[Beowulf] Sidebar: Vista Rant

[Robert G. Brown]

On Wed, 18 Jul 2007, Chris Samuel wrote:

> http://www.csamuel.org/2006/12/29/microsoft-details-on-vista-protections/

Actually, a link on this site:

   http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

is like scarier than the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, version 1.  Should be
mandatory reading for all humans.  It completely explains the slowdown
-- Microsoft has installed what amounts to a content-controlled censor
daemon.  In fact, a whole set of the daemons.  They all run, all of the
time, doing really complicated things.  Their purpose -- to shut off
all access to content except through a rigorously controlled chain of
hardware.

I like the author's executive summary:

   "The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute
   the longest suicide note in history."

OK, now that I've read this, there is no question.  I will not support
this.  I'm going to bitch, bitch, bitch until Lenovo replaces my copies
of Vista with XP.  I'm going to write my newspaper -- every consumer
should learn that this is going on, and they should be made aware of
what it will cost them.

    rgb

-- 
Robert G. Brown	                       http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/
Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305
Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
Phone: 1-919-660-2567  Fax: 919-660-2525     email:rgb at phy.duke.edu