Very interesting yet frightening storys, especially yours faust. Its my opinion that microsoft as well as other companys have been moving to make the internet less and less anonymous over the years. this passport sounds like a very bad idea, this clip from the page was especially unnerving

"Up to 200 million people have signed up for Passport accounts, which are nearly impossible to avoid under Microsoft's new Windows XP operating system. Passport promises consumers a single, convenient method for identifying themselves across different Web sites."

And as long as this whole thread is going, anybody have any thoughts on spyware? here is a page concerning realnetworks and others, worth reading if you got the time http://grc.com/downloaders.htm