Microsoft Files Suits Against "Malvertisers" 205
eldavojohn writes "Reuters is bringing us news of five civil lawsuits filed by Microsoft against 'Soft Solutions,' 'Direct Ad,' 'qiweroqw.com,' 'ITmeter Inc,' and 'ote2008.info' that allege they 'used malvertisements to distribute malicious software or present deceptive websites that peddled scareware to unsuspecting Internet users.' Microsoft's Tim Cranton outlined the suits and provided links to all the filings for download. 'Cranton added that names of specific individuals behind these activities were not known and the lawsuits were being filed to help uncover the people responsible.'"
Brain... locking... up... (Score:3, Funny)
Shatnerian... levels... of... confusion...
Who... to... root... for... or... against...
Microsoft... or... the... malware... people...
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The enemy of my enemy?
Nah!
I wish them joy of each other!
Re:Brain... locking... up... (Score:5, Funny)
wish them joy of each other!
Anger is an aphrodesiac. The Malware companies have been seducing Microsoft for all this time, and now Microsoft has finally broken the ice. It's tsundere approach only quickens the heartbeat of the malware companies. Once Microsoft has them in court, the judge is throwing the book at them, the Malware companies will look up to Microsoft and say "You have me where you want me, now what do you want to do with me?"
At which point, Microsoft will smile, the fade of anger will reveal the flush of lust behind it. From the conjoining of these two, sweaty bodies of software production will emerge the glow of new life -- Microsoft Windows Lovechild.
The spawn of Microsoft and Malware will install itself upon any computer it comes in contact with. Lovechild (or MWL for short) will ask the user "You really want this installed on your system don't you?" If you type "N" it changes the background color to an alluring pink and says "Sometimes, when a user is scared, when they say 'no' they mean 'yes'" and then it proceeds to install itself upon your system.
Re:Brain... locking... up... (Score:4, Funny)
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I don't think I will ever truly be clean again.
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I need a shower after reading that... I don't think I will ever truly be clean again.
format, rinse, repeat.
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Wasn't this in The Fountainhead?
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It's a no brainer for two reasons.
1. There are two evils fighting.
One of them has some legal business, the other is purely illegal and harmful.
Choose the lesser evil.
2. The malware people don't work to eradicate M$. So, if they 'win', it means both evils stay around.
M$ doesn't have much chance, but if they 'win', it means, one (or more) evil stops bothering us.
Choose the meaningful choice.
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No, the voters chose Gore over Bush. Even in Florida. Somehow, the greater evil took power anyway.
Electoral College explanation (Score:2)
The Electoral College gives each state 2 votes *plus* the population apportionment. That's what skews it so much.
It's a small-state/large-state compromise that's been around since this country's Day 1.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ElectoralCollege2000.svg [wikipedia.org]
It looks like most of the states Gore won were big ones and vice versa. Hence, Bush got more of a boost from the votes-per-state floor.
Similar patterns can be seen in other recent maps, but it seems especially pronounced here.
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Gees, get over it already, absolutely everyone recognises M$ where as MS can be mistaken for many other institutions and, seriously the only people that complains are M$'s micro trolls, the softies if their various marketing department. Childish is the M$ marketing department reaction to it, oh no, it hurt's us, my precious logo, it burns our public public image. Insults, offtopic attacks, slurs and it cycles on and off, tytpical of a professional marketing tactic, try it on for a while see how it works, n
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Must be hard casting everything as absolute good or evil.
Enjoy your cognitive dissonance. You may, in time, grow to have an intellectually mature point of view.
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since microsoft can not (or will not) build secure operating systems and the operating systems they do produce has a long standing reputation of vulnerabilities they are going to sue the people that take advantage of the stupider customers of their products, so in the long run microsoft is just protecting the stupider customers proving microsoft likes stupid customers that do not tend to learn from their mistakes (whom are most likely the biggest part of their custo
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Your sig line is ironic in relation to your post.
