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Microsoft Security Your Rights Online

Gates and Security 485

Posted by michael from the news-and-abuse dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Orwell was wrong about Big Brother! Microsoft founder and chairman Bill Gates told a homeland-security conference on Wednesday afternoon that Orwell's dystopian vision of the future, in which Big Brother used technology as a form of social control, 'didn't come true, and I don't believe it will.'" Other tidbits about this security conference: Gates had his own troubles with security (Drudge is copy-and-pasting from a subscriber-only Roll Call story). Gates is apparently trying to sell interoperability to HomeSec. Meanwhile, Microsoft viruses continue unchecked.
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Gates and Security More

Gates and Security

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  • Gates and Security (Score:4, Funny)

    by bytes256 ( 519140 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @09:48AM (#6311160)
    Gates are definitely a good first step for security, if additional security is required, I would also recommend a pirhana infested moat and barbed wire fences.
  • didn't come true, but Gates' mathods of assimilation are more insidious.

  • Dangerous (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27, 2003 @09:49AM (#6311173)
    Bill's a serious threat to democracy now that he's finally old enough that politicians listen to his money.

    Buy guns and prepare for the first Corporate War...

    • Re:Dangerous (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jmccay ( 70985 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @10:47AM (#6311739) Journal
      And then, with his ID presumably in his pocket, the billionaire huddled with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) to discuss tech policy.

      This is the part that bothers me. I wonder what technology policies he will try to get passed. Maybe some old stuff Microsft said...like OSS is UnAmerican and Insecure?
  • I thought Bill Gates got voted off the planet, is he still here?

  • Orwell's vision was true! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27, 2003 @09:50AM (#6311185)
    1984 was not a book that tried to predict the future. It was a description of life under a totalitarian government, such as those of the old Eastern Europe. Many defectors from these regimes commented to Orwell on how accurate his portrayal was.

    • Re:Orwell's vision was true! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27, 2003 @09:56AM (#6311255)
      1984 was not a book that tried to predict the future.

      Then why did he timestamp it?

      • Re:Orwell's vision was true! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Floody ( 153869 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @10:03AM (#6311322)
        Then why did he timestamp it?

        He didn't. The novel's setting was in some future time, however it was not intended to be specific but rather allegorical for all totalitarian regimes. In order to come up with this completely arbitrary future time period, Orwell simply reversed the last two digits of the year he wrote it: 1948.

    • Re:Orwell's vision was true! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27, 2003 @10:02AM (#6311309)
      Both 1984 and Animal Farm were an attempt to highlight the evils that Stalin & the Soviet Union were inflicting on its people in the name of "communism". While Orwell supported the concept of Communism, he was appalled at the way in which it was being bent and twisted into Stalinism, and in particular the historical revisionism of the Soviet revolution E.g. labelling Trotsky as an enemy of the people.

      1984 was a scare story, essentially in an attempt to show people what had happened and what would continue to happen if Stalinism was allowed to continue in the name of Communism. As you say, he was pretty damn close to the truth.

      That said, many people (Myself included) would say that what we see now from our own, non-Communist Governments approximates pretty closely to the totalitarian regimes of 20th century communist states, and uses a few tricks that are used by INGSOC & Big Brother throughout 1984.

      He might not have been trying to predict the future, but it does sometimes seem that the future is trying its hardest to copy Orwells imagination..

      • Re:Orwell's vision was true! (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27, 2003 @10:09AM (#6311374)
        That said, many people (Myself included) would say that what we see now from our own, non-Communist Governments approximates pretty closely to the totalitarian regimes of 20th century communist states, and uses a few tricks that are used by INGSOC & Big Brother throughout 1984.
        That's so untrue! For example, a modern government would never attempt to control the language to prevent meaningful debate of international terrorism or the liberation of Iraq.
        • I think if they could they would. But they lack the means to do so.

        • A little too subtle (Score:5, Insightful)

          by fireboy1919 ( 257783 ) <rustyp AT freeshell DOT org> on Friday June 27, 2003 @10:46AM (#6311726) Homepage Journal
          For all you people who missed it (especially the moderator who marked it as "insightful" rather than "funny"), that was irony.

          Calling the dictatorships in the middle east "international terrorists" is an attempt at thought control.

          So is calling our actions there "liberation."

          Thinking about it, you can easily see that the issue is not so cut and dried as "good guys" versus "axis of evil."

          Recognize, analyze and decide for yourself, and such things will have no power over you. Otherwise, you may be violently for or against the things that you would do better to think about logically, as I believe that many of both the strong pacifists and strong agressors in this past war have been before even seeing the facts.
          • I'll trade you a pack of victory cigarettes for some of your freedom fries :)
      • it does sometimes seem that the future is trying its hardest to copy Orwells imagination..

        If 1984 was a fictional account of real history, then it would be more accurate to say that we may see history repeat itself, again.

      • Re:Orwell's vision was true! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by technofeab ( 651094 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @10:37AM (#6311648)
        I can appreciate the frustration that many feel concerning the poor quality and shallowness of modern governance.

        However, I believe that it is a GROSS over-exaggeration to say that our non-Communist governments approximate the totalitarian regimes of the past.

