Comments

LeahOnIm wrote:



mpspringer wrote:  Great Video!  It's fun to see and hear the people that make a good app work. I do have a few suggestions though; 1. It would be nice to be able to shrink the window smaller when IM'ing (like G Talk) 2. I have to agree with the prior post about the "lite" version.   I really wont be visiting Ebay anytime soon from WLM.  In my business and in life, i try to live by the acronym, K.I.S.S.  Sometimes less is more.  You have a great product.. . Keep up the good work! BTW, Leah- are you single?  If so, how about a martini at Tini Bigs?

Yup - a lite version would be nice. But then we have people who are say, using skype while they IM on Messenger because they don't know that Messenger has a calling service. We have to find a good way to expose people to our features while making those who know, but choose not to use them, happier. This is something we're looking at in our design.

BTW, nice try.

Maybe make the default "already-on-my face" features simple, and hide the other features. The other features can be turned on from options thoguh one check mark.  So the people who dont want it would use it as if this is a light version, but the others , can turn the features on if the chose to.

AISBERG wrote:



It's the first video I have seen on Channel9 and I liked very much although I have suggestions, ideas or just comments  about it...
I saw somebody from the team replied here and what I want is to send a private message to her to tell some suggestions or comments...
Can I send a PM here, 'cause I don't see it anywhere..
Thanks!

Better yet, can we get their msn messenger contact info so we can talk to them over messenger?

Yaay. The team answered some of our questions. Whoowhoo.

This video is cool. It showed about how msn servers work generally.

I did not know about the fact that sharing is encryped. That is good. Now if only we can get messages we send to our friends encrypted using public key crypto, that would be good. This is so that no one in my LAN can read my msn messages.


About the add-ins, I was looking for the templates that you add to Visual Studio 2005 and begin programming custome dlls for messenger, but I could not get the template as described by MSDN. So if we can get a direct link to it that would be great.



I wanted to ask the team, if it would be possible to allow voice chat rooms into messenger. so that a group of friends would talk live to their friends. This would be so cool because it open up new ways to collaborations with friends in distant places, and in a group. So if your working on a homework project, you can go on msn chat rooms and talk using microphone with 5 other people in your class or something. So a conference feature is cool in messenger. It would make messenger the ultimate messenger for all needs.

One problem though is that such chat rooms would need to be monitored for bad people and the like. But this is already solved, by only allowing people in your messenger list to join your conference. So if I want to talk to the 273 people in my list, i can invite them all into a conference and talk using voice and text. Others who are not in my contact list would not be able to join unless I add them to my list.

Furthermore, regarding the add-ins features in messenger. I would like an api that would allow me to programmatically change my display name or display picture. There are many good applications for this, but one example , is to make a display name scroller or a display image changer every 5 mins or so. Hey there is a kid in every one of us, isnt that so Charles?



Keep up the good work. I see messenger getting better day by day.

n4cer wrote:



If you use BitLocker with the TPM, an attacker would have to compromise the system without destroying the TPM or changing the system metrics the TPM uses. Accomplishing this on one system does not allow you to compromise subsequent systems as the metrics are different.

can you give examples as to these metrics? does it use unique things in a typical Vista OS with default values? like SIDs , HD serial#s and the like?



So if you have 4 dell machines that are identical on every thing, you would not be able to compromise the other 3 if you managed to do it on the first one?



but why not? I mean if you managed to break 1 , what prevents you from doing the same process to the other 3? See this is what I dont like, I wanted no one to be able to break the first one, and in addition to this, each computer's implemetation would depend on unique values in the hardware that are unique to each pc.


also why cant we get a choice as to different encryption methods from a drop down menu in vista? Why only use AES?

Edit: If you have multiple accounts in Vista, each account has some protected files, does bitLocker make each account encrypted with different key than other accounts so if your in a public portal or a University library your data in your account would be encrypted with a key you choose that is different from others. Or is there a key used for all files in a given Vista installtion for the whole pc? So is there a per user capability?


my 2 cents.

