I'd launch into a whole blurb, but you can see what I have had to say about Hailstorm/Passport at http://brentashley.manilasites.com/2001/03/21

It's not about paranoid conspiracy theory, it's about observing the players, their history and their plans, and extrapolating to what's likely to be their direction.

Reply to comment by Maciejczyk:

Microsoft rely on people like Maciejczyk who don't see anything before or besides Microsoft. Microsoft succeeded in creating in 1995 an inferior version of what Apple had created in 1984. It is true that perhaps the real blame lies with Apple. If they had released the spec of their apple mac pc for cloning and stuck with the software then we may all have been using Apple mac's right now. But they didn't and so we were stuck with the inferior pc + windows. It's just a great shame... not that it really matters now since the pc is on the way out and the set top box is on the way in.

Interesting comments.

I don't feel that I am attacking Microsoft. I am speculating. I am guessing. I am voicing an opinion. I am not on the offensive. I'm just trying to get people to think about the technology that they use.

Here are some links to actual attacks on Microsoft:

http://i-want-a-website.com/about-microsoft/yamoo/

http://www.fto.de/fthp/hschaefer/microcult/

http://www.jwp.bc.ca/saulm/ii/ms.htm

http://www.zpub.com/un/bill/

http://www.euronet.nl/users/frankvw/IhateMS.html

http://www.around.com/bugs.html

Trash articles like this infuriate me! The bottom line is that Microsoft has done society a huge service by establishing computing standards (particularly with interface). If it were not for this, business would still be operating in paper worlds because computers would still be this meancing beast to the vast majority of the workforce (save the relatively small technology segment).

All the attacks on Microsoft really and simply come down to jealousy... Gates realized the proverbial American dream. It's a basic human reaction to want what someone else has and if you can't have it, then tear them down. This article reads like a true blue conspiracy theroy... next I'll be reading that Gates is truly an ailien lifeform sent to take over the Earth. C'mon... is there any intelligently reasoning life out there?

Edited by author 06-30-2001 11:01 PM
Some of you may be familiar with this.. in Japan, the mobile internet dominates the overall internet accessing market. Already, 35 million, out of the total 130 million or so Japanese population, tote one of these internet (html/http) capable web phones. And the company that dominates the mobile internet market is NTT Docomo. Docomo controls the "preferred" list of mobile sites, through which you can provide micropayment services to your customer. The micro-payments simply appear on customer's monthly mobile phone bill. You can't use this very convenient billing method unless Docomo approves your site. Talk about controlling the internet! Docomo has complete say as to who can be listed on this preferred list of sites. Docomo takes a 9% cut of all the micropayments. NTT Docomo's model is very profitable. Is MS heading in this direction? Surely they're entrigued by the model NTT Docomo has implimented. Relatively speaking, NTT seems to be a larger monopoly than even ATT ever was. But it's a model that has fueled their internet economy and content generation. Again, the Japanese have taken an off-the-shelf technology (internet/http/ip/html), and made it extremely easy for the main street customer to use and enjoy. I look forward to the day I can enjoy an i-mode phone once again. Will we all be paying through NTT's version of "passport"?

http://www.nttdocomo.com

Edited by author 06-29-2001 07:55 PM
this reads like a Steven Kings story, or like en episode of the X-files. World domination and mind control. The hidden agenda of Microsoft and their devious manipultation of the human psyche.
Looking over the past two years at the antics of the monopoly court case left me with the distinct impression of a human like naiveté about what they were accused of. They reacted as to say: 'we didn't do anything wrong did we? lets rally together and fight this!
Every company in their monopolitic position searches out the boundries and crosses them to see if they can. There is the platform, with unbound oppertunities and never before trotted paths. The main aim IS to make money. You have to make it up as you go along. Don't get me wrong. The scam, 'cause thats what it is, of manipulating OSes out of the PC market by forcing boxpushers to install only Windows is way over the edge.
But lets be realistic. Do 90% of the PC touting public have it wrong? Can you actually manipulate 90% of the computer world in to buying your products solely by ingenious marketing and coercion? When i think it over, and i'm a web design, i think they make a pretty darn good product. And i don't feel manipulated.
But the crux of the story is this: even though they WILL be as pervasive as the telephone, telcos know every time we make a phone call, or as entrenched as the postage companies, they know where you live, the world community will run away with their technology and use it in ways they never dreamed of. The moment you put somthing in the public domain you are trying to catch up with the combined intellect of the the world. That must be scary (for them). One last question: does Cisco rule the internet world?

Who else has tried to do what Microsoft is doing here? Perhaps the reason why Microsoft is the one grabbing all these obvious opportunities for control is because there isn't any significant competition.

I agree with Chris, this is good work! If authentication and economic control is their ultimate aim, we are all in trouble. Given the nature of their influence with political leaders throughout the world, is there any government willing to take them on?

Great piece. It all comes down to two things: payment and identity. If you control authentication of identity then you control the payment infrastructure, and you can extract a rent for any transaction on the internet.

The ONLY people IMHO who should issue Passports are elected Governments.

Great job putting all the pieces together.

Shortly after reading it though, something else occurred to me: "Shared Source" or whatever you call it _does_ matter now to Microsoft. Watch in the next year - if software sales continue to lag as they do, I'd bet they will not only go with a "real" open source license, but they will become more and more standards compliant. Why? Simple. Although you didn't state it explicitly, the more interop there is, the more points on the 'net (or should that be .NET, *shudder*) that they can control.

Amazingly enough, interoperability of Internet-exposed components will become what Microsoft is _great_ at simply because the services model _demands_ it.

Creepy.

The article: http://webword.com/moving/misdirection.html

Summary: Microsoft doesn't care much about shared source or Smart Tags and we are wasting our time following their marketing trail. We need to focus on Microsoft's true goal, which is to completely dominate the internet services market. We should pay attention to how they are building a services infrastructure, not a technology infrastructure. We should figure out how they are going to use tools like Passport and Microsoft Messenger to control our personal information and various internet transactions.