Heard some rumors saying that Athlon and Intel are going to
form some kind of sick contract with Microsoft.

Saying that (somehow) *don't ask me HOW*, the hardware
of your computer (the processor) will digitallty <img border="0" alt="[borg]" title="" src="graemlins/borg.gif" /> mark every
file that you have executed on your machine with some kind of sick ID-number.
This ID will then be used to recognize your file on your system...
Meaning... that on startup.. your processor will search you system for non-local files and remove then on startup.
And so you won't be able to leech files and programms.
SICK!

If(!this){
Hurray!

}else{
F*CK!

}

ahh yes I believe what your reffering to is the Trusted Computed Platform Alliance (TCPA) or more specifically Microsoft's Palladium. You can find tons of articles about it on google.

For a simple break down on the subject I found that this was a good article:
http://neworder.box.sk/newsread.php?newsid=6261

or read what they say at slashdot:
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/02/06/23/1641205.shtml?tid=109

Intel already does it, don't you remember the hype about them shipping the P4 with the digital ID on at default? jeese...

holy ....
I didn't believe it when the word reached me ears..
but it's true ;/

it is microsofts way of wiping out the competition. if palladium were to happen it cold mean machine could only run microsoft licensed software, effectively wiping out open source and linux because no one will pay the license fee for each version released. it would leave microsoft with a monopoly on the computer market.

that would mean that Microsoft will put themself into a tigh situation on the war against open source coders and every digital subculture!

WAR!