www.hevanet.com/peace/microsoft.htm
You have a right to all the information you need to make an informed choice about any product you buy. The author wrote this article because of the need to give his customers fundamental information about the direction Microsoft wants to take them. Few people have the technical background to understand fully the advantages and disadvantages of software as complex as an operating system. Without fundamental information, it is difficult for non-professionals to understand the advice of professionals. There appear to be management problems at Microsoft, but the author would like any problems to be fixed, rather than have the entire world suffer through Microsoft doing poorly. Because he has spent considerable time trying to understand the problems, and because he cares deeply about fixing the problems, the author is, in that sense, "more pro-Microsoft than Bill Gates". Use this article to support your own thinking and investigation. If you don't have enough technical knowledge to evaluate the information presented here, please do not simply believe the author of this article. To avoid misunderstanding, find someone with technical knowledge who can help you. If you need help evaluating the issues here, the following remarks may be useful in choosing someone to help: Computer professionals are sometimes not computer users. Often those who know a lot about computers are not especially heavy users of their own computers. They may not have encountered some of the problems that are mentioned in this article. Often people who only use their computers for email, web browsing, and word processing wipe their hard disks clean and re-install everything every few months. Some of the problems mentioned below are most serious for companies that have thousands of employees who use numerous special applications. The seriousness of an objection is not proportional to its intensity. Sometimes there have been people who have complained very strongly about something written here. When strong objections have been evaluated, they have sometimes been found to be small in comparison to the intensity of their expression. There are people whose self-esteem is strongly tied to their knowledge of computers. When they discover something that they don't know they sometimes have a negative reaction that sounds like a serious objection. Consider whether the advice of a technically knowledgeable person is influenced by conflict of interest. For, example, if someone has spent many years taking expensive courses in administering Microsoft software, he or she may be very reluctant to say, or see, anything negative. This is particularly true if the person has a spouse and children and mortgage, and no other good way of earning money. If someone raises an objection that is discovered to be valid, that does not necessarily mean that other issues are without merit. If you find a mistake in this article, please write the author at the address at the end so that it can be corrected. On December 29, 2002, for example, someone mentioned that there was a mistake in wording in a section of a former version of this article. He also asked a question about something that was not well documented. Corrections were made and 14 new paragraphs were added the same day. Not all corrections and additions are made this quickly. However, the article has been revised and extended more than 50 times since it was first published. Hidden Connections Microsoft Windows XP connects with other computers, or expects to be allowed through the user's network protection firewall, in more than 16 ways. Network security is something the computer user and the operating system supplier need to do together, but Microsoft seems to show little sensitivity to the user's security needs. The issue is not that the connections are always bad for the user. The issue is that Microsoft has moved from making operating systems that are independent to making operating systems that try to connect to Microsoft's own computers, and are somewhat dependent on new ways of having access through the software firewall. Windows XP is the first Microsoft operating system to challenge whether the user can have control over his or her own computer. Microsoft Windows 98 connects to Microsoft's computers only by user request. Windows XP connects with Microsoft's computers and expects to be allowed through the user's firewall in many new ways. Each user has a responsibility to control what goes in and out of his or her computer. Microsoft's new networking arrangements make this difficult. Here is a (probably incomplete) list of ways Windows XP tries to connect each user's computer to Microsoft's computers, or expects to be allowed through the user's software firewall: 1. Application Layer Gateway Service (Requires server rights. Microsoft Media Player (Tells Microsoft the music and videos you like. See the February 20, 2002 Security Focus article 12 Why is Microsoft watching us watch DVD movies? Time Service, sets the time on your computer from Microsoft's computer. How can someone write rules about connecting for use with a firewall when Microsoft doesn't supply sufficient information about what each service is doing? It is possible for a skilled professional to research what each service normally does. However, even a professional cannot know the behavior of Windows XP in all unusual cases; Microsoft software has consistently been found to be extremely defective. If you seldom use the Windows XP help facility, you may not care that Microsoft is able to know the level of expertise of the people who use your computer. However, if you are using Windows XP in a large corporation or a government, the fact that another organization believes that it can gather data from you may be completely unacceptable. As mentioned above, there are simply too many pathways in complicated software to check all of them. The instructions to the computer source code are open for anyone to see and criticize. Where does Microsoft intend to go with this new direction? Microsoft sees the user as someone who has no rights, apparently. Big companies that must plan their computer use years in advance commit their companies to an operating system. With Windows XP they cannot know what that commitment means; For example, sometimes Microsoft has used security upgrades to change the operation of other components of its software, or to change the licensing terms. To get a necessary security upgrade, it is necessary to agree to whatever Microsoft has decided. Even if it could be known that Microsoft Windows XP makes no objectionable information available to Microsoft, and creates no new security vulnerabilities, that could change at any time. The free version is located at the link 15 Download FREE ZoneAlarm. A software firewall is necessary, even for people who have a hardware firewall, and the Microsoft software firewall that comes with Windows XP has very limited features. When Windows XP tries to connect to another computer, ZoneAlarm will display a dialog box asking whether that is okay. If you say no to some of the requests, some functions of Windows XP will not work (such as networking). It says that the 11 are the only ones "discussed in this whitepaper". The Microsoft article tells how to disable the hidden downloading. Also, Microsoft has a history of using defect fixes and security fixes to change the operating system settings. This means that all the settings would need to be checked after every defect fix or security vulnerability fix. Windows XP will operate without a connection to the internet. Windows XP will operate if the user uses a hardware firewall that blocks unwanted connections. However, most users don't know how to block connections. It is expensive to evaluate the present privacy and security vulnerabilities of these connections and impossible to evaluate the future vulnerabilities. If the huge change in direction from Windows 98 is continued, it seems reasonable to worry that future versions of Windows could become more dependent on Microsoft computers than Windows XP is now. That would fit with Microsoft's new policy of trying to convert customers ...
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