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Microsoft: Blow Me
,----[ Quote ]
| In short, these machines are infested (not
| infected, infested) because their
| operating system has historically been
| full of security holes (this has improved,
| especially in Windows 7, to be fair.)
|
| So what does Microsoft propose?
|
| So who would foot the bill? "Maybe markets
| will make it work," Charney said. But an
| Internet usage tax might be the way to go.
| "You could say it's a public safety issue
| and do it with general taxation," he said.
|
| That's nice.
|
| Sell an insecure operating system and then
| get someone else to pay a tax because they
| bought an arguably-defective product you
| sold?
| How about this instead Microsoft?
|
| For each computer infested, the publisher
| of the operating system sold to that user
| is assessed a fine of US $100,000 by the
| Department of Justice.
`----
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewarticle/articleid/3915669
Should an Internet Tax Pay for Cybersecurity?
,----[ Quote ]
| Most opponents of a tax would say that
| software companies should be responsible
| for paying, since it's their
| responsibility to develop a safe product.
| Indeed, some criticize Microsoft for
| advocating a tax as an excuse to spend
| less of their own money developing safer
| software.
`----
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/03/should-an-internet-tax-pay-for-cybersecurity/37101/
Microsoft's Ideas for Making PCs Safer
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2360913,00.asp
Microsoft's Scott Charney Calls For Disrupting Cybercrime Activities
http://www.networkcomputing.com/data-protection/microsofts-scott-charney-calls-for-disrupting-cybercrime-activities.php
Microsoft Security Chief proposes taxes to protect the Internet
http://www.geek.com/articles/news/microsoft-security-chief-proposes-taxes-to-protect-the-internet-2010034/
Microsoft moots digital healthcare tax
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2010/03/03/microsoft-moots-digital-healthcare-tax/1
Microsoft's Ideas for Making PCs Safer
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2360913,00.asp
Say It Ain't So, Microsoft
,----[ Quote ]
| Maybe Microsoft Vice President for
| Trustworthy Computing Scott Charney wanted
| to see if his audience was really awake.
| Maybe he entered a time warp and thought
| it was April 1st. Maybe someone gave him a
| funny cookie. Or maybe he really didn't
| think it would be sheer lunacy to suggest
| levying an Internet tax on Americans to
| pay for cybersecurity.
|
| [...]
|
| What Were You Thinking, Scott?
|
| Not satisfied with blaming and seeking to
| punish the victim, Charney then went on to
| suggest the imposition of a tax on
| Internet users to ensure cybersecurity.
|
| "You could say it's a public safety issue
| and do it with general taxation," he said.
|
| Really, Scott? Why should we the users pay
| for the ineptness of software vendors? And
| please, don't give me that tired routine
| about the bad guys being out there always
| looking for flaws.
|
| Let's take an analogy from real life. When
| you're a kid your parents tell you the
| rules for living safely. Don't talk to
| strangers or take candy from them. Look
| both ways before you cross the street.
| Don't walk down dark streets or alleys at
| night. Never walk between a parked van and
| the wall, especially at night. Keep your
| doors locked.
`----
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/69491.html
No Microsoft, an 'Net tax' won't stop botnets
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=7529
Microsoftâs Toyota Letter
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft is not the only company that
| could fall victim to this proposed
| increase in standards. Imagine the results
| of temporary outages for network apps such
| as Google Docs, and if the same rules
| applied to purchased applications, email
| servers, or Internet browsers, there would
| be a lot of companies facing a great deal
| more stress over compensation packages-
| availability of Open Office to all Google
| Doc users until the system was repairs, or
| an automatic forwarding of all emails to
| another email address for all users while
| email hosts repair their issues, not to
| mention the millions of dollars spent by
| companies in an effort to save face and
| maintain the company reputation.
`----
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Greenfield/?p=613
Recent:
Taxing every citizen for Microsoft Windows problems? Are we insane?
,----[ Quote ]
| Just when you think you've heard
| everything, something new arrives. Two
| years ago, we heard that half a million
| computers are infected with malicious bots
| every day (a "bot" is a software program
| that enters your computer from the Internet
| or inside infected files, then runs in the
| background to steal your data, send spam or
| wreak havoc in some other way).
|
| This is a huge problem both because we
| depend on digital data in too many ways to
| explain them here (but you may read about
| them in the Open Government Book) and
| because of environmental reasons. According
| to a McAfee report published in May 2009
| the amount of energy used every year to
| transmit, process and filter spam would be
| enough to power 2.4 million homes, with the
| same Greenhouse Gas emissions as 3.1
| million passenger cars.
|
| On March 2nd, 2010, Microsoft Corporate
| Vice President for Trustworthy Computing
| Scott Charney spoke at a computer security
| conference about this very theme, that is
| how to fight the damages caused by
| computers infected by bots (or "malware").
|
| According to the summary published on
| ComputerWorld, Mr Charney started
| correctly. He pointed out that, just as
| there are quarantine programs for people
| with infective diseases, the same thing
| should happen with people who have
| computers infected by malware but, for any
| reasons, won't fix them up as soon as
| possible: such people should not be allowed
| to go online until their computer is clean
| and safe.
`----
http://stop.zona-m.net/node/109
Microsoft's Laugh-a-Minute Show Continues
,----[ Quote ]
| Can you believe it? Microsoft's lousy
| programming has caused billions of pounds
| worth of damage to the global economy in
| terms of downtime, lost files (and probably
| blood pressure problems) and it has the
| bare-faced cheek to suggest there should be
| an âInternet usage taxâ on everyone
| (including GNU/Linux users) to pay for the
| rectification of its mistakes? No wonder
| Scott Charney has the humorous and
| manifestly self-contradictory title of
| âMicrosoft Corporate Vice President for
| Trustworthy Computingâ....
`----
http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=2824&blogid=14
Windows Security Gets Boost from ClamAV
,----[ Quote ]
| The open source ClamAV project is often
| used on servers as a way to scan and secure
| e-mail gateways and Windows file shares.
| Now ClamAV is coming to the Windows desktop
| too, by way of the cloud.
`----
http://www.esecurityplanet.com/features/article.php/3868596/Windows-Security-Gets-Boost-from-ClamAV.htm
Typical Windows user patches every 5 days
,----[ Quote ]
| 75 Microsoft, third-party patch events each
| year are a burden most users can't bear,
| says Secunia
`----
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9165738/Typical_Windows_user_patches_every_5_days
Windows: New, improved & more insecure than ever
,----[ Quote ]
| Honest to God I don't go around trying to
| pick on Windows for its security problems,
| but the hackers keep finding new ways to
| break into it. And, this time, they've
| found a doozie. Berend-Jan Wever, aka
| "Skylined," a Google security software
| engineer has busted DEP (data execution
| prevention), one of the few significant
| security improvements Microsoft has made to
| Windows.
|
| DEP, which was added to Windows back in
| August 2004 in XP SP2. It addressed the
| very common hacking technique of buffer
| overflows. In a buffer overflow attack, a
| malicious program tries to overwrite the
| buffer, the amount of memory a program has
| been allocated for running its code in. By
| so doing, a buffer overflow overwrites
| memory that may or may not have been
| allocated to other programs. In either
| case, it can then use this overwritten
| memory for its own purposes. Usually this
| means running malware or even taking over
| the computer itself.
`----
http://www.itworld.com/endpoint-security/98992/windows-new-improved-more-insecure-ever
One-third of Security Essentials users infected: Microsoft
,----[ Quote ]
| Almost a third of the customers who have
| installed Microsoft's free Security
| Essentials software have been found to be
| suffering from major malware infections.
`----
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/28745/53/
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