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Microsoft's Security Meeting Causes Unease 170

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the signing-an-nda-with-the-competition-never-fun dept.
Tony Maclennan writes to tell us that there were many mixed feelings at this year's Microsoft Security Response and Safety Summit. Many who attended the conference felt that the presentations were sadly lacking in the technical details that were shared in previous years. With Microsoft entering the arena as a competitor to these anti-virus companies, one has to wonder about the effect on the free flow of information that ultimately benefits the consumer.
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Microsoft's Security Meeting Causes Unease More

Microsoft's Security Meeting Causes Unease

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  • Ballmer needs a gift... (Score:5, Funny)

    by PornMaster ( 749461 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2006 @06:40PM (#15780153) Homepage
    Personally, I think that this points out why people should be buying Steve Ballmer gifts. [poopegifts.com]

  • Anti-trust? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cyber-dragon.net ( 899244 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2006 @06:40PM (#15780159)
    Has anyone in the DOJ looked into this Microsoft anti-spyware anti-virus bit?
    Anyone else feel this is the epitomy of anti-competative practices? Hell their OS is the REASON these other companies exist, and now Microsoft gets to profit from thier own security holes?

    Someone else HAS to see the flaw in this idea... I can only pray the EU once again has more sense than the DOJ.
    • Anti-trust? We're talking about Microsoft, the epitome of anti-trust. They don't trust me to own a legal copy of Windows XP (I change all my hardware enough it accuses me of pirating it), and I don't trust them with my computer.

    • Anti-trust? How about RICO? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Biff Stu ( 654099 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2006 @06:56PM (#15780272)
      So you're stuck with our crummy OS. Want to buy some protection?
    • It's only a monopoly if you don't have other real choices. That may have been true 10 years ago, but nowadays mac and linux look like perfectly viable alternatives. Are you claiming that these other options are so inferior to Windows that they don't count? (posted from a powerbook G4)
      • On the contrary, they very much count (posting from a mac mini because it fits on my desk and all my real work is on servers I ssh to anyway) and I whole heartedly support them. I just find it a bit odd that a -convicted- (in more than one court mind you) monopoly would be allow to do this.

        Of course a lot of the things comming out of the U.S. government boggle me lately.
        At least the EU will back it's conviction, says more for them than I can say about Bushy boy.
      • It's only a monopoly if you don't have other real choices.

        Says who? You? You are incorrect, sir. One way in which the governement established that Microsoft is a monopoly is in the fact that they can charge different people/companies different prices for Windows. Google it if you wish.

      • Re:Anti-trust? (Score:3, Informative)

        by darkonc ( 47285 )
        It's only a monopoly if you don't have other real choices.

        There are a number of other criteria to being an effective monopoly.

        Microsoft still controls enough of the market that they can bully companies like DEL into NOT shipping Linux to home users except under extreme duress, and NOT shipping a box without Windows (or shipping a box without windows for more than the same box with Windows), and making it impossible for you to return the OS if you don't accept the license agreement without also returnin

    • While i agree windows is pretty much swiss cheese, i really doubt its intentional. its more of a byproduct of poor quality control and flawed management.

      Not defending their shoddy practices as they could do a MUCH better job with QC, but anything that has a few million lines of code is bound to have a few issues..

    • No need to pray (Score:5, Insightful)

      by EmbeddedJanitor ( 597831 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2006 @08:26PM (#15780779)
      EU does have more sense than DOJ, though perhaps not enough.

      MS were quite clever to get DOJ all hot under the collar about Netscape & IE. These are no longer competitive areas. What is more important is that DOJ monitors future manuipulations by MS. For example, how they are playing in mobile space, how they're playing in personal audio (will their new audio device kill iPod through fair means or foul?) and things like anti-virus products.

      For MS's point of view, being able to lock up the anti-virus APIs makes more than just business sense. It also allows them to shut the door on (limited) review of their system by citing some lame excuses like "there is no valid reason for anyone to look at these interfaces, anywone doing so is probably a terrorist!". Loss of that (limited) review would be a bad thing for the industry.