        If we do indeed lack some fundamental rights, it is due to our own laziness. We seem to demand so many things of our government. Yet, simultaneously, we are too damned lazy to get off our asses and work for those things that we want.

        Those victimized by Statin and his ilk suffered under the yolk of oppression imposed by a militarisitic police state.

        However, we suffer only under the yolk of our own ignorance, laziness, shallowness, etc. You get the idea.

        • Re:Orwell's vision was true! (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Ellen Ripley ( 221395 ) <ellen@britomartis.net> on Friday June 27, 2003 @11:11AM (#6311965) Journal
          If we do indeed lack some fundamental rights, it is due to our own laziness. We seem to demand so many things of our government.

          Agreed, sort of. It's important to keep the pronouns straight.

          I demand nothing of my government except that it mind it's own business. I'm not opposed to the basic idea of government, but my participation is not voluntary and so I'm getting a bad deal. I want my participation to be voluntary so that I can put the forcibly removed 15-20% of my paycheck into medical and dental care. I want government to provide a basic minimum of services (the primary service I expect is providing a nexus for the administration of common property, like land and air), not to control a broad swath of public life. I think I speak for a lot of slashdotters when I say that government is at best a necessary evil, something I put up with rather than genuinely like.

          But this is not what "we", in the sense of most people, want. Most people do want government to be more involved. There are studies that show that most people are pro-government. They think the measures to "combat terrorism" are a good idea. They think that free speech rights are a little too broad. They take it for granted that the purpose of government is to take care of people. The desires of the majority are 'obviously' correct. (Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Zeitgeist.) The problem isn't government, it's these vast numbers of people who support government. Those people won't get the long-term picture until it's the short-term picture; they will support government until it's an immediate problem for them.

          As always, the only profound solution is education. Until most people understand at a gut-level that government is the atomic-bomb of social engineering, a powerful and dangerous weapon that needs to operated with attention, caution and deliberation, they and "we" -- the smaller "we", the slashdot-type "we" that prefers freedom to comfort and security -- are going to remain under the feet of government.
          • Wow, this is such an elitist/arrogant/I'm-smarter-than-you/my-shit-don ' t-smell post, even by Slashdot standards. This sounds like the kind of stuff that high schoolers or college freshmen say after a riveting philosophy class.

            I want government to provide a basic minimum of services

            but I thought you said ...

            I demand nothing of my government except that it mind it's own business

            but the truth comes out ...

            I want my participation to be voluntary so that I can put the forcibly removed 15-20% of my paych

        • Those victimized by Statin and his ilk suffered under the yolk of oppression imposed by a militarisitic police state.

          I believe you have egg on your face.

      • Re:Orwell's vision was true! (Score:5, Informative)

        by 3Bees ( 568320 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @11:50AM (#6312320)

        AAAAHHHH!!!! It's happening here too!! When my sister read Animal Farm in school they told her the same thing; read the book as an historical allegory. Be warned!! Avoid this reading at all costs!! The book (and 1984 too) will lose all art and relevance if you do such!

        Yes, they were inspired by Orwell's dissillusionment with Stalinist SSR, but they were not strict allegories! They dealt with the nature of political power and the tools of oppression and control. They were inspired (nearly) as much by what he saw in Franco's Spain as by Stalist USSR.

        Reading these two novels as strict historical allegory does them a tremendous disservice.

      • "That said, many people (Myself included) would say that what we see now from our own, non-Communist Governments approximates pretty closely to the totalitarian regimes of 20th century communist states, and uses a few tricks that are used by INGSOC & Big Brother throughout 1984."

        I disagree. A govt. that has as its principle freedom of an individual, including free press, cannot turn into a 1984 state. This is because that type of state needs to control information. This is how they rewrite history, thr
        • "Of course the collective is most improved when the current leadership remains in power and has more wealth and privilege. It's only natural. "

          Of course. Tax breaks for the wealthy improve the economy and create jobs. Allowing media conglomerates to grow unchecked increases efficiency, eliminates waste, and creates jobs. War must be wages in the name of peace. And it creates jobs. It is all very clear.

          No free country could ever be controlled by a wealthy and privileged few. Impossible. Really, unthinkable

    • Re:Orwell's vision was true! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by KludgeGrrl ( 630396 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @10:29AM (#6311565) Homepage
      Right now he's getting a great deal of play in the media for his prescience, not becuse 1984 came true, but because he helped create a vocabulary (thoughtcrime, Big Brother etc...) that can be used to view current events in a new (disturbing) way.

      For example, check out Google News [berkeley.edu] through truespeak filter at berkeley (or any news site, just replace the second http address).

      His language casts a new light on what's going on, for issues of computer privacy to foreign and domestic policy...

      True fans can sheck out Students for an Orwellian Society [studentsfororwell.org] which continues in the vein. (And, to be clear, it's satire guys, satire)

    • According to Andrei Sakharov, although the books were supposedly illegal in the USSR, they were actualy printed by the communist party in small quantities and circulated to select members, not as warnings but essentialy as 'how-to' manuals.

