LEAKY OPERATING SYSTEMS

Let me don the conspiracy theorist hat for a moment.

Hopefully the current Big Leak won't resurrect aspirations to worldwide file-system-level information lock-down, with full on-disk encryption, remote file tracking, reporting, access control, and deletion.

This is just a couple of steps beyond DRM. Remember "Trusted Computing" and several similar initiatives. All had in common the idea of moving control off the host and into the hands of some IP owners - identities TBD.

The right combination of EULAs and some other legal infrastructure would have implied that taking control of your own computer would have been in breach of the the DMCA.

Microsoft was developing something like this for Vista. Failed at a technical level due to elevated CPU and bandwidth requirements.

The idea was far ahead of the curves in 1) hardware, 2) tlc, and 3) politics. The third constraint never bit, preempted by the first two. The functionality wasn't activated.

Yet, Vista's initial snail pace file copying was due to its relentless, er, "processing" of all disk I/O in search of... what?

I surmise it was the stub of a system doing crib ops on EVERYTHING it handled.

It did it just because it was its default behavior, despite being still not plugged in to search of thing-you-have-but-aren't-yours.

I don't think MS ever stopped investing in this.

In the intervening years CPU power increased, cores multiplied, hashes improved, and anything worth anything is now online at high speed 24/7, either on host or in the cloud.

The right time could be now. I can picture Steve Ballmer with dollar signs in his eyes at the thought of retooling tens of millions of government computers, after several years of slow but unmistakable drift.

Please, anybody, allay my fears!
(Yes, I also mean you, Lance Ulanoff! :-)