Microsoft access to computers

[Alvin.C]

Re:

Hello,

By access, do you mean for example, being able to browse the user's files on the computer?

Yes.

he's right, you know. they alway had the ability(they just didn't bother with it), but in vista it's worse. they got a big garage size door open in vista. they are not the only ones that can access it either.

I posted a post talking about it a couple of months ago

http://www.techist.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=139836&highlight=vista+hd

Microsoft does not browse (view) / have access to (read or write) our data files on user's computers remotely (for example, access to my word documents or being able to see what music files I have on my hard drive).

Peter Gutmann's white paper on Vista content protection makes me think twice about upgrading to Vista (although there are many security benefits which tip the scales back). But I see more of a significance in relation to the rights of users and the degree of useful functionality Vista offers users, rather than our privacy (access to our data).

 

[EricB]

we had a discussion about this last year. though they haven't started yet,

ms now has the ability to check and see if you have pirated software (they are not going to openly tell you this). they can check to see if you have a pirate copy of office. if you do, they can go in and delete it and whatever else that they want

I figure that it will be 2-3 years (after they make most of their profits from the sale of vista) before they will start to mess with the feature