The users aren't stupid if they are confused by what looks like a legitimate warning telling them to update their virus-scanner.
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by sqrt(2) .exe file you downloaded."
"The most secure OS in the world, not even Linux nor OSX, isn't going to be able to protect you when you decide to authorize and run an
Question. Since I've never had one single flying lesson in my life, would you say I was stupid if I got into a Learjet, only to crash and burn? Or, if someone who had never been in a tractor trailer decided to jump in and drive one - would he be stupid when he drove it off the side of a mountain?
I say, operating something that you are
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Question. Since I've never had one single flying lesson in my life, would you say I was stupid if I got into a Learjet, only to crash and burn? Or, if someone who had never been in a tractor trailer decided to jump in and drive one - would he be stupid when he drove it off the side of a mountain?
Yeah but then I'd expect it to be obvious to most people that planes and road vehicles are dangerous and that most people will have been told that it is illegal to drive them without proper licensing.
Only the braind
Re:Brain... locking... up... (Score:5, Insightful)
You can blame "insecurity" of Windows all you want, but do you actually have an answer to how to make it better then? Before all the usual arguments come:
- These malware work just aswell on user account, you do not need admin/root access.
- Locking up the whole OS so that user is in 100% controlled environment is a no go, as seeing here on slashdot about iphone and other systems that do it.
- Malware goes where the user is. If linux had ~95% marketshare on desktops, majority of malware would be there because thats where the users are.
- Theres nothing on Linux that does anything to prevent this kind of malware - you only get more security because there's not many users. If you suggest everyone moving to it, what happens?
- Conficker excluded, theres not really exploits in the Windows itself now a days. They're mostly from third party software like Flash and PDF reader.
This isn't about OS security, its about user stupidity to install random crap. That wouldn't change even if the OS marketshare would be different.
Re:Brain... locking... up... (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually the Conficker hole was patched nearly a year ago. Microsoft has gotten their shit together with security so much recently that you can legitimately argue that it may be comparable to your average Linux distro...I'm not saying that is the case, I REALLY do not want to go down that path, my overall point is that 5 years ago, anyone who made the statement I just did would have been ridiculed as a moron, and rightly so.
But you hit very good points...no matter how secure an OS is, it has to listen to its dumbfuck user. The only way to protect against stupid users is to limit rights to oblivion, but then you limit the usefulness of the system. In most cases, the OS cannot determine what is desired behavior of a program or not.
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- These malware work just aswell on user account, you do not need admin/root access.
I believe that is mostly, if not entirely correct. Obviously, there is a design flaw in security; a user account should never be capable of screwing up system files and system settings. Period.
- Malware goes where the user is. If linux had ~95% marketshare on desktops, majority of malware would be there because thats where the users are.
- Theres nothing on Linux that does anything to prevent this kind of malware - you only
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"Name a current Windows exploit"
The vast majority of CURRENT Windows users are on XP. If you can't find an exploit all on your own, you most likely don't know how to turn your machine off and on. No, you DO NOT get to pick your favorite flavor of Windows, and hold that up for a "standard". You certainly don't pick the OS that almost no one is adopting - huge numbers of people waited for 7 to avoid Vista! (Especially since MS isn't all that concerned about "standards")
As for today's most up-to-date versio
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It's actually pretty simple to get most of the way there:
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Wow. I'm impressed. The list looks pretty darned comprehensive. What's more, some of those ideas Linux to improve security. The plugins thing, and the "authorized" repository for instance. My browsers are actually rather sloppy about that, now that you point it out.
You should get onto one of the major Linux development teams, and sell them on the idea. You know how Linux is - get great ideas incorporated in one distro, and the rest tend to pick them up. ;^)
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My guess is that Microsoft will have to worry about whiney users complaining about "The new DRM Microsoft wants us to use." And it will break things.
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This would stop command line programs that work on files
Prompt, java-applet style if your in GUI, text prompt if you are on the CLI.
