Windows Xp - Self Help


Akuma no Houkon

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Self-Help

Self-help is a funny name for something rather dangerous. It's mentioned in UCITA - the consumer code for software licensing that's up for ratification in 48 of the "united" states (it's been ratified by two). Both self-help and UCITA are meeting with considerable resistance - from, among others, the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), the IEEE, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), and just about every ethical legal expert in the world - but that does not mean that Microsoft will wait for UCITA to use self-help. Microsoft was the major force behind the creation of UCITA, and they're itchy to get the show on the road.

What is self-help? Self-help is the use of any means whatsoever to punish the improper use of software, with no regard for damages caused and no legal liability for the perpetrator. Microsoft, as the licensor of your software, may, if they find you are using their software illegally, enable stealth downloads to your computer to disable not only their own software, but your entire system.

They may purposely infect email messages they send you with viruses; they may install trojans on your computer; they may send you Internet worms - they may, with the full protection of the self-help clauses in UCITA, do anything they please, and cause any damage they wish, to not only your computer software, but to the hardware itself. They may even download faulty disk drivers so that your hard drive controller physically breaks - all this and more is their right, according to UCITA.

UCITA does not limit the scope of self-help: In theory (although hardly in practice) the vendor could literally burn down your office building and still not be indemnified. And as one of the two contributors to UCITA (everyone else was against it), Microsoft have already demonstrated that they are not going to wait for UCITA to pass state legislatures to start using it.

Windows XP and other "XP" products such as Office XP give Microsoft, for the first time, the physical means to implement self-help: Once any XP product is installed, all the software logic Microsoft need on your computer to enact a self-help measure is already there and waiting to be used.



Now technically this only affects those who microsoft thinks "illegally" (by their standards) use their software products, but just seeing the control microsoft has over your computer, your hardware, imagine what otherthings lurk under the hood for those who even legally and "properly" use microsofts products. Scary thought.

And I know that while many of your really own XP, a huge % illegally install it, be it an illegal download or just because you buy it and install it on all family computers, or whatever. Its just a scary thought that there is the possiblity of that, programmed into the OS, and thats what we know about...., I cringe to think about what hides within that no one has figured out yet....
 
I have seen it on many reliable information websites, that exact quote however came from:
http://www.radsoft.net/products/xp.html

After reading that I did a lot of google research and although radsoft is basically leading up to an advertisement of their own product to help secure your windows installation, the information provided in that article is valid.

UCITA info: http://www.cpsr.org/program/UCITA/ucita-fact.html

Self Help info: http://leg.vptc.org/UCITA/self_help.html

Google different aspects of that, you will get some interesting articles and facts about the subjects from very reliable sources.
 
If I was able to actually be productive in Linux, then I would make the switch, but no matter how many times I have tried, I have always been something that has hindered my progress, or limited my productivity.

There just isn't a Linux alternative for a lot of the software I use practically every day.
 
Daz_Genetic posted on May 15 2004 at 10:33 PM said:
There just isn't a Linux alternative for a lot of the software I use practically every day.
I havent found any program yet that I use that doesnt have a linux alternative.

Here is just a SMALL list of the most common apps that people need replacements for, and their alternatives. (note this is not a complete list in any form! just a small sample)

WYSIWYG Html Editor: OpenOffice.org
Word Proccessor: OpenOffice.org, Kate, cwtext,
SpreadSheet (exel'ish), and many others OpenOffice.org, kbudget, planner
Paintshop App: Pixel32, Gimp
Burning Software: K3b is nice, reminds me of Nero. eroast, burncenter,bashburn,arson
Browser: Firefox, Mozilla, Konquer
Music Player XMMS is basically a Winamp2.x clone, even uses winamp skins.
Movies, etc... Xine
IM programs Aim has a linux version, so does Yahoo, and there are unofficial MSN (aMSN) and ICQ (licq) replacements, or just use gaim (basically trillian for linux)
IRC xChat (great IRC app), KSirc
Dev enviroment KDevelop is great.
Skin App KDE, Gnome, etc... all skin natively.
Mail Client Evolution, Thunderbird, Mozilla Mail
Emulators ePSXe, ZSNES, Generator, some that I dont remember the names for, for GB/GBC/GBA/NES/MAME/MSX/etc...
Dos DosBox runs nearly every dos app/game imagineable
Download Manager Kget
Kazza type apps Limewire (and many more)
FTP gFTP, ftpd, ftpcube, easyftp, deadftp, junkiem kbearm lftp, proftpd
News Reader KNode (mozilla mail and thunderbird also read news...)
3d graphics Maya3d has a nice linux version, blender, and there are many more.

Need I go on? The above is just a small sample, and unless the apps you use are some rare obscure programs (or some $5000 high end commercial app), or some hombrewn app by you or a buddy, I bet you I can find a equivelent, and in most cases I wont even have to go beyond the /usr/portage directory on my own pc!

And for those rare apps that dont have linux equivelents, well Wine, WineX, Win4Lin, and VMWare are always there to back you up. (the latter 2 are actual x86 emulators) (there are more but those are the 'known' ones)

So maybe you have a job or hobby that has some obscure program that has no equivelents, or maybe you dont like the equivlents available. But for the majority of people all the apps they use on a regular basis, all have equivelents.