What I gather is that maybe you guys will not install or make the backdoors. But you guys will tell governments the vulnerabilities or the weak points that bitLock has , and then governments could then develop their own ways to decrypt a file. It goes back to my question why doesnt bitLocker employ a really good unbreakable encryption algorithm, so no one but the person who owns the pc would be able to read it. THis is similar to TrueCrypt in someway.



So for most people, what is the point of having bitLocker to begin with if the system has vulnterabilities that hackers as well as governmental agencies would be able to utilize to break the encryption? Just making their job a little harder?



Another question how would this impact Anti-Virus software? Would this hinder scanning process to the point that it might take a whole day to scan your hard drives?



I mean its nice and all to have all my files encrypted so that if someone steals my pc or labtop my data cannot be read. Its a step in the right direction interms of privacy. But this is a sword with two edges if you will. You can give people false sence of security or privacy when the system used has weak points from which interested parties would be able to break the encryption.

cain wrote:



 

Ok, how about you design that 'unbreakable' encryption algorithm, and then they'll use it.  The algorithm they use could take billions of years to break on todays hardware - that's good enough for me.

One-Time Pad (OTP) cryptosystem.

cain wrote:



What vulnerabilities?

side channel attacks, XSL attack, cache timing attack, + othes

there are prefectly secure crypto systems there that use symmetric encryption. Its called one time pads. So you can generate a randomal pad, and use it to encrpt the files you have, and store this pad somewhere in a flash drive and keep using it since its only you. Each system would then be encrpted differently than any other system. If a hacker successfully decrypted user A's computer in Vista, then using the same ways they cant decrypt user B's.

There would be some technical issues that need to be solved, But If they want to they can iron them out.

 

though AES encryption with long keys is good. Its still not 100% secure, and machines are gaining more power hardware wise, and there are already super computers out there, like the quantum-factorization engines and others that have dictionaries full of random keys ready to be tried out by the powers to be.

 

So though its nice, it will only stop the average joe, not the experts. the average joe or snoops out there would not want any thing with us.

Lets face it, in this day and age, privacy is meaningless. We are all guilty and as such are to be monitored like little kids by big brother, until proven innocent through monitoring. The presumption that all people are good that used to be the predominant thing, has changed. That is what they mean when governments want to be able to see what your doing and what files you have in your computers.

Since the average hacker out there would not target user X per se, its safe to assume that your files are safe. But with government agencies they want to know what each citizen is doing, and that is why I say privacy is a relative term nowadays, and in all practicallity its meaningless.

I would have wished that MS would use a really hard to break crypto system that is mathematically sound, like the ones where you have to solve for 3 unknowns or one-time pads.

Anyways, Its not like we have something to hide, do we? That what big-brother would say:P

n4cer wrote:

Every encryption technique has weakpoints. It's only a matter of time and resources. The goal of encryption is to make the cost of breaking the encryption far exceed value of the data you want to recover.

Generally, the best algorithms are ones that are publically available and easily auditable. such as AES, which BitLocker uses (and is one of the choices for TrueCrypt).

With one time pads even if you have all the resources in the world you cannot break it. Because its statistically not possible and mathematically not possible.

This guy looks like Tom cruise. LOL



Anyways. How do we know the NSA does not have backdoors into the new encryption system that will ship with vista?



Its more safe to assume there is a backdoor than to say there is not. So you guys have to prove that there is no way mathematically to use backdoors. Like why not use one-time pad encrpytion on each file? or some mathematical function where there are more than 3 unknowns to solve for to decrypt.

By the way what is the encryption algorithim used for encryption in VISTA?

The last presentation was interesting, because this system can be used to limit the paper work that doctors have to do. Patient Records can all be computarized and access through cards, so doctors would just type new records in.

Also, it can allow doctors to track patients wholive in other countries or who are travelling. Or maybe allow doctors to volunteer some time to help young kids in aflicted African nations, and help diagnose diseases from their office in the US or Europe or in an airplane.

So it has many applications really. The Idea was nice.

Why Is Bill Gates stepping down in July 2008?

what is the reason for this? Is it too much work? (semi-retirement for Bill?)

Thanks