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>Locking up the whole OS so that user is in 100% controlled environment is a no go, as seeing here on slashdot about iphone and other systems that do it.
Or a balance like running as limited user and upping your privs via the UAC, but people here complain about that too. Look, the slashdot mob isnt rational, its just people airing their frustrations in a two minute hate that never ends. Luckily, in the real world the slashdot mob doesnt exist. People deal with the UAC, run AV, and get on with their lives.
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Sure!
First, the easy one: switch to a Unix-like OS. Currently, I suggest Linux. If everyone switched to Linux, then everyone would be typing "chmod u+x malware.sh" prior to installing their malware. Keyboards would wear out and then people would lose the ability to install malware. Problem solved. But seriously: executable files is something that Windows gets just plain wrong, and we all
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A secure OS would make sure that all code downloaded from the net is identified to the user as code downloaded from the net and its source/publisher, and a secure OS does not allow the downloaded code to execute until after the user has acknowledged that it is a downloaded program and given explicit permission.
By that standard are there any secure OSs, I know it can be done with linux and apparmor+policykit, however i've never actually seen it done.
Re:Brain... locking... up... (Score:4, Informative)
Except that IIS has fewer. Let's see:
IIS7 [secunia.com], first released in a server OS (Win2K8 - it was actually present in Vista before that, but no-one would run a server using it, so we don't consider that period) in January 2008, has 2 vulnerabilities in its entire lifetime, and only one of those is remote. That makes it 1 vulnerability per 10 months, or 1 remote vulnerability (which is usually what you care about for servers exposed on the Net) per 20 months.
Apache 2.2 [secunia.com], first released in December 2005, has 16 vulnerabilities in its entire lifetime, 15 out of which are remote. That's roughly 1 remote vulnerability every 3 months.
"Oh, but no-one uses Win2K8 and IIS7", I hear people saying. Very well, let's look at the generation before that - IIS6 [secunia.com] vs Apache 2.0 [secunia.com]. IIS6 was released with Win2K3 in April 2003; Apache 2.0 was released in April 2002, a year before that. Lets see:
IIS6 - 8 vulnerabilities to date
Apache 2.0 - 38 vulnerabilities to date
In the interests of fairness it should be noted that a larger percentage - twice as many - of IIS6 vulnerabilities would give the attacker system access (i.e. provide an infection vector), compared to Apache. Even so, in absolute numbers, it's 3 system access vulnerabilities for IIS6 vs 7 such vulnerabilities for Apache. So, even accounting for that extra year, Apache still has worse security record overall for the last two major releases (or the last 6 years).
A secure OS would make sure that all code downloaded from the net is identified to the user as code downloaded from the net and its source/publisher, and a secure OS does not allow the downloaded code to execute until after the user has acknowledged that it is a downloaded program and given explicit permission.
This is precisely what Vista and Win7 do [case.edu]. If you download an executable, it will have a flag set in file meta-information that basically indicates that the source was network... when you run it, the OS will warn you and ask to confirm.
The problem is that this is not fool-proof. Consider this: how is the OS supposed to know that file comes from the network? From OS point of view, files don't "come" from anywhere - it's just that some application opens a file and starts writing data into it. The fact that said data was received from an open socket to a remove server a few milliseconds ago is not something an OS can reasonably detect. Thus, it really is all up to application to set the flag correctly. IE does that, and so does Firefox; other browsers might, or they might not.
Meanwhile, no other desktop OS that I know of does anything similar, and it's certainly quite possible for a Linux browser to download an executable file and chmod+x it - the OS won't stop it, because how could it possibly know that it's a bad thing, or even distinguish such a syscall from another one originating from user explicitly running chmod in the shell?
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Meanwhile, no other desktop OS that I know of does anything similar
I stand corrected [slashdot.org] - OS X actually does the same thing. Anyone knows of any Linux DE or distro that does that? I certainly didn't ever see it in Ubuntu; though I guess the need to explicitly add executable bit for downloaded files before you can run them makes it kinda pointless there anyway.