      Simon Hibbs

  • this is what it takes (Score:3, Funny)

    by L. VeGas ( 580015 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @09:51AM (#6311190) Homepage Journal
    Put bars on Windows and locks on Gates.

    Then I'll feel secure.

  • Obviously (Score:3, Funny)

    by Bame Flait ( 672982 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @09:51AM (#6311196)
    Additionally, Mr. Gates is also expected to call upon renowned informaticist Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf to support his arguments.

  • Some choice quotes (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Surak ( 18578 ) * <.surak. .at. .mailblocks.com.> on Friday June 27, 2003 @09:52AM (#6311203) Homepage Journal
    "[Palladium/Trustworthy Computing] can make our country more secure and prevent the nightmare vision of George Orwell at the same time," Gates said.

    Wow. He said that with a straight face? I'd HATE to have played poker with this guy in college [pbs.org]. No wonder he cleaned up the table.

    Referring to the disparate radio systems scattered among first responders at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, Gates said effective command and control cannot arise from cracked communications.

    His words served as a segue into his description of a new Microsoft Corp. application, called Regional Automated Information Network, which allows three local law enforcement agencies in Washington state to share records.

    The new pilot, which Microsoft officials said started last November, combines Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and Microsoft SQL Server 2000 in a desktop portal and Extensible Markup Language-based query engine that lets 17 jurisdictions electronically search each other's records management systems.

    Hmmm...shouldn't have any problems with cracked communication there. :)

    • "The present reality is a middle-aged man with a worried expression and a big butt."

    • Re:Some choice quotes (Score:5, Insightful)

      by EvilTwinSkippy ( 112490 ) <yoda@NosPAM.etoyoc.com> on Friday June 27, 2003 @10:16AM (#6311445) Homepage Journal
      Of course, the problem with these law enforcement databases is not that they can exchange information, it's that the information in them is suspect, libelous, our outright wrong.

      My mother was working on on such system for tracking survielance calls. You would see observations like "Sounds black" or "Probable Prostitute". The place was run by Ex-law enforcement types, and they really thought these sorts of things were appropriate to store in a database.

      If I have learned anything running databases at my current job, and for a volunteer organization, its that bad data is like a disease. You get folks who don't understand what goes where, or what is appropriate to store, you find yourself doing a whole lot of cleaning up later.

      On one form we ask volunteers for Emergency Medical information and Allergies. I had to explicitly instruct people to stop submitting hayfever or dairy products we only want to know what to tell the Paramedic if you are unconcious.

    • His words served as a segue into his description of a new Microsoft Corp. application, called Regional Automated Information Network

      I guess he's not content with Seattle getting too much R.A.I.N., so since he can't fix it, he wants to share it with the entire country....

  • Similar story at CNN Europe (Score:3, Informative)

    by Equuleus42 ( 723 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @09:52AM (#6311210) Homepage
    CNN Europe recently ran [cnn.com] a similar story about Orwell's dystopian vision, and whether or not it has "come true" or not by now... Not much of the story is new for us that like to wear tin foil hats though... :^)

    • Re:Similar story at CNN Europe (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27, 2003 @10:18AM (#6311470)
      A fundamental theme of 1984 was doublespeak and its use to confuse the public about the policy intent of the state. Let's consider a few recent items from the US Federal government. Note that while this may look like Bush bashing, I could go further back into history and find an assortment of similar cases from Democratic administrations. I am currently confining myself to only the most recent and obvious items of interest.

      Tax cuts to "stimulate the economy": Intended to starve entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, and public schools that it would be political suicide to challenge directly.

      Clear Skies Act: Reduces restrictions on air pollution.

      Healthy Forest Act: Cuts down profitable old growth forest.

      PATRIOT Act: In the name of security, takes away civil liberties that are fundamental to the nation to which we are "patriotic".

      FCC Deregulation: Ostensibly to allow media outlets to compete in the newly diverse environment, though the only outcome would be increased concentration of control of media outlets, which invariably raises barriers to competition.

      The only places where I see significant diversion between 21st c. US and Orwell's vision are:

      1) I don't recall corporate interests being the prime movers behind the policies of the state in 1984 (though it has been 20 years since I read it).

      2) I am technically free to sound off this point of view for a marginalized, largely politically insignificant audience.

  • Oh yeah? I call shovel time... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Friday June 27, 2003 @09:52AM (#6311217)
    "This technology can make our country more secure and prevent the nightmare vision of George Orwell at the same time," Gates said. "Orwell didn't anticipate how technology can be used to protect privacy. The fact that technology can protect both security and privacy by protecting the computer systems and the information on them is a positive thing."

    Dear Mr. Bullshit Artist Premiere:

    Explain to me how the technology you are pushing for will protect my privacy? Your current pushes seem to be towards forwarding my information about EVERYTHING on my computer (including what hardware I am using when XP shuts itself off), stopping me from running what I want in my fucking house, on my fucking computer, and forcing me to "sign" draconian agreements to use software YOU force me to use.

    So, not only is my privacy signed away, my freedom to use software *I* want to use is toast, and you get to dictate the OS of the future by allowing companies to see the "benefits" of developing for your shit.

    Once your pushes for these "protection schemes" goes away I will again feel a bit safer running your systems.

