October 26th, 2006
Technology that gives us the creeps
Last month, a Cisco chief technology officer called Windows Vista "scary". While our bloggers — including Mary Jo Foley and Ed Bott and George Ou — might argue with that assessment (see our complete Vista coverage to help you decide for yourself) the comment did get us thinking about other scary technologies — and scary uses of technology.
In the spirit of the Halloween season, we asked our bloggers to tell us what disturbing, distasteful, dreary 
or downright dastardly technology keeps them awake at night.
Why is this iPod scary?
David Berlind, for one, is suffering from a recurring DRM nightmare, and it keeps getting worse. Depending on your point of view, DRM stands for Digital Rights Management or Digital Restrictions Management. David calls it C.R.A.P. — and warns that we should all be very afraid.
The bogeyman that haunts Ed Bott and so many other Windows users has been Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage. In Vista, this anti-piracy program will only get worse, warns Ed. "Technically, it's not a kill switch, but it's arguably a near-death experience for your PC."
What other terrors has technology wrought? Ten troubling examples:
- Malware tricks
- 64-bit drivers
- Web 2.0 insecurity
- Honest consumers driven to piracy
- Virtualized SOA
- Microsoft Zune
- Floating nuclear plant
- The DMCA
- Electronic voting
- Traceable 'PattyMail'
And there's plenty more scary tech here…
Have you had a personal encounter with technology gone awry? Tell us about your own technology fear factor in TalkBack.
David Grober is managing editor of ZDNet Blogs. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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