Never mind that Microsoft’s Palladium computer security initiative offers digital rights management (DRM) capabilities for the entertainment industry. That someone else will control what you can and cannot run on your computer is just a minor side benefit.
Never mind that even though Mario Juarez, Palladium’s product manager, acknowledges the technology has built-in back doors. Back doors that governments can use to monitor and disrupt the information flows of citizens. Back doors that corporations can use to monitor and control employee behavior. Both are just minor side benefits. Nice, but not crucial.
The real purpose of Microsoft’s Palladium, according to Robert X. Cringely’s latest article, “A Hollywood ending: Does Microsoft really care about protecting the entertainment industry?”, is to control and tax the global flow of money. The DRM bits of Palladium are, according to Cringely, a red herring to draw our attention away from Palladium’s real purpose. After all, Cringely reminds us, “In 2001, the PC business was more than 12 times the size of the movie business and more than eight times the size of the movie and television businesses combined.” Microsoft doesn’t care about the entertainment industry—Microsoft is regularly accused of stealing intellectual property—the entire entertainment industry represents mere chump change in the Microsoft world view:
“Forget the flow of music and movies through your computer, and wake up to the flow that really counts, the flow of money. Put Palladium on every computer, and whoever controls Palladium controls the flow of money in the world. Wasn’t that the real point of .NET? Would Microsoft really pursue .NET without a corollary hardware strategy? I don’t think so.”
Excellent analysis; highly recommended.
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