The Long Arm of Longhorn

[matt merch]

Microsoft sends a mixed message as it introduces the successor to Windows XP. The new OS is designed to make sharing multimedia files easy -- but its digital rights management features restrict how those same files can be used. By Michelle Delio.
No one, not even Microsoft chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates, seems to know whether Microsoft's next operating system will be a blessing or a curse.

Content producers probably will love it -- digital rights management will be built right in. Hardware developers remain unsure: The OS boasts tons of spiffy new entertainment features that could encourage consumers to upgrade, but will users be spooked by all that rights management stuff?

The successor to Windows XP, currently known as Longhorn and on display this week at the 12th annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, is intended to run on compatible hardware. The operating system and hardware will, in theory, work together to secure a computer and its contents from any
tampering -- either by outsiders or, perhaps, even the owner of the computer.

Microsoft claims to have redesigned Longhorn's interface in accordance with a slew of studies on how people like to work, play and interact with their computers.

Longhorn, Microsoft promises, will be a cozy, comfy operating system, as familiar as a favorite pair of jeans.

But deep within Longhorn lurks the Nexus, part of Microsoft's new Next Generation Secure Computing Base system, which is intended to provide a tamper-resistant, private container for data users would rather not share with the world.

As of now, Microsoft expects that NGSCB will be part of Longhorn, according to Peter Biddle, product unit manager at Microsoft's security business unit.

NGSCB is essentially an encryption and permission management system. It can encrypt keyboard strokes or data being sent from a computer, as well as incoming streaming video or audio.

NGSCB also allows the owner or creator of a document, file or application to determine what can be done with it. Users won't be able to modify application code or alter the contents of documents if the owner has opted to block such activities. Users will be prevented from making copies of digital media if the owner so chooses. And users might not be able to forward or print e-mail or files without permission.

Separate permissions can be set for individual users, or conceivably for different purchase plans -- perhaps a 50-cent MP3 wouldn't be burnable or transferable to other devices, while a $1 copy of the same tune would be.

"This is scary stuff," said a developer who asked that his name be withheld. "I could see a lot of people sticking with their old computers, operating systems and media players to avoid all this permission crap. Any geek who does use Windows is going to stick with Windows 2000; most of them are already not thrilled with XP anyway."

Gates became noticeably touchy when quizzed by reporters on NGSCB's potential to be used as a personal copyright cop.

"We're building a security system that people can use or not use as they please," he said. "We are not telling anyone what they have to do or not do with their computers or with their content."

Some developers assumed, from Gates' comments, that NGSCB would be a user-enabled option. But currently there doesn't appear to be any way to disable NGSCB, as it will be built into both a computer's hardware and its operating system. It's also possible that its protections would not work correctly or would prevent content from being viewed on non-NGSCB systems.

Microsoft has not yet made it clear whether NGSCB will work on a computer that does not contain the hardware part of the NGSCB equation -- the Security Support Component chip, being built by Intel, which handles many of the encryption processes.

Intel has not finished work on the chip set. During demonstrations at WinHec, Microsoft emulated some of the processes intended to be performed by the hardware, and said it would release further details on NGSCB Thursday afternoon.

Strictly from a security viewpoint, NGSCB is -- in theory -- a good thing. It is designed to alert users if anything uninvited, such as a virus or spyware, is active on their systems.

But those alerts come at a cost. Applications created with NGSCB-compliant code are intended to be tamper-proof. If the code is changed, the system alerts other applications and stops them from working with the altered code, which could be problematic for people who opt to run unapproved code on their PCs.

Given NGSCB's potential to be a very personal Big Brother, it's interesting that Microsoft's other main focus at WinHec this year is encouraging hardware developers to build devices that, according to Gates, "provide consumers with more options to enjoy digital entertainment on a PC, television or portable media player and easily distribute digital media experiences throughout their homes."

On display or under discussion at the conference: a Media Center TV prototype, a sort of home server that sends digital media to any display in the home that has built-in sound; Universal Audio Architecture standards and drivers designed to make audio files sound significantly better; and a Media Transport Protocol that aims to improve transfer and management of digital media between PCs and other media players.