But dont let this turn into a Linux vs Windows thread, I posted this to inform XP users about that nifty little thing M$ is doing / can do. Its only relevent to Windows XP, so an alternate from that, is Windows 2000, or 98se, etc..., linux isnt the only answer (although IMO its the best answer)
 
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Shit, thats crazy. Have there been any reports of people being attacked? Or is it just theory at the moment?

Might be the last thing that converts me to linux permanently though, this is stupid.
 
you also have to think about the possibility of a Hacker abusing that functions through one of M$ safety-gaps. That´s really something to worry about. Personally, i heard of this "feature" before, but i thought it would be embedded into Longhorn for the first time.
 
Akuma no Houkon posted on May 16 2004 at 07:15 AM said:
Daz_Genetic posted on May 15 2004 at 10:33 PM said:
There just isn't a Linux alternative for a lot of the software I use practically every day.
I havent found any program yet that I use that doesnt have a linux alternative.

Here is just a SMALL list of the most common apps that people need replacements for, and their alternatives. (note this is not a complete list in any form! just a small sample)

WYSIWYG Html Editor: OpenOffice.org
Word Proccessor: OpenOffice.org, Kate, cwtext,
SpreadSheet (exel'ish), and many others OpenOffice.org, kbudget, planner
Paintshop App: Pixel32, Gimp
Burning Software: K3b is nice, reminds me of Nero. eroast, burncenter,bashburn,arson
Browser: Firefox, Mozilla, Konquer
Music Player XMMS is basically a Winamp2.x clone, even uses winamp skins.
Movies, etc... Xine
IM programs Aim has a linux version, so does Yahoo, and there are unofficial MSN (aMSN) and ICQ (licq) replacements, or just use gaim (basically trillian for linux)
IRC xChat (great IRC app), KSirc
Dev enviroment KDevelop is great.
Skin App KDE, Gnome, etc... all skin natively.
Mail Client Evolution, Thunderbird, Mozilla Mail
Emulators ePSXe, ZSNES, Generator, some that I dont remember the names for, for GB/GBC/GBA/NES/MAME/MSX/etc...
Dos DosBox runs nearly every dos app/game imagineable
Download Manager Kget
Kazza type apps Limewire (and many more)
FTP gFTP, ftpd, ftpcube, easyftp, deadftp, junkiem kbearm lftp, proftpd
News Reader KNode (mozilla mail and thunderbird also read news...)
3d graphics Maya3d has a nice linux version, blender, and there are many more.

Need I go on? The above is just a small sample, and unless the apps you use are some rare obscure programs (or some $5000 high end commercial app), or some hombrewn app by you or a buddy, I bet you I can find a equivelent, and in most cases I wont even have to go beyond the /usr/portage directory on my own pc!

And for those rare apps that dont have linux equivelents, well Wine, WineX, Win4Lin, and VMWare are always there to back you up. (the latter 2 are actual x86 emulators) (there are more but those are the 'known' ones)

So maybe you have a job or hobby that has some obscure program that has no equivelents, or maybe you dont like the equivlents available. But for the majority of people all the apps they use on a regular basis, all have equivelents.

But dont let this turn into a Linux vs Windows thread, I posted this to inform XP users about that nifty little thing M$ is doing / can do. Its only relevent to Windows XP, so an alternate from that, is Windows 2000, or 98se, etc..., linux isnt the only answer (although IMO its the best answer)
I went to Linux once but getting the modem drivers installed (Fujitsu USB modem) was a pain and no one would help me so I went back to Windows :(

Also my windows is illegally downloaded because the disk I got with my PC died :(
 
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Holy crap, i was about to install office XP, thank god i didnt :ph34r: . The only computer in my house running XP is my sisters LapTop, and she only uses it for course work. Does this mean if you were downloading movies they could attack you? or just abuseing XP products? (i think xp products abuse them selves).
 
rcx21000 posted on May 16 2004 at 12:27 PM said:
:blink:

I'm really going to try to switch to linux.
Im not :D

I play LOTS of games and switching to Linux would be a pain in the Ass :D hehe...
 
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@Akuma: You seem to be the resident Linux guru, I would attempt to switch to linux on a more permenant basis, however I was informed that Linux does not yet support USB modems. The strange thing is that the latest version of Knoppix most definatlery supports my NTL:Home200 USB modem but all the other flavours I've tried (currently only Suse pro 8.2) do not. Do you know if support is or will soon be available? Or maybe there are workarounds?

[edit] To stay on topic, I heard about this a while back and said to myself"nah, it'll never happen". I'm still not convinced it'll happen LEGALLY but hey since when did M$ really give a shit (unless it's a law protecting their sorry arses)
 
My XP is pirated, and I solve the issue of things dying by simply NEVER updating...

(stole service pack offa kazaa, havn't downloaded an update since)

But this might explain why my bro's PC is berserk, he updated and it fuxxed up =(
 
well, my XP is pirated to and I've d/l all the updates and nothing has gone wrong yet, I think that this self-help thing is unlikley to manifest itself in this incarnation of windows, though it MAY in Longhorn, if the courts don't put a halt on it.
 
I am considering doing a dual boot on my system but switching OSs seems to be a rather big headache :(
 
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