IP: .NET and the fourth amendment

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> From: AcmeWriter () aol com
> Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 12:45:39 EDT
> Subject: .NET and the fourth amendment
> To: dave () farber net
> X-Mailer: AOL 5.0 for Windows sub 138
>
> My colleague Doug Brown and I wrote a piece that looks at the numerous
> privacy concerns, including 4th Amendement issues, regarding .NET.
>
> Hope you think  it's worth passing on to your list. An excerpt is below;
> readers will have to go to InteractiveWeek.com to see the whole story -
> ZDnet, which usually picks up our stories, only printed the excerpt.
>
> Connie Guglielmo
> Editor-at-Large
> Interactive Week
>
> In Microsoft Do You Trust?
> By Connie Guglielmo and Doug Brown, Interactive Week
> April 16, 2001 12:00 AM ET
>
> Microsoft envisions a future with computing as pervasive as air, and it sees
> itself as the oxygen.
>
> The question is: Will the rest of the world buy what Microsoft plans to
> bottle and sell?
>
> To breathe in the electronic environment of Microsoft's .Net imaginings,
> consumers must first hand their private information over to Microsoft, and
> trust the Redmond company to store it securely and parcel it out judiciously.
>
> Some think it's an impossible goal for a company with already questionable
> records on trust, privacy and security. But its success is crucial to
> Microsoft, which is banking its future on its .Net initiative.
>
> "This particular kind of service would require the most trusted vendor," said
> Rob Enderle, vice president and research leader at Giga Information Group,
> and one of the leading analysts on Microsoft. "Microsoft is not well-trusted,
> and recent security exposures have many concluding that it is not
> well-protected either."
>
> Microsoft has long wrestled with hackers breaking into the company's sprawl
> of networks, undermining trust in its ability to safeguard private
> information. And the company's public image, which for years has struggled
> with Big Brother and Evil Empire comparisons by its many critics, was further
> tarnished during the epic antitrust trial between the company and the
> Department of Justice.
>
> Now, with the recent unveiling of HailStorm - which will be a major component
> of the .Net vision - Microsoft is asking the public to fork over their most
> personal information, like address books, calendars and credit-card numbers.
> It promises to hide that information from the World Wide Web outside of
> Microsoft if the customer desires anonymity. At the same time, however, it is
> cautioning lawmakers on Capitol Hill against passing new laws that would
> guarantee Netizens the right to such privacy.
>
> Critics charge that Microsoft specifically - as well as any one company in
> general - should not be trusted with such a deep pool of personal
> information. To date, Microsoft has repeatedly failed to stop hackers, and
> the richer, more vast reservoir of information envisioned by the company
> would represent a particularly choice target for digital crooks and online
> merchants desperate for consumer data. With its address books, calendars and
> purchase history, the database would also represent a particularly detailed
> data jackpot for law enforcement officials. And Microsoft's failure to
> endorse even the idea of federal legislation, critics say, raises questions
> about the company's commitment to consumer privacy.
>
> But Microsoft officials counter that the HailStorm architecture is
> revolutionary in that it for the first time gives users choices over how - or
> whether - their personal information will be used on the Web. The .Net
> project, they say, advances consumer privacy instead of eroding it, and it
> does a better job of protecting consumers than any law.
>
> "Privacy is a personal value that each individual has a different approach
> to," said Richard Purcell, Microsoft's chief privacy officer. "HailStorm will
> not say there is a one-size-fits-all privacy policy. It will have the
> flexibility to say the user is in control.
>
> "We are assuring people that there is a basis for controlled consent," he
> added. "A very major information campaign has to be mounted."
>
> But analysts and privacy advocates aren't so sure.
>
> "Public relations alone won't do it," said Chris LeTocq, research director at
> Gartner Group. "They have to be able to say, you know, 'Here are these third
> parties that are going to audit us, here are concrete offerings which are
> going to somehow convince people we are somebody to be trusted.' Given the
> negative publicity they have gotten from the Department of Justice suit, they
> have a long way to go."
>
> The .Net initiative, LeTocq said, represents Microsoft's attempt to "recast
> the Net as they wish it had been written in the first place. From Microsoft's
> perspective, the Net is far too much of an egalitarian structure for them to
> make money. What you are seeing here is Microsoft rewriting the Net to look
> like Windows."
>
> Among other things, for .Net to work, Microsoft will have to be willing to
> work closely and openly with the bulk of the online commercial world.
>
> But Microsoft "does not have a history of egalitarian partnering," said Frank
> Prince, senior analyst in e-business infrastructure at Forrester Research.
> "People can apply to Microsoft a joke that they used to apply to IBM: IBM + X
> = IBM."
>
> ...continues at
> http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2707840,00.html



For archives see: http://www.interesting-people.org/