FC: Microsoft wants to be Big Brother... and wants you to pay

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

********

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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