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You wouldn't be able to open and read
e-mail from anyone who turns on DRM in the new version of
Microsoft Office unless you also have Microsoft's
proprietary e-mail software AND have been pre-approved to
read the message.
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technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and
commentaries, continuously available online since
1983
T e c h n o f i l e
Microsoft's new Office software could trace document
recipients
March 23, 2003
By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2003, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2003, The Post-Standard
Microsoft's monopoly in the PC
market has an ominous new twist.
A future version of Microsoft Office
will be able to track the identities of Office users who
open documents and e-mail, and can even block access to
people who haven't been pre-approved by Microsoft.
This attempt to control users and
documents is so far-reaching that it seems to have come
straight from the "Big Brother" mind-control
force in George Orwell's classic novel
"1984." But it is not fantasy. Microsoft is
already testing the software, as shown by a beta version
that leaked out of the company's notoriously insecure
private Web servers this month.
The new version of Office, referred to
as Office 11 in Microsoft's internal notes, is likely
to hit the market later this year.
Millions of Americans use portions of
Microsoft Office every day. It is a suite of productivity
programs that provides word processing, e-mail, database
management, financial calculations and many other
functions. Office 95, Office 97, Office 2000 and Office XP
are the Windows versions in current use.
Versions for the two Macintosh operating
systems are popular also, but Microsoft hasn't
indicated whether the Macintosh software will be fitted
with the access-blocking software.
The new technology is part of
Microsoft's so-called "Digital Rights
Management" (DRM), designed to block unauthorized
users from opening documents, listening to music, opening
unauthorized e-mail messages and attachments or viewing
sections of Web pages.
One possible commercial use for Digital
Rights Management seems obvious. Music companies could try
to reduce the theft of copyrighted material by using DRM to
prevent those who haven't paid for a song from playing
it, even if they've downloaded it.
A user who tried to play such a
downloaded song on Microsoft's proprietary media player
would have to wait while the software contacted the
recording company to find out if the music had been paid
for. If no record of payment was found or if the user was
not approved in some other way, the software would refuse
to play the song.
This alone is enough to make us sit up.
Protecting copyrights is important. But who should control
your listening habits? Who should decide whether you are
"approved" to listen to a certain piece of music?
I find this disturbing in many ways.
But Microsoft's DRM could do
something far outside the bounds of copyright
protection.
Microsoft will try very hard to make its
own version of Digital Rights Management the de facto
standard for Windows PCs. This is the way Microsoft does
things.
But it will attempt to make its
proprietary DRM the standard for the rest of the computing
world, too. If Microsoft succeeds, offices, schools and
many personal users throughout the country will find that
they're unable to read and respond to DRM-encoded
e-mail without buying DRM-enabled software -- from
Microsoft, of course.
The same restriction would apply to all
other office documents that use Microsoft's Digital
Rights Management. You would not be able to deal with any
documents created with DRM encoding unless you bought the
latest version of Microsoft Office.
Let me be very plain. Many of you have
struggled countless times with documents that can't be
opened or viewed unless you have Microsoft Office. This is
not a Mac vs. Windows problem, either; countless Windows
users have trouble every day handling Microsoft documents
created by versions of Microsoft Office they don't
have. And if you don't have Microsoft Office at all,
you can face major annoyances if the correspondents you
work with insist on using Word, Excel, Access or
PowerPoint, the four mainstays of the Office suite.
Imagine the problems you could face if
Microsoft's Digital Rights Management system takes
hold. You wouldn't be able to open and read e-mail from
anyone who turns on DRM in the new version of Microsoft
Office unless you also have Microsoft's proprietary
e-mail software AND have been pre-approved to read the
message or download the attachment.
When you install that software, it will
"phone home" (by contacting Microsoft over the
Internet) to establish your credentials. If the same copy
of Microsoft Office has already been used on another PC,
even on one owned by you, Microsoft will tell your software
that it is not allowed to run.
If for any reason Microsoft doesn't
want to approve you or your computer, you're out of
luck. (Did you say you got your PC at a garage sale? Does
Microsoft know that, or is your PC actually listed as
stolen property? Or maybe your kids were downloading music
from non-approved file sites, and the traces of those files
are on your hard drive. Would you get approved for DRM when
Microsoft finds traces of those music files?)
You might think I'm overreacting.
But let me explain.
Your Windows PC would become, in this
scenario, an agency of Microsoft and perhaps of the
government. I'm not exaggerating. Your privacy could,
in the most literal sense, be diluted every time you
handled a document that used Digital Rights Management.
Is this something to worry about? You
bet. We should understand that some of what DRM can do is
good and necessary, but Microsoft, in its inimitable way,
is about to make a mess of what could be a very important
safeguard for those who create art for a living. By turning
DRM into something that can track what you do, what you
read and even what you reject, Microsoft is reminding us
that our democracy requires its own kind of "rights
management."
I'm more worried about DRM than
about any other technological change facing us. Initially I
was less concerned, but something almost trivial changed my
mind.
I discovered that Microsoft's
Digital Rights Management even prevents Windows users from
making screen shots of DRM-encoded messages that they are
authorized to read.
I'm not trying to be funny. If you
finally get approval from Big Brother as someone Microsoft
can trust, you're not trusted enough to press your
Print Screen key. If you do try to copy the screen to the
clipboard, nothing happens if a DRM document is on the
screen.
Big deal? Do you think it's merely
silly? After all, you can take all the screen snapshots you
want with your digital camera.
Ah, here's where I became convinced
that there is something sinister about DRM. Microsoft knows
about digital cameras. It's not that stupid. So of
course it's got another plan. I feel this in my
bones.
If you take a picture of your PC screen
when it's showing a document covered by Digital Rights
Management, I'm convinced that Microsoft will do its
best, or perhaps its worst, to find a way to make you a
thief. It will declare picture-taking illegal when any part
of the photo shows a DRM document on the screen -- even if
you're taking a picture of your own computer
screen.
This is scary. What else is under the
surface? Will it be a crime to draw a picture of your
screen? If your 5-year-old points the camcorder at the DRM
messages on your Windows PC, are you responsible for
corrupting the morals and ethics of a child?
I don't like this at all.
Am I just plain crazy or am I seeing
through the cloak of Digital Rights Management? Tell me
what you think. Send me your comments. Put "Technofile
DRM" somewhere in the subject so we can sort it out
and send your e-mail to afasoldt@twcny.rr.com.
I'll quote the best responses in a few weeks.
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