Windows 8 Windows 8 Will Have a “Kill Switch”

[Abarbarian]

The very anticipated operating system Windows 8 will have a feature that was never found on PC’s before: A kill switch that can remotely delete software and edit code without the user’s permission. Although Microsoft claims the switch would only be used for software that is downloaded from its app store, no official policies clearly define the actual purpose of the kill switch.

http://vigilantcitizen.com/latestnews/windows-8-will-have-a-kill-switch/

The history of kill switches on smartphones and e-readers suggests they’re double-edged swords for the companies that wield them. In 2009, Amazon reached into users’ Kindles to delete e-book copies of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm that had been sold by a publisher without the necessary rights. The ensuing backlash caused Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos to call the move “stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles.”

Microsoft (MSFT) hasn’t spoken publicly about its reasons for including this capability in Windows 8 beyond a cryptic warning that it might be compelled to use it for legal or security reasons.

The reluctance of tech companies to set explicit policies for when they will and will not use kill switches contributes to the fear they’ll be abused. Civil rights and free speech advocates worry that tech companies could be pressured by governments to delete software or data for political reasons.

Gosh I'm so looking forward to Windows 8 and all the benifits it will bring to me .

 

[floppybootstomp]

I think that may actually be the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I think that as some people still are with XP I'll still be hanging out with Win 7 in ten year's time and hopefully for games only.

I'm still a novice when it comes to Linux and the expression 'write my own kernel' brings me out in a cold sweat but over the last 24 months or so I've found using Mint dead easy tbh and have been making an effort to try and use Linux (Mint) for more and more tasks.

There's a few things I'm not sure about, I have to try and connect to a network (wireless) printer, my Epson Scanner is untried with Mint 12 (KDE) and I have a zillion Microsoft Publisher files which I use MS Office Publisher 2003 to open, create, edit and print. I can always keep a partition for XP for just that though so not really a prob. And the open source program 'Scribus' is very similar to Publisher so I'll probably teach myself how to use that. The wireless printer connects through a wireless router which is hard wired to the Mint machine so I expect as long as I have the printer's server and ISP details (?) I might get lucky.

Plus I have yet to find a video editing/burning program for Linux to burn DVD's with different video files and create a menu for them on the DVD but tbh so far I haven't looked that hard.

Both Microsoft and Apple look to me to be bully boys and I find the idea that somebody or some artificial intelligence could access my machine and make changes to it without my permission quite horrifying. Time, gentlemen, for me to take a step back, a deep breath and some serious thinking.

 

[muckshifter]

There are "Kill Switches" built into Windows 7 since 2009, granted they are supposed to be useful like killing IE8 and the 'term' that is used is "Turn Off unwanted features" such as Internet Explorer 8, Fax and Scan, handwriting recognition, Windows DVD Maker, Windows Gadget Platform, Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, Windows Search, and XPS Viewer and Services.

They are, however, not remotely controlled via Microsoft, the user has the choice.

I'll stick with Win7, can't see GW2 not running on that.

Linux, Mac, naw, can't be bothered with that argument any more, I only 'play' games these days, don't do important business stuff.