Clueless Part III: Windows Vista

One of the podcast that I listen to regularly, Security Now, ran an analysis of the security & licencing requirement of Windows Vista. One security researcher called the Vista Content Protection specification called it "the longest suicide note in history". Highlights include checking itself every 30 milliseconds, to make sure nobody has put a voltmeter on the motherboard in order to crack the high-definition content. Apparently it would make your computer behave like an "un-medicated paranoid", flushing & restarting any & all major sub-systems unpredictably.

Also, not content with just pissing the owners off, peripheral manufacturers (like your sound or video cards) would have to be licenced, provide the same level of protection, and could have their licencing yanked at any time if their security isn't good enough -- whatever "good enough" means. This would also increase their cost & reduce their reliability & power.

This is whether you want to use your computer as a high-definition media platform, which I don't.

Go ahead and listen to the podcast. They explain it in a way that everybody can understand and get something out of it.

I think my next machine is going to be a Mac laptop.