    Please refrain from future attempts at dictating to me what I can and can't do with software and hardware I purchased.

    Thanks for listening,

    • Re:Oh yeah? I call shovel time... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by goldspider ( 445116 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @09:59AM (#6311288) Homepage
      "...and forcing me to "sign" draconian agreements to use software YOU force me to use."

      So are you saying that jack-booted thugs are forcing you to install and use Windows? Or are you suggesting that quality alternatives to windows like Linux and *BSD are failures?

      • I am saying that due to the widespread use of Windows (and development of applications made SOLELY for Windows that are REQUIRED for everyday use) we are FORCED to use it.

        I would love to say that there are acceptable amounts of quality software available for "free" OSs, but there's not.

        Until the day comes when we can run all software regardless of OS we are going to continue to be forced to use Windows software.

        Not EVERYONE can just drop Windows.
        • Well now, to be fair, you're not *forced*. It certainly feels that way, but you have performed a cost-benefit analysis (however extensive), and determined that the benefits of not using MS products (moral superiority, stability, security, etc.) are not enough to compensate for the costs (trying to find a job that will pay the bills and does not use MS products). So, while it does feel like force, it's the way we perceive that tradeoff that shapes our actions.

          Also, this is heavily influenced by a convicte
      • So are you saying that jack-booted thugs are forcing you to install and use Windows?

        Peer-pressure, despite its subtlty, is much more dangerous than any "jack-booted thug" will ever be.
    • Your current pushes seem to be towards forwarding my information about EVERYTHING on my computer (including what hardware I am using when XP shuts itself off)

      wah? are you talking about windows xp? the product id? nothing is sent to microsoft. the product id was used to prevent 'causual copying' and widespread use of product keys. it generated by your current hardware setup and the product key. nothing is sent during activation and there are many ways to get around the WPA. also, things like service pack

  • Really? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27, 2003 @09:53AM (#6311231)
    The fact that I have to read the BBC to get some of the news that don't make the cut in US media isn't really worrysome? Or that most US radios won't play more than a dozen songs all day long? Or the fact that several laws and regulations are enacted without the public being aware of them? Cases in point: DMCA, UCITA, new FCC rules, etc.

    Maybe there's no Big Brother, but I'm convinced there's a Big Brotherhood.

    • Re:Really? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Radon Knight ( 684275 )
      > Maybe there's no Big Brother, but I'm convinced there's
      > a Big Brotherhood.

      You might consider reading Chomsky's book Manufacturing Consent. It's an interesting account of how market forces in the mass media can serve to generate an implicit propaganda machine for the government. It's implicit because there is no single person in charge of saying "print this!" or "don't print that!", but the convergence of big business and mass media and corporate interests can all lead to generate a similar so

  • 1984 (Score:5, Funny)

    by Waab ( 620192 ) * on Friday June 27, 2003 @09:53AM (#6311232) Homepage

    Gates told the Homeland Security folks all about how Palladium and other 'secure computing' initiatives will actually prevent the kind of scenario presented in Orwell's classic.

    When asked by Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge exactly how Palladium "relates to that one really neat Super Bowl commercial, the one with the running and throwing the hammer at the tv", Gates got a little red in the face and mumbled something about how that was the "wrong company."

  • Orwell's vision not happening? NOT! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gordona ( 121157 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @09:54AM (#6311240) Homepage
    If anyone cares who doubts that we don't live in Orwellian times, listen to Democracy Now (www.democracynow.org), Wednesdays broadcast should surely convince you. You can get it at: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/2 5/1353213.
    • This is so true. When I read 1984, the privacy concerns paled in my mind in comparison with the government's control of information and by extension its absolute power over knowledge. Sure the 24-hour surveillance was scary, but what about not being able to trust the thoughts, beliefs and "facts" inside your own head? Sound like any Fox News shows you've seen recently?

  • What else do you expect? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Motherfucking Shit ( 636021 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @09:55AM (#6311244) Journal
    Microsoft founder and chairman Bill Gates told a homeland-security conference on Wednesday afternoon that Orwell's dystopian vision of the future, in which Big Brother used technology as a form of social control, 'didn't come true, and I don't believe it will.'"
    Does anyone expect Bill Gates to say "Yes, Big Brother is coming alive and we're helping to make it happen?" Or "Total Information Awareness will really take hold once Longhorn is released to consumers?"

    Let's get real. Microsoft may be innocent in terms of Orwellian observations, or they may be a massive conspirator in making such surveillance happen. Microsoft may be a willing participant in the Magic Lantern [google.com] conspiracy, or they may be a virulent detractor to such a program. The truth is that none of us will ever really know for sure until it's too late.

    Do I think Bill himself hates the idea of an Orwellian technological see-all-evil? Yes, I do - the man is human, after all, and quite the philanthropist to boot. Do I trust his company to follow up? No, I don't.

    BillG can say what he likes. It doesn't make me any more confident.
    • I agree with you 100%, Mr. Shit. I think you hit that nail on the head, Motherfucking. May I call you Motherfucking?

      I would also add that someone like Bill would most likely be able to 'exclude' himself from such T.I.A. databases to some extent.

