Looks like everyone’s (least) favorite monopoly is up to its usual bag of tricks combined with lackluster security again.
As if it’s not bad enough that Windows XP prompts (or maybe browbeats would be a more accurate description) you to sign up for their Passport system at every chance it gets (according to a C|Net article, a USA Today article, a C|Net review, and a bunch more articles and reviews scattered across the ‘net), but they’re now starting to require you to sign up for a passport before you can register hardware (as reported today at MacInTouch, prompting a mac user who’d purchased a Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer to forego registering it). Then, if that wasn’t enough — they screw up the security (big surprise, eh?), creating a situation that could have been exploited to steal Passport users’ financial information, according to this Wired story.
Meanwhile, analysts looking at the “deal” worked out between the Government and Microsoft in the antitrust case pretty much agree that it “…is not even a wrist slap. It’s a love letter…” and that “…Microsoft will emerge…stronger, emboldened, and perhaps more agressive than it was before.”
Good thing I’m naturally cynical, otherwise I’d be surprised at all this. Instead, I’m just disgusted and resigned.
And people wonder why I continue to stick with Apple!