    • It's called a protection racket. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by slashdotwriter ( 972437 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2006 @10:19PM (#15781213) Journal
      Offering someone protection for a fee when you're part of the danger to that person means that you're running a protection racket. For a fee, MS offers to close the holes which it leaves in its operating system. I think that you see this kind of scheme at work all over the computer industry. The pushing of upgrades of software and hardware as a fix against problems is of a similar nature.
      • The problem with the 'wahhh its a protection racket' whine is this:

        1. There will always be bugs in a complex system, these will always be exploited
        2. There are many malware programs (virus, trojan, spyware) out there that dont require a fault in the OS to exist
        3. Windows Update doesnt cost me anything, so MS does repair bugs for free

        There is plenty of scope for MS to produce an antivirus product that doesnt have to rely on deliberate and planned insecurity.

      • That's dumb and would never fly in a court of law. The danger to people comes from the freaking criminals who write the viruses - NOT from Windows! Given how trivial it is to install adware as root on a modern Linux box the words rocks" and "glass houses" come to mind.

        (consider all the Firefox exploits that have been discovered, most users don't install updates themselves, kernel exploits come out all the time etc...)

    • Now, the problem is:

      MS's software has security flaws.

      These flaws are abused by malware solution providers.

      Malware is combatted by anti-malware solution providers.

      Conclusion: The whole business model is build on MS's security holes.

      > Hell their OS is the REASON these other companies exist, and now Microsoft gets to profit from thier own security holes?

      In fact it sounds fishy when the same company responsible for the holes provides solutions for anti-malware. It is like snakes in colonial India. It creates

  • Trade secrets? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by meburke ( 736645 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2006 @06:42PM (#15780179)
    C'mon, folks! It is no longer in Microsoft's interest to divulge techniques that may allow a competitor to secure the most profitable OS in History against it's own vulnerabilities.

    The security companies will be better off forming their own knowlege pool and inviting Microsoft representatives to learn from them.

    • The security companies will be better off forming their own knowledge pool and inviting Microsoft representatives to learn from them.

      What's ours is ours and what's yours is ours, right? What a flamebait assertion, that M$ should keep the details of how they do things to themselves but that others should go out of their way to share what they manage to claw from the void. Typical.

      M$'s behavior and the results are entirely predictable by this point. They want to own the market so they are withholding

      • I didn't mean it as flame bait. I simply don't think MS is a totally reliable, un-biased source of information about the quality of security within their OS, and I don't think the independent security product manufacturers should put themselves in position where they are dependent on MS for information on OS behavior that represents a security vulnerability. I also don't think they should belong to an organization or consortium that is controlled by MS, because MS has conflicts of interest between presentin

  • Maybe there's nothing to report? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2006 @06:44PM (#15780187)
    After all, they spent a whole month cleaning up their security problems.
  • Why oh why would they give away the technical details to their next revenue stream?

    My opinion is the Microsoft groupthink has the desktop war won.

    To keep the desktop they have, they use "security" like Americans use "Terrist" or the label "communist" before that.

    Nevermind that the system is not designed for operating securely. Just heighten the fear, deny your former security partners valuable information and the Monopoly money will keep coming.

    12 tenets my a**.
    • 12 tenets my a**.

      Yeah, this one didn't last long, did it?

      6. APIs. ...going forward, Microsoft will ensure that all the interfaces within Windows called by any other Microsoft product, such as the Microsoft Office system or Windows Live(TM), will be disclosed for use by the developer community generally. That means that anything that Microsoft's products can do in terms of how they plug into Windows, competing products will be able to do as well.

    • and the Monopoly money will keep coming

      You mean, that monopoly money [arstechnica.com] ?
      Sorry couldn't resist.

      And while I'm at Ob. References :

      like Americans use "Ter[o]rist" or the label "communist" before that.

      You forgot to add "Child-molesting Pornographer" and "Lyrics-stealing-and-copyrighted-music-whistling Pirate" !
      Think of the children, you free-riding punk !

  • from TFA: visitors are those not saying anything (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pimpimpim ( 811140 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2006 @06:55PM (#15780263)
    FTA:

    You can imagine why everyone kept their mouth shut:

    It's especially a concern that Microsoft requires attendees to sign a document that allows the company to use anything that anyone says at the event.

    "Having been put into that situation, people will feel more inhibited to say things," said Jimmy Kuo, a McAfee fellow and a veteran of the Microsoft events. "They ask us to sign a nondisclosure agreement, and if we say anything in those meetings that Microsoft is able to use, they have the right to do so." The agreement was introduced in recent years, he said.

