IP: MS Big Brother wants you to help ... and wants you to pay, to boot!

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 16:03:11 -0800
> To: farber () cis upenn edu (Dave Farber), Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>,
>    freematt () coil com (Matthew Gaylor)
> From: Jim Warren <jwarren () well com>
> Subject: MS Big Brother wants you to help ... and wants you to pay, to
>  boot!
> Cc: mtarsala () marketwatch com
>
> According to CBS MarketWatch, below, Microsoft now wants to be the holder 
> of *much* of our most sensitive medical, financial and other personal 
> information.  Before reading about MS' latest "service," consider --
>
> *  Only a few months ago, Microsoft's own network was cracked and it's 
> believed that massive amounts of internal information may have been 
> downloaded from it before the network was killed.
>
> *  At great expense, an increasing number of federal agencies and foreign 
> government agencies are abandoning Microsoft server and other software, 
> stating that it's simply too insecure for them to risk using it any longer.
>
> *  Holes in Microsoft's Internet Explorer and/or Outlook Express has been 
> estimated to be responsible for covertly circulating to millions of 
> entries in naive users' address books, a huge number of viruses, Trojan 
> horses, and DDOS (distributed denial of service) attacks, including 
> several that cost their targets hundreds of thousands of dollars in 
> down-time, lost business and consumptive recovery efforts.
>
> *  Microsoft is also the company that said they absolutely did not collect 
> information about user machines when users did online software 
> registration -- until it was proven that they WERE doing exactly that 
> (covertly picking off each machine's globally-unique Ethernet-card serial 
> number).
>
> *  Microsoft's Word includes "features" that are estimated to have 
> facilitated about 1/4-1/3 of *all* of the world's computer viruses in the 
> last  4-5 years.
>
>
> Geee ... thanks very much ... but I think I'll keep my most sensitive 
> personal information in my OWN files -- and copy'n'paste it if/when needed!
>
> --jim, Jim Warren; jwarren () well com, technology & public policy columnist
> Also GovAccess founder/list-owner/editor, and DataCast founder/owner
> 345 Swett Rd, Woodside CA 94062; voice/650-851-7075; fax/off due to spam-glut
>
> [self-inflating puff: Playboy Foundation's Hugh Hefner First-Amendment Award;
> Soc.of Prof.Journalists-Nor.Calif.'s James Madison Freedom-of-Information 
> Award;
> founded InfoWorld; Dr. Dobb's Journal; Computers, Freedom & Privacy 
> Conferences;
> Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer Award (in its first year), blah blah]
>
> ===
>
> http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?print=1&guid={BAF153AC-EAF5-4449-8DC8-C837376B5912}&siteid=mktw
>
> Microsoft unveils awaited software
> By Mike Tarsala, CBS.MarketWatch.com
> Last Update: 5:07 PM ET Mar 19, 2001
>
>
> REDMOND, Wash. (CBS.MW) - Bill Gates is trying to convince anyone who's 
> ever filled out a form on the Internet to trust him with their lives - and 
> pay his company for it.
>
> Gates unveiled Internet-based software Monday that lets people store and 
> manage their personal records [making] the world's largest software 
> company a central repository for storing credit card numbers, birth 
> records and other types of personal information. The company will charge a 
> to-be-determined monthly fee for the service.
>
> Code-named Hailstorm ...
>
> ... The software keeps people from having to root through file cabinets 
> any time they want to make a big-ticket purchase, file a medical claim or 
> apply for a loan.
>
> <snip>



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