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[IIS7] has 2 vulnerabilities in its entire lifetime, and only one of those is remote.
Well, 2 vulnerabilities that MS has acknowledged. IIS is still a closed-source app, so third-party security researchers can't audit it and announce vulnerabilities as they can with Apache. Meanwhile, the black hats don't share the ones they find.
IIS7 is no doubt better than IIS6 and perhaps is decent. But if I wanted to run a web server, I'd run Apache 1.x on Debian Stable; I don't trust the combination of Windows+IIS as
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Well, 2 vulnerabilities that MS has acknowledged. IIS is still a closed-source app, so third-party security researchers can't audit it and announce vulnerabilities as they can with Apache. Meanwhile, the black hats don't share the ones they find.
This could be turned around, of course: black hats can find vulnerabilities in Apache much easier because the source code is available for analysis, and they still won't share the ones they find.
Also, did anyone actually do a full security audit of Apache 2.x? I know that OpenBSD guys did one for 1.x, and even then only for their own fork of it.
I don't trust the combination of Windows+IIS as much as I trust Linux+Apache. And it looks like actual web sysadmins agree with me, because according to Netcraft [netcraft.com], in August 2009, Apache had twice the server share as Microsoft (46% vs. 23% if I read that chart correctly; it looks like the ruled lines represent 8% increments, which seems strange).
I dare say that discrepancy between IIS/Win and Apache/Linux might have more to do with the fact that the latter is free, while the former costs quite a bit. Further
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However, Your point does hold for
As far as I'm concerned, every OS will have one vulnerability. It's user(s).
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A secure OS would make sure that all code downloaded from the net is identified to the user as code downloaded from the net and its source/publisher, and a secure OS does not allow the downloaded code to execute until after the user has acknowledged that it is a downloaded program and given explicit permission.
Pointless. The user will give permission regardless of how many times you ask them if they're sure.
Re:Brain... locking... up... (Score:4, Insightful)
The most secure OS in the world, not even Linux nor OSX, isn't going to be able to protect you when you decide to authorize and run an .exe file you downloaded.
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Really [lwn.net]?
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I don't believe you can run an .exe file on Linux or MacOSX. You can only do that in Windows.
MacOSX tells me whenever I ask it to run a file downloaded from the net for the first time. The OS needs to get in the user's face a little, because downloaded executables carry risks that executables installed from local media do not.
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Well - I don't have the most_secure_configuration in the world. I can download and click a .exe on my Linux desktops, and since they are associated with Wine, they run. Of course, the random .exe will fail to install itself, because the malware writer wasn't targeting Linux or Wine.
If I'm ever bitten by this little bit of carelessness, I will do things differently.
BUT, we are right back to the idea that a user with a clue won't download and run that random .exe.
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MacOSX tells me whenever I ask it to run a file downloaded from the net for the first time.
So does Vista [case.edu] - in fact, if you have antivirus installed (and it properly integrates with OS by using the corresponding APIs), it will even make it scan the file before starting it for the first time.
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MacOSX tells me whenever I ask it to run a file downloaded from the net for the first time.
So does Vista [case.edu] - in fact, if you have antivirus installed (and it properly integrates with OS by using the corresponding APIs), it will even make it scan the file before starting it for the first time.
Of course, One of the big complaints with Vista was that the OS got in your face every time you tried to do something that could cause problems, simply because Windows Users became acclimated to being logged in as Administrator and being able to do whatever the heck they wanted without question. Granted, Windows Vista was a little extreme with the amount of times that they asked if you wanted to allow something to run. I don't know for sure, but I do not think that you could adjust the alert levels in Vis
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It's no more extreme than Ubuntu, and easier to handle because you don't have to type a password (this isn't necessarily more secure, however). Actually, I run into more privilege escalation screens when I am first setting up Ubuntu than I do after I install Vista or Windows 7. I've done each probably hundreds of times now with various configurations.
