Vista Activation Strikes Again - Time to Fight Back
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| * - a deaf user had to ask a friend to come over and make the telephone
| call to reactivate Vista
| * - another user performed a BIOS upgrade after upgrading the video card,
| and hasn't been able to reactivate Vista
| * - other users complained of being forced to reactivate Vista after
| changing SATA settings in the BIOS, connecting a couple of different
| USB drives to the system, or working with third-party full-volume
| encryption programs!
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http://www.maximumpc.com/article/vista_activation_strikes_again_time_to_fight_back
Recent:
Anti-Features
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| DRM and trusted/treacherous computing systems are, in many ways, an extreme
| example of anti-features.
|
| [...]
|
| Unfortunately for the companies and individuals trying to push anti-features,
| users increasingly often have alternatives in free software. Similar to
| Mozilla's pop-up blocking feature, RAW was low-hanging fruit for the free
| software developers working on CHDK. The absence of similar anti-features
| form some of the the easiest victories for free software. It does not cost
| free software developers anything to avoid anti-features. In many cases,
| doing nothing is exactly what users want.
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http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/antifeatures
Related:
The Longest Suicide Note in History
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| Gutmann: The genie's out of the bottle before the operating system has even
| been released! But that doesn't mean Vista users in particular - and
| the computer community at large - won't end up paying for Microsoft's
| DRM folly. At the risk of repeating myself repeating myself, yet
| another reason to move to Linux.
`---- ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
http://blogs.pcworld.co.nz/pcworld/tux-love/2007/01/the_longest_suicide_note_in_hi.html
DRM in Windows Vista
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| Windows Vista includes an array of "features" that you don't want.
| These features will make your computer less reliable and less secure.
| They'll make your computer less stable and run slower. They will
| cause technical support problems. They may even require you to
| upgrade some of your peripheral hardware and existing software.
| And these features won't do anything useful. In fact, they're
| working against you. They're digital rights management (DRM)
| features built into Vista at the behest of the entertainment
| industry.
|
| And you don't get to refuse them.
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http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/02/drm_in_windows.html
Golden Rant : Microsoft DRM's gone too far
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| Microsoft appears to have hit the wrong button on its critical
| Windows XP download service late last month, pretty well forcing
| every XP user to upgrade to Windows Media Player (WiMP) 11 if
| they (like me and many others) have the automatic download/install
| option enabled for critical updates.
`----
http://securityblog.itproportal.com/?p=712
Avoid the Vista badge, it means DRM inside
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| The root of this crappy DRM infection is Microsoft. It is the driving
| force here. This has nothing to do with protecting content, as we
| keep pointing out, there has never been a single thing that has had
| a DRM infection applied that didn't end up cracked on the net in
| hours. DRM is about walled gardens and control.
|
| He who controls the DRM infection controls the market. DRM is
| about preventing you from doing anything with the devices
| without paying the gatekeeper a fee. This is what MS wants,
| nothing less than a slice of everything watched, listened to
| or discussed from now on. DRM prevents others from playing
| there, thanks to the DMCA and other anti-consumer laws.
|
| Make no mistake, MS is pushing the DRM malware as hard as
| it can so it can rake in money hand over fist with no
| competition. It is really good at lock-in, in fact, the firm
| based its entire business model on harming the user so they
| have to comply and spend more.
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http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38926
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