The Vista suicide note

A number of weblogs have pointed out Gutmann’s analysis of Windows Vista’s content protection scheme, generally quoting his “Executive Executive Summary”:

The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history.

I knew Vista was bad. But the problem with that Executive Executive Summary is that it sound hyperbolic. In other words, it makes Gutmann sound like Chicken Lickin running around saying the sky is falling. After reading the essay, though, it might be a good idea to invest in an umbrella. Windows Vista is a disaster, and it’s a disaster because of protections built into the system to prevent the piracy of media and software. (That’s what is meant by “content protection scheme.”) Some highlights:

• If Windows Vista decides a content-protection hack is being made, it may degrade the quality of video output without warning or explanation.
• If Windows Vista decides a driver allows (by accident or design) activities Microsoft deems inappropriate, those drivers can be revoked, rendering the attached devices (monitors, printers, sound cards) inoperable.
• Windows Vista’s requirements dictate device support, licensing, design, and manufacture—often in ways that radically restructure, and greatly increase, the costs of development and manufacture of those devices.
• Windows Vista allows the remote disabling of drivers and devices by outside parties. Imagine a virus….
• Windows Vista requires active monitoring of the operating system by devices to make sure content hack attempts aren’t being made:

In order to prevent active attacks, device drivers are required to poll the underlying hardware every 30ms to ensure that everything appears kosher. This means that even with nothing else happening in the system, a mass of assorted drivers has to wake up thirty times a second just to ensure that… nothing continues to happen.

There’s much more, but that should be sufficient to grab your attention. With Windows Vista, more than ever before you will not be in control of your own computer. Microsoft, the RIAA, and the MPAA will. And the greatest insult is the RIAA and the MPAA will not be paying for all these “features.” You will.