      The status symbol of the future will be how *little* information can be found on you.

      Sadly, every database is misused at some time or another. I don't expect that it will be much different with ones that contain the details of lives.

      Can anyone here say that

    • Philanthropist, no (Score:5, Informative)

      by truthsearch ( 249536 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @10:26AM (#6311543) Homepage Journal
      I really don't like it when people say he's "quite the philanthropist." It's quite the opposite. My father's a CPA and one of the first things he tells a rich client is to give a lot to charity for tax purposes. If someone makes $100,000/yr and gives away $5,000 that's 5% going to charity. If Bill G's assets are (let's just say) increasing by $1 billion per year, giving away $10,000,000 is only 1% going to charity. So giving $50 million to charity may seem like a lot, but it's a very small portion of what he's got.

      But much more important are where the so-called charity is going. Most of it goes into the trust his wife manages. Do you know what that charity does with their assets under management? The money that's in holding and not going out to good use is put into investments - tax-free investments in companies who are Microsoft's allies. I can't find the link at the moment, but the "charitable" Bill G is using his donations to fund companies to help Microsoft and put competition out of business. Also, much of the donations are for Microsoft software to be put into school systems. There's a lot more going on than cash going to poor starving children.
  • Gates is right that it didn't come true ... yet. Windows, as the base OS of such a system is so weak it couldn't possibly hold up to the underground attacks it would face.

  • Viruses as Control over Big Brother? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @09:56AM (#6311253)
    Microsoft is doing what corporations do-- They make money by whatever means they can. If that means setting up Orwelling controls for overzealous LEOs, then so be it. Is Microsoft doing that? Probably not intentionally, but they're putting the infrstructure in place to make it happen regardless.

    Reading about Sobig.E this morning made me start to think about the positive effects of viruses and computer problems.

    One of the most changing impacts is that anyone who spends any time around computers at all gains a healthy respect of what kind of effort is needed to keep your personal information on your computer and out of the hands of malicious crackers. I upset my mother deeply a few months ago when I demonstrated to her that her computer was infected by one of the CodeRed variants. It was most disturbing for her to have me read the contents of her 'My Documents' directory off to her over the phone. She immediately installed firewall software and the kind of virus scanning software I recommended.

    It's becoming more and more likely for people to want to protect themselves and their computers from informational damage, wether it comes from malicious information vandals or belligerant, mammoth-like corporations.

  • Neat (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jonsey ( 593310 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @09:57AM (#6311262) Journal
    It's a troll article, almost.

    More On Topic, 1984 is/was not a vision of the future, but (to me) a warning.

    My local paper did a report about it yesterday (or the day before) on what would have been Orwell's 100th birthday. As a warning of what could happen if technology controls us, 1984 is wonderful.

  • Disconnect from reality (Score:5, Insightful)

    by revscat ( 35618 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @10:03AM (#6311318) Journal

    Microsoft founder and chairman Bill Gates told a homeland-security conference on Wednesday afternoon that Orwell's dystopian vision of the future, in which Big Brother used technology as a form of social control, "didn't come true, and I don't believe it will."

    Is it just me, or is the view when you're worth bookoo bagallions just a little bit different than from when you have to worry about finances more? Maybe it's just me, but it seems that Gates, being in the stratosphere as far as powerful men are concerned, doesn't have to concern himself with Orwellian government because he is above the fray.

    "Class warfare" and yadda-yadda, but having that much money and influence simply has to affect how you view the world. This is a classic example of this in play. *I* worry about government intrusiveness and civil liberties because I am almost completely powerless - as an individual - to prevent it. Sure I got a couple of guns, but what good would that do against a government?

  • I mean, buy an antivirus, how bad can it be. Download it off kazaa, for fuck's sake! Blaming Windows and Microsoft for viruses is stupid, if you have to blame someone blame stupid users without current antiviruses. Or, here's a novel idea: blame the people who write the viruses! I know, makes the mind explode...

  • talking out of two sides of his mouth. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by wwest4 ( 183559 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @10:10AM (#6311383)
    > "Orwell was an alarmist"

    and

    > Gates applauded increased information sharing
    > between government agencies.

    Regardless of the technology involved: if inter-agency information sharing continues unabated, then U.S. lovers of the democratic republic are screwed out of it officially. This is simple to see, and Gates is not stupid. Clearly, he loves the promise of federal $ more than he fears totalitarianism. That's probably went without saying before the sales pitch to HomeSec.

  • Gates told a homeland-security conference on Wednesday afternoon that Orwell's dystopian vision of the future, in which Big Brother used technology as a form of social control, "didn't come true, and I don't believe it will."

    So he is saying that technology is not used as a form of social control? Here in the US, our society (as it were) is controlled by corporations. OK, maybe not for the people living in shacks in Montana, but for everyone else, there isn't much of a society to speak of outside of wha

  • Microsoft bought an AV company to combat that (RAV), and people got pissed about that.

    Can you guys make up your minds?

  • Vice President Gates (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jpnews ( 647965 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @10:16AM (#6311448)
    It's interesting to see Gates becoming more involved, on an official basis, with the U.S. Federal Government. He's a guy who's always been a politician of sorts, and he's certainly rich enough (and has made enough other people rich, as well) that his support could, theoretically, make or break a modern political campaign.

