[LINK] MS Passport

[Kim Holburn]

Not directly related but:

Microsoft's advertising practices are subject of FTC complaint
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061102-8142.html

>  Microsoft's advertising practices are subject of FTC complaint
>
> 11/2/2006 4:03:12 PM, by Nate Anderson
>
> The Center for Digital Democracy and the US Public Interest  
> Research Group have filed a complaint with the Federal Trade  
> Commission accusing Microsoft of creating a "digital dragnet" of  
> surveillance technologies that track users' every online movement  
> without their consent.
>
> The 50-page document is basically a laundry list of the tracking  
> practices used by advertisers, including data mining, user  
> tracking, behavioral targeting, and audience segmentation. It makes  
> for an eye-opening read for people who have yet to understand  
> exactly how pervasive analytics and tracking software have become.  
> To take only one example included in the complaint, BlueLithium  
> runs a network that includes thousands of sites and user behavior  
> can be tracked across all of them. Particular forms are of  
> advertising are served to customers who have failed to complete  
> certain targets at other sites in the network, things like filling  
> a shopping cart or completing a sale.
>
> The second half of the complaint focuses on Microsoft because of  
> the company's many different properties that reach into so many  
> areas of people's lives. Microsoft compiles data from MSN, Windows  
> Live, Hotmail, Messenger, Xbox 360, Windows Mobile, Spaces,  
> Soapbox, and adCenter. This gives the company (and other Web-based  
> businesses like Google and Yahoo) a truly astonishing power to  
> track user behavior.
>
> None of the allegations in the report are particularly nefarious;  
> the complaint simply documents the extent to which online behavior  
> is subject to scrutiny. So what is there to complain about?  
> "Consumers entering this new online world are neither informed of  
> nor prepared for these technologies and techniques... that render  
> users all but defenseless before the sophisticated assault of new- 
> media marketing," says the complaint. Jeff Chester, who heads the  
> Center for Digital Democracy, worries that all this tracking and  
> targeting is going on without users being aware of it.
>
> But even if the report's conclusions are true, and consumers are  
> having all of their online movements tracked without permission or  
> even understanding, what's the worst that could happen—people would  
> see ads for products that interest them? Actually, the implications  
> are far darker than that, says Chester.
> Surveillance state?
>
> This massive surveillance apparatus that has been constructed is  
> "increasingly going to be used to push political candidates, ideas,  
> and values," he tells Ars Technica. "The American public is unaware  
> that the system is evolving to identify their behaviors and  
> interests."
>
> This is a particular concern of Chester's. A few weeks ago, he had  
> a piece in The Nation where he argued that "the US broadband  
> infrastructure may well become one giant 'brandwashing' machine.  
> The most powerful communications system ever developed by humans is  
> increasingly being put in the service of selling, commercialization  
> and commodification. And it will lead to an inherently conservative  
> and narcissistic political culture, in which the interests of the  
> self and the consumption of products are the primary, most visible,  
> media messages."



http://security.itworld.com/5009/061101msad/page_1.html


On 2006/Nov/04, at 1:44 PM, Jan Whitaker wrote:

> At 11:43 AM 4/11/2006, Adam Todd wrote:
>> Mind you my firefox stopped working after visiting it.
>
> I also received a message from the authorisation site that my  
> browser was unacceptable. It will only work with IE or NS. I've  
> decided I don't need the reader and will rely on paper for the near  
> future!
>
> Thanks for the help, guys.

--
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
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Democracy imposed from without is the severest form of tyranny.
                           -- Lloyd Biggle, Jr. Analog, Apr 1961