(malware,DRM,quotes) CIO Blogs - Musings on Vista

http://blogs.cio.com/musings-on-vista

Another great article from my favourite CIO columnist. Again, nothing we haven't read in other places, but he brings it together very succinctly and clearly.

Some quotes [text in brackets is mine]:

Overall, Microsoft delivers client operating systems whose virtues make end users happy and whose vices cause problems for IT.

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It's addressed some of the problems in XP in ways that end users are likely to see as intrusive and inconvenient. In other words, they've bandaged their vices in ways that will wound their virtues, which is a poor strategy.

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There's only one problem with this situation [Trusted Computing] -- changing hardware will break the end-to-end chain of security and result in an inability to access the data (see here, particularly page 2, for an interesting discussion of the implications of Trusted Computing and hardware).

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I would hate to be the IT help desk person who has to explain to an end user that because the motherboard of the computer went on the fritz and the backup encryption keys aren't available, all data on the machine is lost.

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I know that no end user is going to see this functionality [DRM] as helpful in his or her daily life. This seems like functionality put into the system not to serve the actual user, but to appease a powerful constituency that, through money and legislation, can bring more pressure to bear than can individual users. I predict an uproar around DRM when Vista rolls out, and a widespread rejection of new-gen media on PCs due to the onerous requirements.