Windows Vista streams personal data to Microsoft

Softpedia: "Are you using Windows Vista? Then you might as well know that the licensed operating system installed on your machine is harvesting a healthy volume of information for Microsoft. In this context, a program such as the Windows Genuine Advantage is the last of your concerns. In fact, in excess of 20 Windows Vista features and services are hard at work collecting and transmitting your personal data to the Redmond company. "

So on the plus side, Microsoft is pretty open about the fact that they're watching you - although we'd wager that most Vista users are utterly unaware that a steady stream of personal info is phoning home. Is it a spyware OS? Maybe. Maybe not. We're not using it, so we don't really care.

The real question is "who does your computer, your property, serve? You, or others?"

AT&T expands domestic surveillance to include 'copyright violations'...

Via 27BStroke6: "AT&T, one of the nation's largest ISPs and internet backbone providers, is now working with Hollywood and the recording industry to create a network-based solution to police copyright infringement, according to the Los Angeles Times."

Well, since they have the deep packet inspection technologies riding on the backbone, and since their collaboration with the NSA (and the tech used) is in the open, why not resell the service... Discounting the invasive nature of sniffing customer's (and potentially non-customer's) internet traffic, there's the issue of privacy, security, false positives, and of course, the ever-present issue that an IP address doesn't equal identity. Will they start filtering porn next? Or spam? Or offers from competing ISPs?

Once they've demonstrated the capability, will they be compelled to try to identify and block fraud, threats, or other activities? What about corporate data? What about legitimate fair use of copyright works (e.g. streaming MP3s of CDs you own from your home PC to your work PC? Or, god forbid Trent Reznor tries to upload one of his own tracks to his web site)...

And will it all be moot once this hits the public eye, and session encryption tools like Tor become more mainstream? Blah.

AT&T sucks. Seriously. They should be ashamed of spying on their own customers - and AT&T customers suck too. At least the ones who continue to subscribe to AT&T services knowing the open hostility that AT&T exhibits toward its customers.


Oh, and in related AT&T wholesale surveillance news, The SpyRoom docs have been released. Also from Wired: "A civil liberties group suing telecom giant AT&T for allegedly installing illegal secret surveillance rooms in its internet facilities at the behest of the National Security Agency published substantial portions of long-sealed case documents Tuesday."

Jobs / RIAA SlapFight - none of it matters..

Lots of layers to the Steve Jobs / RIAA / DRM conversation..

Jobs, of course, recently called for an end to DRM. It's been speculated that this is less a genuine dislike of DRM (which has given Apple a lock on music distribution and allowed them to dictate low wholesale prices for downloads as a loss leader for iPod sales) and more of a response to the EU desire to open "FairPlay" (quotes intentional) DRM to other providers.

Blame shift to record labels - they make us use DRM.

The RIAA, in turn, has responded with a call (mirroring the EU) to open "FairPlay" DRM. This is likely less about a genuine desire to improve competition for consumers and more about bitterness at Apple's dominance and price-setting - coupled with a genuine desire to ensure that downloads are a horrible consumer experience.

Blame shift to Apple - they have a monopoly.
Blame shift to consumers - they're all thieves. (enter swat team raids and lawsuits against 13 year olds, despite an independent study showing that sharing has zero impact on record sales).

With 90% of the music industry's revenue coming from DRM-free CDs (the profitable atom-bit model of yesteryear), the consumer experience with a CD is mostly better than downloads. You can rip, mix, burn, move songs freely between devices in uncrippled form, etc.

And with 90% of tracks on iPods being DRM free and 'pirated' according to Microsoft's Ballmer, (Real's Glaser puts it at 50%, and the music industry would like to think it's all pirated), the recording industry would like nothing more than to have the Internet go away, downloads to disappear, and CDs to remain the dominant form of delivery. And entire CDs, to boot. None of this 'single track' stuff -- since there are maybe a few commercial hits at best on any given CD. It's more profitable and doesn't require any change of business model.

Ensuring that downloads are crippled with DRM keeps the old model a better experience (if more expensive).

Meanwhile, it all sucks for consumers. Who would like to be able to get the tracks they want at a reasonable price and use them in a fair manner on any device they want - without threat of expiration.

The bottom line is that the corporate slap fight in the media really doesn't matter - no one has the consumer's interest on the agenda. (and where are the aritsts in all this?)

If the two choices are either overpriced CDs with a few songs you want, or crippled downloads laden with restrictive DRM schemes, piracy remains the best overall consumer experience and will continue to flourish.

Now that AACS is utterly busted in multiple directions, the MPAA should bear this all in mind as they crawl in bed with Micro$oft.

And consumers should bear this in mind as choose vendors, services and as they vote.

RIAA goes after mix-tapes

New York Times: "Now DJ Drama is yet another symbol of the music industry’s turmoil and confusion. On Tuesday night he was arrested with Don Cannon, a protege. The police, working with the Recording Industry Association of America, raided his office, at 147 Walker Street in Atlanta. The association makes no distinction between counterfeit CDs and unlicensed compilations like those that DJ Drama is known for. So the police confiscated 81,000 discs, four vehicles, recording gear, and “other assets that are proceeds of a pattern of illegal activity,” said Chief Jeffrey C. Baker, from the Morrow, Ga., police department, which participated in the raid."

"The compilations produced by DJ Drama and his protégés are known as mixtapes, though they appear on CDs, not cassettes. Mixtapes have become a vital part of the hip-hop world. They are often the only way for listeners to keep up with a genre that moves too quickly to be captured on albums."


Not sure what's more disturbing -- that the RIAA doesn't understand the influence of mixtapes in helping to 'make' the next hot hip-hop artists, or that swat teams are raiding homes in what should be a civil matter... Argh.