Looks like everyone’s (least) favorite monopoly is up to its usual bag of tricks combined with lackluster security again.<\/p>\n
As if it’s not bad enough that Windows XP<\/a> prompts (or maybe browbeats would be a more accurate description) you to sign up for their Passport<\/a> system at every chance it gets (according to a C|Net article<\/a>, a USA Today article<\/a>, a C|Net review<\/a>, and a bunch more articles and reviews scattered across the ‘net<\/a>), but they’re now starting to require you to sign up for a passport before you can register hardware (as reported today at MacInTouch<\/a>, 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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.<\/a>”<\/p>\n Good thing I’m naturally cynical, otherwise I’d be surprised at all this. Instead, I’m just disgusted and resigned.<\/p>\n