    Really, what kind of conference organized by a competitor that already puts in a clause that they can steal the ideas presented would actually render useful information? Think of some big pharmaceutical firm letting its competitors come and show their ideas with a clause like the one above. It would be surprising if anyone would actually show up.

    • Re:from TFA: visitors are those not saying anythin (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jkabbe ( 631234 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2006 @07:21PM (#15780441)
      Microsoft would be irresponsible if they did not include a clause in the agreement giving them rights to use anything disclosed at the conference.

      Imagine Microsoft was busy working on feature X. Then, along comes someone from Symantec who talks about feature X at the conference. Later, Microsoft comes out with an update to their product incorporating feature X. Symantec cries fowl and starts complaining about how Microsoft stole their confidential information.

      All the clause effectively says is that the information disclosed at the conference is not confidential. If it's not a trade secret, Microsoft can use it as it sees fit anyway. The same would hold true for anyone else at the conference. The agreement just puts it down in plain English for those not up on IP law.
    • MS think they are allowed to incorporate any feedback, anyone gives them.

      What is worse, many of their NDAs imply that if you suggest something to them, you give them the rights to use any of your IP (i.e evil softwre patents) in the process. Thus they care enough about software patent infringement to want to get the rights to other peoples intellectual property, while still pushing the EU campaign to make software patents legal.

      When we talk to the great satan of the Pacific North West, we mustnt ever make s

  • I could be wrong, but ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by value_added ( 719364 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2006 @07:00PM (#15780299)
    Another session discussed how malicious software could leave traces on Vista PCs even after it is removed, McAfee's Kuo said. The trace is in the form of a so-called symbolic link, a technology introduced in Vista. These are designed to make it easier to locate items on a computer, and are somewhat similar to current shortcuts in Windows XP and aliases in Mac OS systems.

    "Symbolic links can clutter up your machine with lots and lots of links that point nowhere" after the malicious software is removed, Kuo said. Protective tools will probably end up doing the clean-up, he said. It's a sign that on Vista systems, security software has more work to do than on earlier versions of the operating system.

    This new symbolic link technology sounds like serious stuff. I hope they hold back on the release date until they it's working correctly.

  • Trend Micro. Perhaps the others are staying away out of fear? Seems shortsighted.

  • Microsoft causes viruses then paid to find them. (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There is something very wrong if an entire business exists to work around holes in a companies OS. There is something even more wrong when that company is attempting to enter into that business. Wouldn't fixing the security model be more effective.

  • one has to wonder... really? (Score:3, Informative)

    by cloricus ( 691063 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2006 @07:06PM (#15780353)
    So hands up who didn't see this coming more than a year ago when they started talking about it...Don't forget this is still Microsoft we are talking about - the upper management is still in place which means the ethos while hidden hasn't changed - maybe when gates and the others go it might improve though not before then.

  • 12 Rules? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tb3 ( 313150 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2006 @07:09PM (#15780377) Homepage
    So, how many of the wonderful new '12 Rules' does this violate? And how many people really believed in the 'Kinder, Gentler, Microsoft'?
    • Probably about the same number that believed in George Bush, Sr's "Kindler, Gentler, America". Which is to say, not many.

    • None. Actually, it reinforces one:

      1. Installation of any software. Computer manufacturers and customers are free to add any software to PCs that run Windows. . .

      As long as customers are free to add any software to PCs that run Windows, they can inadvertently install software that's a virus, trojan, or other malware. Faced with the option to either lock down Windows so you can't install anything that's not pre-approved (like many cell phones and other devices), which would go a long ways toward fixing t

  • We all should just unplug our ethernet cables right now, I have the feeling that with MS entering the market with antivirus software that less information will get out about how to fix things. Now when MS screws with their antivirus and Windows it will take longer to get things to work right because who would wanna use MS's bloatware antivirus.

  • Job security, for me (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RickBauls ( 944510 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2006 @07:23PM (#15780448)
    Microsofts poor security and anti-virus is what keeps bills paid for me and a lot of people I know. If you ask me, malware can be a good thing in a capitalist run country like USA. If it wasn't for malware, the entry level jobs at a lot of IT companies would be gone.