    Now, I don't see Gates reforming his reputation enough to be a plausible candidate himself- well, not for anything more important than Vice President, anyway. But you've got to wonder about a guy whose dream has always been power, money, and more of both. Where else can he go?

    Don't answer that, please.

  • Trust vs. Security (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lynx_user_abroad ( 323975 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @10:17AM (#6311452) Homepage Journal
    I guess Gates still doesn't get it, or maybe it get's it and he's just hoping nobody calls him on it.

    The concepts of trust and security are often used together, but it's important to realize they are at different ends of the spectrum.

    If I ask you to trust me, what I'm really doing is asking you to remove some of the security you may have against actions I take.

    Security can be a product; you may want to sell it, and I may want to buy it. But trust is a relationship. I will trust you only if I choose to, and no amount of price cuts will have an effect on that. Anyone who tries to sell trust clearly has other intentions in mind.

    Also, you can build a fortress of security on top of a foundation of trust, but it makes no sense offer a fortress of security as a replacement for that foundation of trust, which is what many who offer "security" are really trying to sell. The trust has to be there first, or you have nothing to build the security upon.

    I don't know if Microsoft will ever recover enough community trust to make any security they offer worthwhile, but I certainly wouldn't want to accept the "security" they offer without a foundation of trust to place it on.

  • Gates applauded increased information sharing between government agencies. He cited current law-enforcement efforts to share criminal databases, but predicted that, "unless this system is properly connected to the entire Homeland Security command structure, the potential will not be fully realised."

    I have no doubt that interconnecting information makes for more efficient gathering. But I'm not so sure efficient gathering is what I want agents to be doing, rather than due diligence and thorough gathering
  • A picture of an all seeing eye, with the caption "1984, we're behind schedule. National Security Agency"

  • protects privacy by protecting computers? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ph43thon ( 619990 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @10:23AM (#6311510) Journal
    I have a hard time figuring how, as Bill says, securing computers that contain private information protects our privacy. I am sure that any organization or government that compulsively collects private info will keep it very secure so they will always have access to it. What good did it do a person to know that the KGB and Stalin had their private info in a "very safe location"?

    He acts on the false assumption that there will always be a reasonably non-nefarious type running the government. It may be fine now having "Total Info Awaremen" or very secure databases of private info.. assuming you don't feel threatened by our current government.. But, just as soon as the wind changes and some other political movement takes place.. the "not so nice" people will find this information infrastructure (Infostructure, for word geeks) to be very useful.

    But I'm sure everything will be fine in my lifetime.

    p

  • Does Gates Read? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by linuxislandsucks ( 461335 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @10:27AM (#6311551) Homepage Journal
    from my recollections of Orwell it was never direct control but indirect conrol in incremental steps..

    Did Gates actually read the book or cliff notes version?
  • William Gibson wrote an editorial in the New York Times [nytimes.com] REGISTRATION REQUIRED yesterday about 1984 and did not agree overly with Gates' assessment of, "didn't come true, and I don't believe it will."

    He thinks not only DID it come true, it's worse than Orwell thought! His best thought: "It is becoming unprecedentedly difficult for anyone, anyone at all, to keep a secret."

    Check it out--it's worth creating the bogus ID for.

  • State of the Control of the State (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Unfallen ( 114859 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @10:55AM (#6311819) Homepage

    "This technology can make our country more secure and prevent the nightmare vision of George Orwell at the same time," Gates said.
    Blah blah yes it can but Orwell wasn't questioning the technology, he was writing about its use by the state. Technology's just a tool, any visionary realises that in primary school. The technology doesn't prevent a tendency away from trust, towards control of a populace, that's the job of people. Maybe if Billy was ranting on about how he was setting up technology focus groups to teach misuse of data, then he might have a point, but he's not.

    To be fair, it's a difficult position. On one hand, all the little government agencies need to be responsible for something nationwide, and the general populace is way too lazy to bother abut protecting themselves, so something needs to get a handle on it. On the other hand... well, there'd be a good bit of ol-fashioned choir-preaching going on if I went on about state mis-use of data. Fortunately, being the largest home-user software house and one of the largest corporate influences fits Microsoft into both camps at once - hey, if it gets them money, then it must be good.

    Yes, there's a hell of a long way to go in terms of getting users to respect their own privacy, and to respect the importances and influences of the gargantuan amount of data that is accessible these days.

    However, what we really need for this is more education, not more technology. The latter is useless without the former. People will still be vulnerable if they don't understand what the system's doing, and the new wave of privacy technology isn't designed to do that. Just as the only secure machine is an off one, so the most private individual is a dead one.

    Networking is ubiquitous, it affects us all, and as such we all take responsibility, not place it into the hands of a few people out to cash in on it. The sooner we realise that as a society, the better.

  • Arrg Windows and Viruses (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tomstdenis ( 446163 ) <tomstdenis&gmail,com> on Friday June 27, 2003 @11:01AM (#6311886) Homepage
    Stop drawing this parallel.

