Microsoft's Really, Really Bad Idea by George Ziemann -- December 30, 2008 I dislike Microsoft almost as much as the RIAA, but Microsoft is scarier because when they have a bad idea, the company you work for will buy it immediately and you'll have to deal with it every day. Metered computing is next, the Big Brother you can believe in. An article at ComputerWorld explains the whole thing, which is taken from Microsoft's patent application for the process. ComputerWorld concentrated primarily on the fact that this is going to end up being more expensive in the long run than just buying the computer outright. "Microsoft's plan would instead monitor the machine to track things such as disk storage space, processor cores and memory used, then bill the user for what was consumed during a set period... Fees would be lower for low-performance chores, such as writing e-mail or surfing the Internet, and higher for high-performance tasks." I'm sure the line of thinking on this runs something like, "We can charge kids to do their homework!" Great idea. The more a student is struggling, the more it's going to cost the family to bring him up to speed. Poorer families will discourage their children from putting in extra effort, doing extra research, or engaging in any efforts which require heavy processing power (graphics, music, movies). Depending on what happens with the economy, more and more of us may find ourselves in this category in the near future. So even if you use your computer strictly for work purposes, it's going to add to the cost of having a job, and discourage extra time and effort on difficult projects that rely on heavy processing power, whether it be rocket science or music and movies. All of that is enough to make this a Very Bad Idea. "Key to the concept is something Microsoft called a 'security module,' embedded either in the hardware or provided as software, that would meter the computer's usage." Microsoft may have called this a "security module" but it sounds more like surveillance than security. "To make this model successful, a mechanism must be in place that supports a highly secure method of adjusting performance coupled with a secure, auditable measurement and payment scheme to allow a variety of pre-paid and post-paid mechanisms for capturing and settling highly granular, infinitely adjustable, performance variations," the patent application said. Let's be real. Requiring a "highly secure method" ought to count Microsoft out of fulfilling its own patent right from the start. See Internet Explorer and every version of Windows. Now imagine them tied in to your bank account. Now it's a Really Bad Idea. They've been trying to control your software for years, which is how everyone else gets in. If Microsoft can control your computer's performance from a remote location, they'll certainly be able to check the data. Overlooking the many ways that Microsoft could abuse this information, the problem goes back to the fact that you can't make secure spyware, which is what this is. Microsoft can't even make a secure web browser. The hackers will crack this long before the corporate world has finished installing it. And the Pentagon. Which makes it a Really, Really Bad Idea. Bonus Update -- December 31 -- Every first generation 30GB Zune is dying today. This sounds like a programming error. Maybe an intentional one ("They'll have to buy a new one." or even "I hate this place."). "Key to the concept is something Microsoft called a 'security module'..." "...mechanisms for capturing and settling highly granular, infinitely adjustable, performance variations." Whatever the source of the Zune problem turns out to be, the fact is that they can't even do an mp3 player without hidden cargo. Extra Bonus -- January 1, 2009 -- The Zune problem turns out to be that 2008 was a leap year and the extra day in the year gave Zunes the equivalent of a stroke. But it's an mp3 player. Why is the date so important that it would shut down the player? Only one obvious answer -- DRM.

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