On Sat, 14 Aug 2004 11:56:05 -0400 Lanman disseminated the following:
Creating a firewall which blocks or alerts the user to outgoing traffic would effectively block spyware which Microsoft has obviously placed inside their operating systems themselves for their own purposes.
Also, if Microsoft built a firewall that actually did block outgoing traffic, how would they receive user data? Their own product would be blocking the data transmissions that they seem to desperately need.
Never thought of that, I think you just hit the nail right on the head! DRM, all that crap, relies on MS software 'phoning home' to verify what they ironically call 'rights' to use or access DRM encoded material, no?
Yup Afraid so Joe! How could they justify the use of DRM by media publishing companies if they can't receive data about abuses of DRM. Nasty, ain't it? It's not just the data about those who pay for their downloaded media, it's more about those who don't pay for it!
I think people should be required to install Zone Alarm or something similar on all fresh installs and Zone Alarm should be configured to block any and all outgoing transmissions to Microsoft or it's business partners without detailed information about what and why that data is being sent.
Then it's up to consumers as to what info they will be sending. But M$ has wrapped so much of their apps and OS into this that most of their functions would fail to work if blocked, and consumers would also become aware of how far M$ has taken this attitude and MS doesn't want consumers to know that!
They'd be back in front of the D.o.J. so fast it would make their heads spin! Of course, not much would happen again, but the legal fees would hurt and so would the bad press.
Barbara has an interesting point about her Intellimouse as well. What possible types of info could they possibly need from the mouse? Do they want to know if she's left-handed or something? Jeesh! Enough!
Maybe they should rename Windows and call it something more appropriate like "SpyHoles" ? Whaddya think?
Lanman
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