|
- November 4th, 2001
#137 Ask yourself if you really want Passport...
May I see your passport
I was on my way home the other day and during the twenty minute drive I was captivated
by an article on public radio with a narrator talking about the new Windows XT operating
system. He was concentrating on the mixed blessings the OS brings to thirty million
potential computer users world wide. I did not catch the narrator's name, but the
message was certainly memorable.
___ It would seem that the Passport feature in XT is
even more robust and more demanding than ever before. Many features of the OS require
you enter your personal information, addresses, phones, and even your charge card
numbers. It's a convenience they say, and you'll no longer have to key the info in
when you access password protected or ecommerce web sites.
.
The narrator posed an important question:
"Is Passport really what we want?"
.
When I got home, there was my favorite magazine, the MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW and I
quickly give it the first browse before dinner.
___ One of the feature stories was "Copyright Protection"
and dealt with eBooks and their copyright schemes. It told of a college professor
who broke Adobe's eDoc copy protection scheme so he could install his eBook on other
computers at the office, home, or laptop where he might wish to read it. Of course,
once discovered he was hauled off to jail. The article also related the story about
the high school student who broke the code for the Microsoft eBook encryption and
then published it on the web. Before he was caught several hundred thousand downloaders
were happily unencrypting eBooks. Finally, it told how Microsoft's XP will require
you to have Passport in order to access eBooks or certain MP3 CDs at all. We can
understand the urgency of copy protection, but. . .
___ Last summer we all read the news about the hacker
who coded his way into the citadel to capture Microsoft's database of user IDs and
passwords, along with their charge card numbers. Then we saw the whole episode about
Microsoft's "Smart Tags" and how they accidentally forgot about privacy
in a scheme to put their advertisers' links on every web page on the globe.
Perhaps I should ask the question again: is Passport something we really want?
___ After several news-making scenarios where access
to sensitive data would seem relatively easy to hack, do we want Microsoft storing
all our credit card numbers in order to be instantly available on the web?
It's certainly a question to think about. What's your opinion?
|
|
Fred Showker is a designer, consultant, writer and speaker. He has published 60-Second
Window and DT&G Magazine online since 1990, and is director of The Graphic Design
Network which includes The Design & Publishing Center at www.Graphic-Design.com.
(1994) He was a co-founder of both The User Group Forum on America Online (1987),
The User Group Network at www.User-Groups.net,
(1994) and the Designers' Bookshelf (1996)
He originally founded Showker Graphic Arts & Design in 1972, has been an avid
computer activist and supporter since 1984.
Got Comments???
back to the 60-Second
Window Index, 60-Second
Lobby
. . . or: The Design &
Publishing Center. / . The User Group Network. / . Design
University. / . The Designers' Bookshelf.
/
Would you like to carry the 60-Second Windows column in your newsletter or web
site? Ask us about our syndication program... join
hundreds of others who now publish 60-Second Windows!
Thank you for visiting http://www.60-second.com/
DT&G: The Electronic Journal for Design, Typography & Graphics
c/o Showker Graphic Arts
15 SouthGate, Harrisonburg, VA 22801
TAD, Voice, FAX: (540) 433-8402
Thank you for visiting 60-second.com, graphic-design.com, user-groups.net,
and all of the sites including The Design & Publishing Center, The User Group
Network, The Graphic Design Network. We bring you 100% spam-free content for designers,
illustrators, publishers, photographers, and visual graphics arts professionals from
all corners of the world. http://www.graphic-design.com/DTG/ -- Contents Copyright
(c) 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001. 60-Second Window is trademark, copyrighted
since 1990. DT&G Magazine, and The Design & Publishing Center invite you
to visit Photoshop Tips & Tricks at: http://www.graphic-design.com/photoshop/.
Reproduction or reuse of parts or all of this manuscript without prior written permission
is expressly forbidden.
|