  • fairness and microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 25, 2006 @07:34PM (#15780518)
    fairness and microsoft go together like Military and intelligence. Of course they don't want to talk about how they will patch the gaping holes they leave in their software. And you knew sooner or later someone there would go, hey, why don't WE sell spyware and antivirus software? It's all just foolishness. Microsoft is, has been, and will be, a corrupt monopoly as long as our corrupt government allows it.
  • Ok, this is due to me not looking into it much prior, perhaps.

    But I went to the Chicago one this year, and it was utterly useless. All it came across to me was an extended sales pitch for their products. Perhaps I should have expected more, but it really didn't get in to any real technical details. You just went to some room and some half-techie guy talked about a specific product. It would have been a lot more useful if they'd discussed real issues, etc.
  • I really wish that Microsoft disappeared from the OS market for just a short time. Not one computer running Windows (or perhaps at most a niche market with roughly 5% share). Then suddenly Windows won't have security holes. Then it will be Linux, MacOS, or whatever happens to control the lion's share of the market, which will be plagued by security grief.

    Of course those would likely get blamed on "Evil Hackers and Coders" as opposed to the company(pluralize if necessary) putting out the OS.

    Face it,

    • SpyBot and AdWare are free, so why would they care if Microsoft bundled anti-spyware with windows? It's not like they're being denied revenue.

      The fact is, the overwhelming majority of users don't have any anti-spyware protection, and Microsoft is tired of getting blamed for this (note that spyware doesn't generally rely on OS flaws, but on users explicitly installing malware). In order to clamp down on spyware, it's necessary for anti-spyware to be bundled, since most are not installing 3rd party anti-spy
    • "I really wish that Microsoft disappeared .. Then it will be Linux, MacOS, or whatever .. which will be plagued by security grief"

      If it was true that you don't see such destructive security breeches on these other OSs because they are not popular, then why don't we see the same on servers running Linux/BsdUnix etc.

      "Microsoft is at the top, and hence, is villified" No, Ms is villified because they produce crap product and plot the destruction of their competitors/partners.

      "there is NOTHING wrong
    • Anti-virus, anti-spyware, etc. costs money to produce.

      Microsoft can develop their products and recover their development costs by adding it onto the cost of the Windows operating system, which everyone is forced to pay anyway, whether or not they download the free product. Every other company has to market their product with their own money and there is no guarantee that they will get that money back.

      Even if Microsoft's anti-spyware were made into a separate download, every Windows customer is paying for it

  • We Live Upon a Ship of Fools (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RailGunSally ( 946944 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2006 @07:51PM (#15780619)
    I sat in a meeting yesterday with "developers" who had never heard of Bachus-Naur form. I routinely confer with "programmers" who have never heard of a finite state machine. I work daily with "data architects" who have never heard of Dr. Codd or of normalization. I am personally acquainted with upper managers who are just dying to replace OpenBSD-based firewalls with M$ Vista Server. THIS, my fellow cognoscenti, is the extent to which our society is infested with charlatans and ignorami. That M$ can now, on the one hand, generate security holes of arbitrary obscurity, and, on the other, miraculously detect and repair them far and away better than their erstwhile "competitors" is a final and apocalyptic testimonial to the supreme stupidity (I use the word advisedly, in the sense of "willful ignorance") of our omnipotent layers of corporate management. Wasn't it bad enough when M$ were the sole possessors of the Most Sacred A[PB]Is? Wasn't it awful enough that they were able to ignore even the most rudimentary dictates of software engineering with impugnity -- that the drooling imbeciles in management would keep right on paying vast sums of money for hideous deformities of Logic without batting an eyelash? Do they now get to rake in huge profits from "repairing" systemic defects of their own intentional manufacture? I am 41. I am tired and old. I have watched, like a Felliniesque "Sad Clown of Life," wave upon wave of utter inanity wash up on the vast, dead-whale-stinking beach of corporate and academic IT. I have seen too much. I can cry no more. I want to know how to stop caring now. How, for the love of God, do I join the endless ranks of these gibbering fools who never think one picometer beyond their golf handicaps? How, for the bleeding love of the pumping, pulsating heart of Jesus Christ on a pogo stick do I just sit in meetings daydreaming about jumping into my big yellow H2 and driving back to my prefab McMansion in the burb-sprawl and staining my redwood deck with Johnson's WaterSeal? Why oh why must I KNOW that the imminent deaths of such elegancies as Tru64 Unix and MIPS and Alpha are a sin against art and science and technology and Man? Can't I just be stupid too? What's so wrong with me? What have I done? Why must I suffer so? One day, my friends, we will all lounge in paradise happily signing off on million-dollar purchases of Microsoft AntiVirus Protection(TM) with huge idiotic grins upon our faces and lovely oblivious strings of rancid drool dangling from our chins. We will not be tormented by the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Our eyes will bear the brilliant, unfocused glow of perfect, orgasmic stupidity. Until then, we must work to balance our egregious karma. Can there be any doubt whatever that we fried and devoured living human babies in each of our wretched previous incarnations? What more glaring evidence can there be of our complete, total, and inherent evil? We sinners must needs endure the terrible, sadistic wrath of a cold and childish god. May he soon tire of so gleefully tormenting us. Amen. Railgun Sally
    • > I sat in a meeting yesterday with "developers" who had never heard of Bachus-Naur form. I routinely confer with "programmers" who have never heard of a finite state machine. I work daily with "data architects" who have never heard of Dr. Codd or of normalization. [...] THIS, my fellow cognoscenti, is the extent to which our society is infested with charlatans and ignorami.

