Microsoft announced on Monday its plans for a new processor-based digital authentication system known as 'Palladium', which would give Microsoft unprecedented remote-control priveleges on home PCs running this system.
Like all instruments of fascism, Palladium is being introduced under the guise of 'security' and 'copyright protection'. Of course these are both serious issues that need to be addressed, but the implications of the Palladium technology are much wider-ranging and far more disturbing than simply protecting the music industry and other copyrights.
The following articles reveal how Palladium is almost certain to put an end to Open Source software as we know it - i.e. it would mean curtains for Linux. It would also mean curtains for the Macintosh platform if Apple refused to submit control of their customers' machines to Microsoft under the Palladium system. Added to these anti-trust atrocities are a whole host of privacy concerns - for example, Palladium would give Microsoft unlimited remote access to your personal internet history, email history, email encryption keys and even your hard disk contents. It would be able to dictate what you can and cannot install and run on YOUR computer, and would also enable Microsoft-controlled, hardware-supported blocking of websites that it deems 'insecure' and hence 'non-Palladium-approved'. That's right: Palladium would give Microsoft EDITORIAL CONTROL OVER THE INTERNET. And because Palladium is a hardware-based system (it runs from INSIDE the processor of your computer), it would be impossible to circumvent. PLEASE read the articles linked below.
Microsoft is a convicted monopolist. The facts about Palladium speak for themselves: the public will use their buying power to preserve their rights if they are made aware of the sheer and absolute assault on privacy and freedom of choice that Palladium represents. Of course, we should expect that the chip manufacturers and Microsoft will keep very quiet about the more dangerous aspects of Palladium when they begin marketing it.
Palladium, if allowed to take hold, would mean the end of digital privacy and the death of the free internet within 2-3 years.
ZDNET News - Who trusts Microsoft's Palladium? Not me
The Register - MS to eradicate GPL, hence Linux
internetnews.com - Is Microsoft's Palladium a Trojan Horse?
PBS.org - The end is near
