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Subject: Microsoft's Internet Takeover Plan
Date: Sun, 7 Jul 2002 15:45:39 +0530
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From: "Bala Pillai"
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http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20020627.html
I Told You So
By Robert X. Cringely
Excerpt:
Let's concentrate on the Microsoft story. Last August, I wrote of a rumor
that Microsoft wanted to replace TCP/IP with a proprietary protocol -- a
protocol owned by Microsoft -- that it would tout as being more secure.
Actually, the new protocol would likely be TCP/IP with some of the reserved
fields used as pointers to proprietary extensions, quite similar to Vines
IP, if you remember that product from Banyan Systems. I called it TCP/MS in
the column. How do you push for the acceptance of such a protocol? First,
make the old one unworkable by placing millions of exploitable TCP/IP stacks
out on the Net, ready-to-use by any teenage sociopath. When the Net slows or
crashes, the blame would not be assigned to Microsoft. Then ship the new
protocol with every new copy of Windows, and install it with every Windows
Update over the Internet. Zero to 100 million copies could happen in less
than a year.
This week, Microsoft announced Palladium through an exclusive story in
Newsweek written by Steven Levy, who ought to have known better. Palladium
is the code name for a Microsoft project to make all Internet communication
safer by essentially pasting a digital certificate on every application,
message, byte, and machine on the Net, then encrypting the data EVEN INSIDE
YOUR COMPUTER PROCESSOR. Palladium compatible hardware (presumably chipsets
and motherboards) will come from both AMD and Intel, and the software will,
of course, come from Microsoft. That software is what I had dubbed TCP/MS.
The point of all this is simple. It may actually make the Internet somewhat
safer. But the real purpose of this stuff, I fear, is to take technology
owned by nobody (TCP/IP) and replace it with technology owned by Redmond.
That's taking the Internet and turning it into MSN. Oh, and we'll all have
to buy new computers.
This is diabolical. If Microsoft is successful, Palladium will give Bill
Gates a piece of every transaction of any type while at the same time
marginalizing the work of any competitor who doesn't choose to be
Palladium-compliant. So much for Linux and Open Source, but it goes even
further than that. So much for Apple and the Macintosh. It's a militarized
network architecture only Dick Cheney could love.
Ironically, Microsoft says they will reveal Palladium's source code, which
is little more than a head feint toward the Open Source movement. Nobody at
Microsoft is saying anything about giving the ownership of that source code
away or of allowing just anyone to change it.
Under Palladium as I understand it, the Internet goes from being ours to
being theirs. The very data on your hard drive ceases to be yours because it
could self-destruct at any time. We'll end up paying rent to use our own
data!
Can you tell I think this is a bad idea?
Bala Pillai
"Networking Minds in Halls Without Walls Since 1995"
Founder, The Asia Pacific Internet Company
Sydney, Australia