      Sorry, I've never heard of cognoscenti, charlatans, and ignorami.

    • I sat in a meeting yesterday with "developers" who had never heard of Bachus-Naur form. I routinely confer with "programmers" who have never heard of a finite state machine. I work daily with "data architects" who have never heard of Dr. Codd or of normalization

      You think that's bad? I just read a five hundred and thirty three word slashdot post by someone who's never heard of paragraphs.
      • You know what's worse? Someone that actually counted the words in a five hundred and thirty three word post.

        Besides, it was a rant, one of the most intelligently-composed rants I've yet read on Slashdot, and I fully believe that one so obviously literate as RailGunSally could certainly have inserted appropriate paragraph breaks had she chose. However, not using paragraphs lends a certain intense stream-of-consciousness aspect to a good rant.

        So, Sally ... may I infer from your name that you're into hig
      • I sat in a meeting yesterday with "developers" who had never heard of Bachus-Naur form. I routinely confer with "programmers" who have never heard of a finite state machine. I work daily with "data architects" who have never heard of Dr. Codd or of normalization. I am personally acquainted with upper managers who are just dying to replace OpenBSD-based firewalls with M$ Vista Server. THIS, my fellow cognoscenti, is the extent to which our society is infested with charlatans and ignorami.

        That M$ can now,
    • Halleluljah Sister, I hear you.

      I have seen too much. I can cry no more. I want to know how to stop caring now.

      Weed. Large quantities of weed.

    • I work at a university, and I've talked to some people there about MS going into the AV business. What amazed me was that there were some people who find this a Good Thing. Even people who are considered extremely smart and routinely publish highly technical papers in established journals can be mindbogglingly stupid.
    • Whoaaa... slow down.. your erudite verbal challenge is commendable. But, hold on a bit cuz bill gates' brain is still draining out his ears, and ballmer is still hurling chairs.

      Give'm time. They'll figure it out.. Wait, no.. give em HELL.

      Wow, so propitious or timely: slash word image: "fervent"... that could describe you, my friend...
    • Great rant, I am sure many people here would agree.

      The problem as I see it, is the ones who want to get far in a company, are not the same people who should be making decisions. Part of the problem is smart people who want to keep doing what they enjoy doing - engineering, rather than making the transition to managers. This is nobodys fault per se, but this is were the problem lies.
    • I want to know how to stop caring now.

      Focus on what is within your power; dismiss everything everything else.

      You'll be a lot more effective and a lot less miserable if you can master this technique.
    • A small point; differences times, different curriculums. Don't mistake this for incompetence. Actually having compared curriculums with my uncles, whom two of also have masters degrees in computer science, I can certainly say we're not learning less. Atleast here in Norway, we're learning different skills, and todays education is broader... but not easier!

      While never having heard of data-normalization is pretty bad, state-machines are hardly important (they're good for giving the students fun puzzles on t

    • I have seen too much. I can cry no more. I want to know how to stop caring now. How, for the love of God, do I join the endless ranks of these gibbering fools who never think one picometer beyond their golf handicaps?

      Try thinking positively [somethingpositive.net]?