It's also interesting to contemplate the potential vicious cycle that could be provoked by Longhorn -- designed to facilitate moving digital media merrily around -- and NGSCB, designed to lock in owners' ideas of how that content should be used. Microsoft is stressing equally the security-centered and the fun features of Longhorn, which, judging by the demos, is still far from ready for prime time.

The promised features sound and look interesting, but those who don't want to devote chunks of their computers' capabilities to eye candy may disable many of the special effects.

But for those who love festivity on their desktops, and think of their computers as entertainment centers, Longhorn may be a good reason to upgrade to a new machine. Microsoft hasn't released system specifications yet, but many of the whiz-bang features no doubt will require new hardware with serious processing power.

Those whose hardware can handle it will see every open window on a desktop as a separate unit, each redrawn multiple times per second instead of recreating itself every time a new window is activated.

Those windows will also tumble merrily onto the screen, rotate, warp, blend into each other, and include links to other windows and content.

Calmer additions, like listing each drive's available disk space in My Computer, probably will appeal to tech-savvy users. And the My Pictures and My Music folders have been tweaked to act more like stand-alone file-management applications.

As everyone who downloaded the unofficial alpha release of Longhorn already knows, it also includes a Sidebar that lets users add active content to a desktop -- a clock, notes, a clickable list of frequently used programs and files, a search tool, image and music playlists, and whatever other Web services users or developers can dream up.

Longhorn will be released sometime in 2005, according to Microsoft's Poole. NGSCB-ready computers probably will be released in mid-2004.

FROM WIRED.COM

[notbob]

worried?

then don't use it

it's as simple as that

if microsoft doesn't sell any units of longhorn, they'll get the message that we don't want DRM

of course how many "advanced users" here have already installed SP1, or WMP9? these contain the same media DRM and license agreements (your computer belongs to microsoft) that longhorn has, just not the rest of the "trusted computer" crap

here are some old news stories you probably missed



http://theregister.co.uk/content/archive/25956.html

http://theregister.co.uk/content/archive/26698.html

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/26750.html

[isus]

a reply to notbob:
you said "worried, dont use it"

i dont know that that would work. i mean, people like hp, emachines, compaq, dell, etc... they would buy a bajillion copies of it and force feed it to average users (who dont burn cd's, just read email and check news).

but, i am gonna place a few dollars down that longhorn will be a semi-flop for microsoft. it will go great with anybody worried about their stuff getting copied *COUGH* MADONNA *COUGH*, but people smart enough to understand that they can't do what they want anymore, will drive ms down.

hey, did somebody mention that apple will soon be releasing a 64 bit cpu, thats faster than intel's 3.0ghz and also doesn't have any drm?

[MusikBeatz23]

Originally posted by isus
hey, did somebody mention that apple will soon be releasing a 64 bit cpu, thats faster than intel's 3.0ghz and also doesn't have any drm?

I think i'm going to switch to apple if this DRM becomes a big problem...

[notbob]

maybe apple doesn't have palladium, but they have DRM

it doesn't matter where you go even linux is allowing DRM now

once it becomes standard, you won't even be able to connect to the internet without a "secure platform computer" (DRM'ed P.O.S.)

once Bill gets an idea, he will pursue it, no matter how much it costs, and what the consequences are

as for apples, i used a brand new one the other day--what a piece of crap--no wonder they are so popular with airy fairy artsy fartsy types--they have no idea how a computer is supposed to perform

it sat there with a stupid smiley box for 3 minutes while i picked my nose wondering when it was going to do something--then it made all sorts of googly graphics mumbo jumbo (preumably to impress me)

all that and it costs more than the cheapest windows box and only runs 1/3 of the software available

[isus]

apple has nowhere near has much drm as windows... the itunes music store is their first shot at drm...

anywho, you mention "a stupid smiley box"? can you give a little more info?