    The reason windows gets infected with virii is because windows users are complete and utter fucking morons.

    I routinely get 100s of virii sent to my email box a day [the price I pay for posting my email address in usenet] and I've never been infected once despite the fact I used to use MSIE for everything for the longest time [I use Moz in WinXP now].

    This connection that windows is inherently vulnerable is just pathetic. Idiot linux users running as root can do just as much damage.

    Tom

  • WOW! Imagine That! (Score:4, Funny)

    by w3weasel ( 656289 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @11:02AM (#6311893) Homepage

    The gov asks Billy what is best for their PC's and Billy advises a substantial deposit into his bank account.

    While I would hope that anyone advising the government would have our best interests at heart, I have to admit, if they were to ask me what was best, I would say that a substantial deposit into MY account would ensure national safety... hey, I'm only human!

  • HomeSec? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MagPulse ( 316 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @11:10AM (#6311957)
    HomeSec sounds like it's straight out of Orwell's NewSpeak dictionary. Did the poster just make it up or is the Department of Homeland Security actually calling itself that?

  • If Gates is serious...... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mormop ( 415983 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @11:11AM (#6311962)
    He's more of an arsehole than most give him credit for.

    Look back through history and it's littered with good ideas put to nefarious uses. The problem is that no matter how well meaning technolgists are you are still left with the problem that cabinet level politicians are, generally speaking, not the most trustworthy and ethical persons on the planet.

    For example, nuclear power. Possible clean and long lasting fuel source (if it was done properly), could improve everone's lot. First practical use - frying people and destroying whole cities and then threatening to destroy the planet from then on. Luckily the balance in power during the cold war means we are still here.

    Example 2 - Gunpowder. use it to make pretty patterns in the sky, then adapt it to shoot lead balls through people and blow things up.

    Give politicians the tools and they will always pour money into discovering the best way to use it to their own advantage whether it's for kicking the shit out of foreigners or keeping the populace in check at home.

    The only trouble is that with computers and IT in general there's no mushroom cloud to let you know it's going on if they do it in secret Remember how long the governments involved denied Echelon's existence before finally owing up.

  • the rest of the comment (as I see it) (Score:4, Funny)

    by pergamon ( 4359 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @11:24AM (#6312084) Homepage
    'didn't come true, and I don't believe it will.'
    ...until everyone switches to Palladium

  • orwell & huxley (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ralphus ( 577885 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @11:36AM (#6312184)
    Everyone always mentions orwell when talking about future societies and the impact of technology. Orwell was wrong, I agree with Gates. He painted quite a scary picture of a future controlled by big brother, but guess what... People don't like to be controlled if they know that they are, people would rebel in a orwellian state and there would be a state of bloody utter chaos and government ruling by a iron fist.

    Huxley, however, painted a much scarier picture of a future society that is already coming partially true today. The best kind of servitude is that where the servant loves to serve the will of the master and knows no better, but a drone is a drone is a drone. In Huxley's world, all that the government and the powers that be have to do to retain control and shape things in the way they want is to use basic psychological principles such as someone responds better towards reward than punishment, placate them with their soma, touchie-feelies, etc, and they will want no more, or not think outside the system.

    I highly suggest you check out Brave New World Revisited [peanutpress.com] It is a collection of essays Huxley wrote on the topics of Brave New World, later in his life. I think you will be frightened and suprised.

    Description from website:

    In 1958, Aldous Huxley wrote what might be called a sequel to his novel Brave New World, published in 1932, but it was a sequel that did not revisit the story or the characters, or re-enter the world of the novel. Instead, he revisited that world in a set of 12 essays. Taking a second look at specific aspects of the future Huxley imagined in Brave New World, Huxley meditated on how his fantasy seemed to be turning into reality, frighteningly and much more quickly than he had ever dreamed.

    That he had been so prophetic in 1931 about the dystopian future gave Huxley no comfort. He was a far more serious man in 1958 -- at the age of 64 -- and the world was a very different place, transformed by the catastrophe of World War II, the advent of nuclear weapons and the grip of the Cold War. Looking behind the Iron Curtain, where people were not free but dominated by totalitarian power, Huxley could only bow to the grim prophecy of his friend (and, briefly, his student at Eton) George Orwell in the novel 1984. In the free world, however, the situation seemed even more to be one for despair. For it seemed to Huxley that people were well on their way to giving up their freedom and the sanctity of their individualism, in exchange for the illusions of comfort and sensory pleasure -- just as they had in Brave New World.

    Huxley heard, in 1958, a world full of the noise of what he called singing commercials, flooding the mass media, much like the hypnopaedia that shaped conscious thought in the world of the novel. He saw people everywhere in greater numbers taking tranquilizer drugs, to surrender to the unacceptable aspects of modern life -- not unlike the drug called soma that everyone takes in the novel. The power of propaganda, he believed, had been validated by the rise of Hitler, and the postwar world was using it effectively to manipulate the masses. Overpopulation was already a critical issue in 1958, and Huxley saw the emergence of an overpopulated world in which the chaos was, more and more, being countered by centralized control -- closer, it seemed, to the future of Brave New World, where the ultimate controlling capitalist of Huxley's early years, Henry Ford, had become the equivalent of God.

