A while back I read a troubling article at the ZD Net site, about how the next Windows OS, Palladium, will, in collusion with chip manufacturers, be “explicitly designed to handle rights management–meaning it’ll govern what software you are allowed to run and what you’re allowed to do with documents and content.”By coincidence, this is exactly what I do not want my computer to do. But it would seem easy to avoid inviting Big Brother into my den, by simply not buying this OS upgrade, right?
Well, this was recently found in the End Users License Agreement of the latest Windows Media Player patch. “You agree that in order to protect the integrity of content and software protected by digital rights management (‘Secure Content’), Microsoft may provide security related updates to the OS Components that will be automatically downloaded onto your computer. These security related updates may disable your ability to copy and/or play Secure Content and use other software on your computer.”
So in order to fix WMP’s security holes, I have to allow Microsoft to police my hard drive. Gee thanks. And I should trust you because…?
