All your files are belong to us

Welcome to the "File Association War" of the 21st century. Most modern applications do their darndest to claim as many functions of your computer as they can. All the major media players (WinAmp, Windows Media Player, Quicktime, RealPlayer, iTunes, Nero) battle incessantly to take over every audio and visual aspect of your entire computer. It won't be long before these programs will attempt to branch out into e-mail and instant messaging and everything else.

I've seen a simple printer driver from HP invite 3 of its buddies onto my computer to take over all my graphic processing functions. (Always select "Custom Install" when installing anything these days. Never accept the default, or "All your files are belong to us" will happen to you.)

But at least HP gave me the option of a "Custom Install". There's countless "free" software on the internet that comes chock-full of adware and spyware and other intrusive software. Trojan Horses full of marketers and con-artists.

Software is becoming increasingly needy and demanding...because it can. Some programs even seem personally offended when you try and shut them down.

- Click 'Done'
- Now what do you want to do?
- You want to exit? Are you sure you want to exit?
- But you have an unsaved project.
- You still want to exit?
- Fine, I'll just minimize myself to your System Tray.
- What, I can't even sit in your System Tray? After all I've done for you?
- Okay, I'll just take you back to my main control panel so you can use my other tools.
- Whoa, don't close the main control panel!
- How can I continue to do everything for you if you close me down completely?
- I have to keep running somehow, so I'll just keep running as a Windows Service.

Someday I fully expect to need a space suit so I can start pulling memory cards out of the HAL-9000, just to make a program truly quit.

And that's part of the problem here. Software is getting too "smart", but only on behalf of the software creators, not on behalf of the customers. Software is complex enough that it can exhibit sophisticated behaviors that represent the rudimentary personality of its creator.

And when the software author has a low opinion of users (naturally), you wind up with software that is distrustful.

"Do you wish to delete this folder?" [Yes]
"There are a lot of files in this folder." [Yes to All]
"But I found hidden files in here. Did you really mean..." [Yes to ALL]
"Whoa, I found an executable file here too. I bet you thought..." [YES TO ALL]
"One of these files is write-protected. If I were you I would..." [I SAID, YES TO *ALL*]
"These files are too large for the recycle bin. I won't be able to recover them once you realize what a mistake you..." [YES TO ALL, DAMNIT]

(I wish there really was a 'YES TO ALL, DAMNIT' button.)

But I'll take software with a mistrusting personality any day over software with a deceptive or malicious personality. There is too much money to be made by using software to coax more money and information and control from of a customer than they initially agreed to.

My dad has no computer and no internet connection. (He lives in rural Kentucky, what do you expect?) And even though he could afford one, he tells me he's not sure it's worth the hassle after all he's read about spyware, adware, viruses, trojan horses, porn, more porn, even more porn, popup ads, needy software, file association wars, hidden software, spam, e-mail fishing, e-mail scams of ALL kinds, identity theft, firewalls, packet-sniffing, wi-fi hacking, anti-virus software, spam filtering software, browser attacks, mountains of passwords you have to maintain, constant security patches to the OS, script kiddies taking over your computer to launch a Denial-of-Service attack, hackers gaining access to all your financial data, marketers tracing your every purchase, the government scanning your every communication, and rootkits that can make all manner of mal-ware invisible and unremovable.

And honestly, I don't blame him. I'm a computer professional, and even I am getting frustrated with how complicated it is becoming to maintain a safe and stable computing environment these days. The growing use of rootkits especially scare the hell out of me.

But are we going to give up all the conveniences and advances these technologies have brought us? No, I doubt that. Those of us that use these technologies have grown dependent on them.

Knock, knock...the Matrix has us. :)