Professor Geek

No, Microsoft and good ideas are not mutually exclusive. Microsoft has a really good idea concerning personal security, phishing schemes, and the like, that they are building into Vista, their next operating system. It is not an application, but a protocol. Protocols are sets of rules that, when agreed to by participants, govern how something operates. They are not software, but simply rules of the road. Think of it in the physical world as the protocols being the rules of the road and the software being the cars. They move along the road just fine if everyone obeys the rules.

Microsoft has come up with a proposed protocol that would give users complete control over their own personal (and sensitive) information, allowing them to dole out whatever pieces of that information they see fit only to those whom they choose to give it to. People who approach you (as in phishing scams) without knowing the information you gave them, would be immediately identified for what they are. For example, if you gave your credit card company certain pieces of your information store, your credit card company would be able to present those pieces, encrypted properly, to you, immediately validating who they are. A fake company trying to look like your credit card company would not have that information and would be immediately tagged as fake.

You can read the details about this in a recent Wired news article. My kudos to Microsoft for a good idea that might just get us out of the wild west mess the Internet is currently in.

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