Windows RMS and its uses -- a new policy controlled DRM for documents

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: tim finin <finin () cs umbc edu>
Organization: UMBC http://umbc.edu/
Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2003 08:11:44 -0500
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Windows RMS and its uses

Microsoft announced a new policy controlled DRM for documents as the
following abstract of MS's new release describes.  That's followed by
an article posted in Salon discussing its potential use to suppers
whistleblowers and provide corporations and government with additional
tools for secrecy.

--

Windows Adds Rights Management Protection for Enterprise Information
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluation/news/bulletins/wrm.msp
x

Microsoft Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) for Windows Server
2003 is scheduled for worldwide availability in 2003. RMS is designed
to help enterprise customers control and protect critical digital
information by offering easy-to-use, flexible, and persistent policy
expression and enforcement. Because Rights Management policy
expressions can remain within files during and after transit, rather
than residing on a corporate network, usage policies can be enforced
even when rights-managed information leaves the network.
...
To further improve protection and enhance interoperability, RMS uses
the eXtensible rights Markup Language (XrML), a common, simple-to-use
means for expressing and managing rights and policies associated with
digital content and services. XrML was designed to meet any
organization's needs, regardless of industry, platform, format, media
type, business model, or delivery architecture.

Rights Management gives users effective means to help protect
enterprise information. The various technical mechanisms that work
together to help keep rights-managed assets safe, such as key and
license management, for example, are easy to use and, for the most
part, transparent to end users. In addition, Rights Management offers
flexible deployment options, from single-box deployments to global
distributed topology, and integrates easily with existing Microsoft
applications and other solutions via published Windows APIs and an SDK.
...

--

New technology could chill whistleblowers
http://salon.com/tech/wire/2003/02/21/whistleblowers/print.html
By Helen Jung

Feb. 21, 2003 | SEATTLE (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. is developing new
technology to help companies control their internal documents -- a
move some fear could also stamp out whistleblowing on corporate
wrongdoing.
...
Hundreds of corporate clients have complained about private
information being leaked intentionally or by accident, said Mike Nash,
corporate vice president of Microsoft's security business unit.  "The
company does have a right and expectation for their platform to be
trusted," Nash said.  But others see the technology as a threat to
some of the best watchdogs of corporations -- their own
employees. After two years of corporate scandals -- made public in
part by employees' exposing wrongdoing -- whistleblower groups said
they worry limited access to information could let companies get away
with breaking the law.
...
"It sounds to me like just another way to restrict the free flow of
information," said Joanne Royce, a senior attorney with the Government
Accountability Project, a nonprofit public-interest advocate for
whistleblowers. "In a way it sounds like it won't hinder
whistleblowers per se, because they won't even get to see this stuff."
...
Companies have long complained about the inability to control
proprietary data such as customer records, said Charles Rutstein,
research director for Forrester Research.  He expects companies will
be interested in this technology particularly to protect themselves
from product-liability and other lawsuits.
...
Microsoft contends the technology won't affect whistleblowing on
corporate fraud or other matters. Amy Carroll, group manager of the
Windows Trusted Platform Group, said people can still photograph a
computer screen.  Michael Kohn, general counsel of the National
Whistleblower Center in Washington, D.C., called Microsoft's response
"ludicrous."  In many whistleblower cases, employees came across
documents in the trash or left around the office, Kohn said. This
technology limit access to a much smaller group, he notes, making it
more difficult for others to encounter evidence of wrongdoing.  "You
create a whole secret society within a corporation," he said. "Anyone
who is within that circle is unlikely to be a whistleblower."



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