Boy, busy news day!
Anyways, I’ve been watching the developments around Microsoft’s newest bad idea, which is code-named [url=http://www.msnbc.com/news/770511.asp?cp1=1]Palladium[/url].
To quote from this [url=http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20020627.html]article on the subject[/url]:
[i]”Palladium is the code name for a Microsoft project to make all Internet communication safer by essentially pasting a digital certificate on every application, message, byte, and machine on the Net, then encrypting the data EVEN INSIDE YOUR COMPUTER PROCESSOR. Palladium compatible hardware (presumably chipsets and motherboards) will come from both AMD and Intel, and the software will, of course, come from Microsoft. That software is what I had dubbed TCP/MS.”[/i]
This idea sounds so far-fetched, so sci-fi, so impossible to believe that I fear it may actually come to pass. However, I disagree with the author above as to the consequences if this should happen. I think that people will flee Microsoft’s offerings in droves and discover the freedom and openess of LInux and Open Source Software, and learn to embrace it, rather than subjugate themselves to a further move towards complete Redmond world domination.
But we’ll see. I’ve been wrong before, and I’m surely going to be wrong again.