the only smiley box'es i know of are the finder's dock icon in osx, or os9. if you used os9, you haven't begun to use a mac. and besides, buying a mac for 3x as much means you buy a piece of quality hardware.

my school uses mac's, and they have FAR less problems then the school my mother works for (which runs a bunch of dells). their net is always down bc of the servers (also dells). our school, always fine. even if verizon drops our t1 backbone to the board of ed, our tech ed teacher's 233mhz pmac (running system 7.6) keeps the appletalk network within the school running...

its nice...

to everyone: don't let os9 crashes deter you from using osx.
and to people who believe their is no software... about the only thing missing for mac is the wealth of games. we have the sims, ut2003, and a bunch of others... so... windows is really only for gamers.

once you price a good gaming system, you'll see that an even an emac is a great deal... i would suggest the low-end pmac tho.

[endersgame21]

In reply to Isus:
Well, there is a ton of people out there that burn CD's and the CD burning population grows each day. So hopefully most of them will be smart enough to not upgrade to Windows Longhorn and stick with the current OS that they are using. Even if they don't burn CD's, if they care about their privacy they won't pay for Longhorn. But Longhorn has to be fimrly boycotted so Microsoft will get the picture that DRM will not succeed and they will scrap that idea. Otherwise Microsoft and other Operating System companies will continue their efforts to include DRM and sooner or later the Operating System's that people use now will become outdated.

[Winphuk]

It will be quite sometime until the trusted platform is out in full force.
Here's an a couple of articles:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/...diumout_1.html

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,110670,00.asp

http://www.idg.com.sg/idgwww.nsf/uni...D?OpenDocument

[isus]

in reply to endersgame:

well, ok.. cd burning was a bad example... um...

divx codecs... dvd ripping... video editing... audio editing... serious file-sharing. the only person in my family to do any of this: me.

there are about 20 people in my family.

so, really advanced things, is what i meant.

my parents dont even know how to burn cd's... that was the first example to pop into my head.

[crazytrain]

It will be another microsoft product full of security holes just like everything else microsoft puts out.They are always in a rush to beat Apple with new stuff and dont take the time to secure their products.

[ATLien]

Guess i'll be going back to "OS X" or getting on the "Linux" band wagon.

Microsoft is going to end up shooting themselves in the foot, if they don't watch what the hell there doing.

[isus]

nice avatar crazytrain.

good point too. microsoft has so many 'features' that they stole from apple... really, it's sickening. if they were implemented better, and less sleazy feeling (hey, its microsoft, right?), they might actually be good.

microsoft has been all about stealing ideas lately... question: what was the last real innovation you saw from microsoft?

[Lamourlady]

Originally posted by notbob
once it becomes standard, you won't even be able to connect to the internet without a "secure platform computer" (DRM'ed P.O.S.)

once Bill gets an idea, he will pursue it, no matter how much it costs, and what the consequences are

if anything, the above is what scares me.
eventually, we will all have to succumb to DRM.
i would like to think that we could revolt and things would go our way, but i highly doubt it.
things r changing.
and as i watch it all unfold, i realize that our dreams of sharing, if u will........will eventually die.
only those of u, (mos def not i) who know the ins and outs of all things "computer", will still be able to do what we do today, but most of us will have to go with the flow of these changes.
not to be negative, but that's just how technology seems to be going.
and mr. gates has the billions to do it, just as notbob has said.
i will just try to enjoy my freedoms for as long as i can.
and i will be proud to say i was a part of the "times" that we r still in today.
"ahh, i can remember when i could...", the stories i will be telling the grand-kids when i'm old and grey.
lol ;)

[Winphuk]

Don't worry Lamourlady, What what I've been reading on Palladium, it's not even certain to be put in place on a wide scale, and if it does, they're not certain it will succeed, and eventually people will find ways around it and use it for they're benefit.

[Lamourlady]

Originally posted by Winphuk
Don't worry Lamourlady, What what I've been reading on Palladium, it's not even certain to be put in place on a wide scale, and if it does, they're not certain it will succeed, and eventually people will find ways around it and use it for they're benefit.

i hope ur right.
only time will tell.