    In the end, Brave New World Revisited despairs of what has come to pass, primarily modern humankinds willingness to surrender freedom for pleasure. Huxley quotes from the episode of the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov -- "For nothing," the Inquisitor insists, "has ever been more insupportable for a man or a human society than freedom." Huxley worried that the cry of "Give me liberty or give me death" could easily be replaced by "Give me television and hamburgers, but

  • True story (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Psychopath ( 18031 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @11:43AM (#6312255) Homepage
    I once went to the white house with my wife and mother-in-law. My mother-in-law used her Citibank Visa with her photo on it as her picture ID. We got in. This is pre-911, of course, but still makes me laugh.

  • It may make sense to THEM (Score:3, Insightful)

    by PetoskeyGuy ( 648788 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @11:51AM (#6312326)
    "This technology can make our country more secure and prevent the nightmare vision of George Orwell at the same time," Gates said.

    Of course were all going to sit here and point out to ourselves it doesn't make sense. But remember he was speaking to CONGRESS. The same people who believe in lowering taxes and raising spending will lower the national debt. Listening to confirmed software monopolist talking about what they should do about their future software plans.

    When he said he doesn't think it's come true and doesn't think it will, perhaps he means he'll never acheive the total control he's always dreamed of, what with Linux the constitution on such standing in the way.

    You have to remember to take everything out of context.

  • bill is not big brother... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by geoff lane ( 93738 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @12:05PM (#6312474)
    ...but he might well run the shop where big brother bought his equipment.

  • There always needs to be a balance (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LostCluster ( 625375 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @12:06PM (#6312488)
    With all of the products marketed as must-haves for proper security, nobody seems to remember that security and trust must co-exist for things to work.

    Total security is rarely useful. Total security is locking the only keys to the safe inside the same safe. No robber will ever get in, the problem is, the people should have access can't get in either.

    People get concerned whenever a backdoor is placed in a software package by a vendor, however, we all drive cars with security backdoors. If you lock your keys in the car, and you're locked out, you can call AAA. Their truck operators know how to unlock your door without the key from the outside, and they effectively break into your car for you to let you back at your keys. Of course, this back door is secured by the fact that you have to identify yourself as a paying AAA member before the driver is even dispatched, which leaves a nice clear paper trail that can be traced back if this service is ever abused by car thieves.

    When assigning security settings on a company server, the idea of giving everybody the minimum security you need to is incorrect. The correct answer is to give them exactly the resources they need to get their job done. There are some things that should be sent up to a higher level for approval, things that a low-level employee just shouldn't be allowed to do. However, system designers have to be careful that the approval events are not time consuming and don't happen too often, otherwise the employee will spend more time seeking authorizations than doing their original job, and that often translates into a delay that customers feel as well.

    The only way to have a 100% assurance that a system will never be hacked is to just not build it. Of course, that isn't too useful so that isn't usually an option. Once you give any user any access to the system, you're taking a risk. That even includes yourself, as you could either screw up or turn evil from the point of view of your employer someday. The more people you let in, the more risks you end up taking. You can't elimiante the risk, you can only put controls in to limit it.

    In the end, the operators of a business have to decide how much risk tolerance they have with their investment. If they want no risk, they should pack their money up and put it in an FDIC-insured bank. No risk in that, but also very little reward. The company that trusts its employees, and finds that trust to be well-placed gets the highest rewards, but risks the penalties for the occasional mistaken trust mounting up.

    It's all about the balance. Too little security is fatal, but too much security can kill a business as well...

  • Bill Gates, dissin' dystopia (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Zhe Mappel ( 607548 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @01:27PM (#6313254)
    Arguments about Orwell's vision have ranged back and forth for over half a century, but seldom have bean counting billionaires been consulted for their opinion. Smothering markets and twisting buyers' arms are properly seen as better skills for advancement in either big business or the mob than for understanding society or literature. Of course, in the age of the MBA president, you might say that bean counting has replaced any more nuanced or enlightened lens for looking at our problems - and when society turns to the savagery of corporate conservatism for answers, I'd have to agree. We're living in a time when the official line is that *only* billionaires understand us.

    That said, Gates is uniquely placed, in a way, to offer his 2 zillion cents. Sitting atop his pile, having broken markets, governments and the law itself on the anvil of his net worth, while simultaneously having been the single largest source of the world's computer security problems, he has helped to bring about the conditions for our further slide into Orwellian social control. That's because Microsoft's decades of slothful security have taught society to view PCs in a state of perpetual tremulous FUD. Marrying that fear to the trauma stoked endlessly by government in its post-911 efforts to brutalize democratic sensibilities is kind of an inevitable career move for Gates (and not only because he can't peddle operating systems like before). After you've taught everyone to fear, what do you do for an encore?

    Teach them obedience. Orwell understood that.

    Calling it the biggest technological and cultural challenge the country has faced, Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates said that communications interoperability must top the Homeland Security Department's to-do list.

    Actually, the biggest technological and cultural challenge our republic has faced is seeing if it can survive the Homeland Security Department - the Room 101 that our excited billionaires are building.

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