  • And that is Microsoft, the sickest of them all. They are 80-95% of the whole industry alone, and everything else have to rotate around them.
    And they soon have a new OS to sell..
    As usual this OS is incomplete and a mess:

    The event mostly provided a primer on security in Windows Vista, which led to a discussion on how attendees' products might work with the Windows XP successor.
    ...Ugh! Still not sorted out...

    "Symbolic links can clutter up your machine with lots and lots of links that point nowhere" after th
  • ... but you also have to look at the possibility that no one would know the inherent flaws in Windows better than Microsoft, and thusly, no one would be better able to create anti-malware software. Sure, it might press competitors out of business, and that's inherently bad, but if it could provide us with a single anti-malware solution that was self-sustaining and beat all the bad stuff out there, I would be quite happy with MS.

  • Microsoft = Kronos (Score:4, Insightful)

    by KwKSilver ( 857599 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2006 @08:10PM (#15780712)
    Kronos was the ruler of the elder gods in Greek religion. He had a habit of swallowing his children whole because it had been predicted that one of them would overthrow him. The anti-malware companies are the children of Microsoft. Is it really surprising that they would rather not be eaten?
    • > Kronos was the ruler of the elder gods in Greek religion. He had a habit of swallowing his children whole because it had been predicted that one of them would overthrow him. The anti-malware companies are the children of Microsoft. Is it really surprising that they would rather not be eaten?

      Or that they would be eaten?

  • Save Symantec! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by bigdavesmith ( 928732 )
    Before Microsoft jumped into the antivirus/spyware game, everything was okay, because although there were major security issues with Windows, other businesses jumped up to fill the gap and fix the problems. Life went on, and nobody got hurt (except the consumer, paying their $39.99 a year).

    Now that Microsoft is in the game, they threaten to destroy these other businesses that were covering-ass before, and screw the consumer even more with price hikes once they dominate the market, but it's not less-right
    • I spent an evening last month purging my sister's box of spyware, dial up trojans and other junk.

      she was running Macafee, everything turned on, all these 'sign on to the internet' dialogs cropping up, etc. None of it worked; it just made the machine really slow to start up.

      She asked whether she should renew her subscription. I asked her what was the point and sent her towards f-secure, that do at least view sony rootkits as evil.

      The whole windows security business is a tax on people who believe that paying
  • Oh please. I was at that conference, and the only thing that decreased the level of technical content was the fact that the conference content is now spread across three or so areas, some of which are attended by a majority of non-technical business types.

    If you think about it, Microsoft has good reason to keenly share the security details of Vista, etc. - with trusted industry people, of course. Not only do they want to crow about all the cool stuff they're building, but it can only help improve the imag
  • This is so surprising since Microsoft has a spotless record on security and always puts the end users security above its need to add more bells and whistles.
  • If MS makes money out of their security products - ppl say they are anti-competitive If MS makes their security products free - ppl say they are using their OS monopoly to kill the (windows specific) security companies. Solution: Fix the holes in OS instead of offering spyware/anti-virus tools for free/money.
    • I agree.

      BUT...let's be realistic. The odds that MS is going to be able to create a 109% (or close to it) operating system are very low. A lot of that is their fault, but some of it isn't. Windows is a huge target, and ANY holes will almost ALWAYS be found. That's just how it is. Nothing humans make is perfect, and every lock can be picked.

      That being the case, why shouldn't they be allowed to include anti-virus and anti-malware functions with Windows? They're an extra layer of protection. And, honestly
  • Embrace and extend. More like Expand and Conquer. You can cover crap with sugar but once you take a bite well...... Security with MS is kind of like naming a ship the unsinkable.
  • Apparently, the attendees were also required to sign a (non)disclosure agreement that limited what they could do with the information they got from the meeting, and that allowed Microsoft to do whatever they wanted with what attendees said.

    But, of course, it's the GPL that's viral....

  • Not that it is "worse" by design than any competing AV kits. It just simply cannot work. The reason is that AV kits are not "fighting" against computer bugs, they're fighting humans. And (some) humans are by definition (still) smarter than any program.

    You can see it at the MS Firewall kit. Now, it was maybe convenient to configure the firewall through the Registry, something anyone with Admin access (=The Average Windows User) can change with API calls, but exactly this flaw makes it useless. The VERY FIRST

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