A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html ^ | 7 February 2007 | Peter Gutmann

[savedbygrace]

This is a very long analysis of Vista & DRM:

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

Well worth the read, with a few funny statements thrown in along the way.

[TheStickman]

All the reasons I will not be buying Vista seem to be listed in this article.

[wizecrakker]

Hey Bill, you know where you can shove DRM, yes?

[TommyDale]

Wow! The "Windows Vista killer" document. The disabling of the S/PDIF is enough for me. I didn't have to read beyond that paragraph.

[savedbygrace]

Sorry, forgot that when posting a thread, you have to use HTML in the body of the thread for links:

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

[savedbygrace]

But you definitely should read the whole thing, because the author peppers a lot of humor in the body of this report.

Plus, the quotes near the end are priceless.

Read on, TD.

[TommyDale]

I will save the entire article for future laughs. Meanwhile, the entire Windows Vista O/S is going up in smoke.

[savedbygrace]

I sent the link to this to one of my Senators, the one who always responds to letters, sometimes even writing the replies himself: Senator Tom Coburn.

I plan to send it to Senator Inhofe as well, and to my congressman.

The laws Congress has passed in the last 5 - 10 years have allowed this mess to happen.

[savedbygrace]

Then there's this Windows Vista Upgrade Decision Flowchart, from BBspot:

http://www.bbspot.com/News/2007/02/windows-vista-upgrade-decision-flowchart.html

[camas]

ok what is DRM???? thanks

[ShadowAce]

[Obie Wan]

It is a long article,however there is a temporary fix,let Microsoft keep ALL their copies of Vista !!!

[ShadowAce]

DRM is Digital Rights Management. It's a technical solution to a social problem, in that it prevents (or severely limits) copying of digital content for any purpose. That includes all fair use purposes as well.

This implementation includes means to disable the actual hardware if it doesn't like what you are listening to/watching, phoning home and telling MS what you are listening to/watching, etc.

It's Big Brother in spades.

[stylin19a]

The notes are funny....
summary ?
Note M: If I do ever want to play back premium content, I'll wait a few years and then buy a $50 Chinese-made set-top player to do it, not a $1000 Windows PC. It's somewhat bizarre that I have to go to communist China in order to find vendors who actually understand the consumer's needs.

[holymoly]

Digital Rights Management

[TommyDale]

"ok what is DRM???? thanks"

You obviously don't do much music or video downloading, do you? DRM = Digital Rights Management. Do a Google search and see what the pitfalls are.

[TheStickman]

lol!!! Pretty funny.

[savedbygrace]

“There has to be a whole new division at Microsoft. The 'Office of Consumer Apology' or something. Responsible for 'I'm sorry your content didn't PlayForSure. That isn't meant to be literal you know' and 'yes, I know you're supposed to be able to play HD at full resolution, but you see, your cable has a kink in it, which changed the electrical characteristics slightly and, well, I guess I'm just sorry'” — Blake Ramsdell.

[N3WBI3]

Digital Rights Management, is the Movie and Music industries way of telling you exactly where you can watch the movie you *thought* you owned..

[savedbygrace]

Here are another couple of quotes:

“The [AACS] design prevents legitimate purchasers from playing legitimately purchased content on legitimately purchased machines, and fails to prevent people from ripping the content and sharing it through bittorrent. The DRM people wanted something that could not be done, so unsurprisingly they winded up buying something that does not do it” — James Donald.

“The net effect of these concerns may constitute the real Vista revolution as they point to an unprecedented loss of consumer control over their own personal computers [...] Vista seemingly wrestles control of the 'user experience' from the user ” — Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law.