Re: Vista

"Martin" <usenet21@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:49d1d27f$0$16168$db0fefd9@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
MI5.Victim@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
It was SP1 that fixed Vista for me on my laptop when I was trialling it.
Windows 7 is really quite good - a couple of device drivers missing for
printers - it looks good, is stable, actually I don't think this has ever
crashed. Downsides - the only one so far is that after about a week the
wireless networking stops working properly and I need to do a reboot.

On the whole though, pretty damn good. If they'd waited a year they could
have released this as the next release of windows and I'd have been happy
switching my clients to it rather than hanging on and bypassing Vista
which is a PITA when purchasing new equipment.

I certainly get the impression that Vista is as much of a white elephant as
ME was. Have you checked the security of Windows 7? What information
passes backwards and forward between it and the internet?

With XP, I've already had to block at quite a few different companies that
receive information from it. I don't use Media Player, but I had to
initially block at least 6 different comapanies that would receive
information when I started using it. MS attempt to dominate your use of
media with its Digital Rights Management (DRM). That is one of the main
reasons why I would not go with Vista with a new computer. In fact I have
(with difficulty) removed Windows Media Player completely from my current
system.

You will find also that most, if not all, security software (eg. firewalls
and anti-virus) by default trust MS software, and I have discovered more
recently that Google software is now included in that category. That will
mean that, in effect, no restrictions, by default, are put on MS and Google
software by security software. That includes installations and
communications over the internet.

This all goes to help unauthorised access (that is unauthorised by the
owner) by certain agencies that have 'arrangements' with MS, and hence
security companies.

You will note that the UK has not progressed amendments to the Computer
Misuse Act 1990 which arose from the Convention on Cybercrime (Bucharest
2001) which included aspects on:
Illegal Access (Article 2)
Illegal interception (Article 3)
Data interference (Article 4)
System interference (Article 5)
Misuse of devices (Article 6)
http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/Treaties/Html/185.htm

You can see that the UK still has to ratify the articles resulting from the
convention, let alone put it into force, from here:
http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/Commun/ChercheSig.asp?NT=185&CM=&DF=&CL=ENG

I am still not sure yet whether Sections 35 or 36 of the Police and Justice
Act 2006 has yet being implemented:
S. 35: Unauthorised access to computer material
S. 35: Unauthorised acts with intent to impair operation of computer, etc
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/ukpga_20060048_en_7#pt5-pb2-l1g36

So - I am still not in the position to trust MS, or many of the default
settings of security software.

I can provide a list of companies / IP address groups that by default have
had access to my XP system.

I think it's almost time to go to some alternative operating system.

Iain


.

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