"The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history."  So runs the 'Executive Executive Summary' of a document penned by Auckland-based security researcher and "professional paranoid" Peter Gutmann.

Yet another reason I seriously don't like Microsoft Products. Their products no longer compete on their merits. Microsoft is systematically trying to take control of an entire industry and at every juncture possible trying through backhanded and sleazy law, licensing, bribery, etc..., to eliminate your choice in order to tie users to Microsoft in order to monetize them, like a digital crop. In many cases M$ simply operates illegally and, if nothing else, simply immorally.  If you as a user are not aware, you simply turn over your privacy, rights and ownership to MS in order for them to utilize you as a monetary crop. Oh and by the way you PAY THEM to screw you. Since most users simply don't understand the back end of computing  environments, they have inadvertently complied to this type of extortion. This is why some corporations such as Google have seen success based in part on simple mission statements such as "Don't be Evil." Just the fact that a company has to issue the marching orders such as "Don't be Evil" speaks volumes about the views of insiders toward Microsoft.

Even if you use Vista and never attempt to access any content-protected material you'll still pay in terms of reduced reliability, stability, and processor overhead. The Vista operating system, for example, polls all components 33 times every second to check they're not being tampered with by DRM bandits. If a voltage fluctuates or there's a little unexpected noise on a data bus, the least you can expect is a graphics system restart. You may even be faced with a reboot.

Gutmann appeared on a recent Security Now podcast, [mp3 link here, transcript here], during which co-host Leo Laporte described Vista as "...an operating system that is essentially insanely paranoid." 

Gutmann's A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection has set the web alight. I urge you to read it. Irrespective of whether or not you use - or will ever use - Vista, computer hardware is going to cost more as a result of Microsoft's decisions to tow the Digital Rights Management (DRM) party line. And it's not just a dollar cost. The very thing that sparked the PC revolution - the open specification of hardware and drivers - vanishes under Vista's dark shadow. 

I am pleased that there are still alternatives that are Open and Free such as Linux. If Microsoft has their way there will be no choice at all. Long range, this extends to all computer electronics, car radio, satellite, digital TV, perhaps even your dishwasher. In order to receive information you would have to pay a license fee to MS in some form or another.

We have today on our desks some powerful computing power, the equivalent of super-computers from recent years.  With innovative software and operating systems it is capable of more things than we can imagine. Instead of moving toward further innovation, Microsoft is choosing to use it toward controlling the users, suppressing other's ideas and innovation, extorting money, controlling a market, and monetizing ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING. MS is a MONOPOLY it is NOT COMPETING it is STIFLING an entire Industry's growth because of money! Perhaps GREED and CONTROL is in effect the Longest Suicide Note a Company can write.

Yet more reasons to Make the Switch to Linux