PoliTech's Journal: Microsoft Confirms DRM Driver Crippling in Vista

From the horses mouth (the "Windows Vista Team Blog") comes confirmation of every horrible charge leveled at Vista by Gutmann. http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html/

Windows Vista Content Protection - Twenty Questions (and Answers) http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2007/01/20/windows-vista-content-protection-twenty-questions-and-answers.aspx/

Over the holidays, a paper was distributed that raised questions about the content protection features in Windows Vista. The paper draws sharp conclusions about the implications of those features for our customers. As one of the Lead Program Managers for the technologies in question, I would like to share our views on these questions.

Here are some examples of the Microsoft Lawyer version of Q & A.

Will echo cancellation work less well for premium content?

We believe that Windows Vista provides applications with access to sufficient information to successfully build high quality echo cancellation functionality.

Will Windows Vista content protection features increase CPU resource consumption?

Yes. However, the use of additional CPU cycles is inevitable, as the PC provides consumers with additional functionality. Windows Vista's content protection features were developed to carefully balance the need to provide robust protection from commercial content while still enabling great new experiences such as HD-DVD or Blu-Ray playback.

What is revocation and where is it used?

Renewal and revocation mechanisms are an important part of providing robust protection for commercial audiovisual content. In the rare event that a revocation is required, Microsoft will work with the affected IHV to ensure that a new driver is made available, ideally in advance of the actual revocation. Revocation only impacts a graphics driver's ability to receive certain commercial audiovisual content; otherwise, the revoked driver will continue to function normally.

Nice...

Here is a good quote from the Inquirer article about this "Blog" entry: http://uk.theinquirer.net/?article=37091/

"Microsoft confirms just about every point in the Gutmann pieceand tries to spin it as good. It is one of the most amazing piece of PR weaselwork I have seen for years. Try this one on for size."