) is a huge waste of space and security risk.keeping a copy of every file each time you change/delete them so you can use the time machine to go back 5 years ago to get that file back that you created on the first day you booted the mac,or worse it saves 20 copies of that 6 gig HD video you're editing.or joe stupid "deleting" his credit card info from his mac before selling it only to have the new owner use time machine to get it back.
there should defiantly be detailed config setting for it and detailed info screens that new users have to read before activating it so they know what they doing to their systems.
i agree with Mike,in it's a good idea just badly executed
Most of the things MS does, they do very poorly or for the wrong reasons. But Fred, you've got some really good points as to why shadow volume copy is not a good idea on the desktop. I think the main problem is that most file systems, version control systems, etc aren't built around the assumption that the average file for a particular application isn't going to be on the order of gigabytes.
I appreciate the particular irony that Macs are marketed as multimedia powerhouses. Maybe they won't fill up for people editing their 100MB home movies, but any large video projects will eat through the meager space that Apple provides.
I find it funny to note that even the $3000 Mac Pro only has a 250 GB hard drive in the stock configuration. 250 is *nothing* for large files.
But it's just another example of the big-brother-like: 'Apple Knows Best' attitude. The same thing that makes iphoto and itunes really annoying to use (Extra copies of multi-megabyte files? Sure, I never needed that space!)
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