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The most secure OS in the world, not even Linux nor OSX, isn't going to be able to protect you when you decide to authorize and run an .exe file you downloaded.
Actually, no. It's quite possible to have a system where the downloaded .exe file is in an untrusted security compartment of a mandatory security system, such as SELinux provides. You can then run it, but it can only work on other untrusted data. That's good enough for a game.
For historical reasons, UNIX, Linux, and Windows tend to give appli
Re:Brain... locking... up... (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, I think you need more perspective on this.
It's not the insecurity of Windows, it's the Insecurity of all these third party plugins (JAVASCRIPT, FLASH, I'M LOOKING AT YOU) that cause these problems to start with, plus DRM rootkits on music discs and movies that open up more holes in our system.
New technology, new vulnerabilities and exploits. Flash and JavaScript are the two most commonly used points of infection.
Really, the fault isn't entirely on Microsoft. Start blaming Adobe, Sun Systems, and the Music/Movie industry, as the biggest part of this lies squarely upon their shoulders.
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"since microsoft can not (or will not) build secure operating systems"
MS could build a more secure OS than Windows but nobody would buy it because they want to run Windows apps.
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What I see microsoft really doing is...
since microsoft can not (or will not) build secure operating systems and the operating systems ... so it all boils down to the greedy protecting the stupid so the greedy can keep selling them poorly designed products...
Personally I could see Microsoft just doing this so nobody notices that they're drowing baby kittens for fun. I mean it's easy to picture, right?
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These computer illiterates are the same people who just keeping using what is preloaded and what's on retail store shelves because they are already afraid of the computer and their onl
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I'm often modded down for trashing Microsoft, most of whose whose products and business practices I don't like, but in this case I'm cheering them on.
'scuse me, the phone's ringing...
It was Satan, she invited me to go skiing with her in her back yard. IN HELL.
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Yes, you may get modded down on /. for trash talking MS. It's happened to me multiple times. It depends on the topic -- in some topics, one can trash talk MS with impunity, in others the MS supporters will use their mod points against you.
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Getting excellent karma is assured by being insightful and informative, as well as getting stories posted to the front page. If you have excellent karma you don't have to worry about the occasional downmod.
Hell, I've been modded down for dissing Sony, of all people.
Re:Brain... locking... up... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can't choose a side in this, you're being disingenuous. Just stop it, and for once make sense.
Your only real complaint should be that the Department of Justice, multiple state Attorneys General, or motiviated citizens haven't already pursued these civil actions. And the DoJ etc. should be considering crminal actions, but are no doubt distracted by any number of safer, simpler, and easier to prosecute villains.
There is simply no excuse for going after the worst of these weasels, and expanding the fight overseas when they flee to supposed safe havens. I wish Microsoft good hunting on this one. Let's get after them to patch XP's TCP stack also, but at least DO SOMETHING, someone, please?
Me? I'm no good at suits.
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Rather than support an international cat-and-mouse style manhunt for multiple unknown individuals and all of the tax dollars that would require ... I'd rather just use a more secure OS and let the people who run Windows deal with Windows problems. Simple.
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"Rather than support an international cat-and-mouse style manhunt for multiple unknown individuals and all of the tax dollars that would require ... I'd rather just use a more secure OS and let the people who run Windows deal with Windows problems. Simple."
Obviously simple. In fact, so obvious that you could be asking yourself "Well, why haven't we gotten a secure OS yet?" Well, why not? Ask some security professionals. It's nit just the OS, it's also the application. Case in point - Email users that c
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The action here is simple. The enemy of my enemy is temporarily my friend. M$ go get them or better yet fix your damn security. The last few days have spun some heads, that's for sure.
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Microsoft products are lame compared to industry averages, and they use network effects to cause their lack of quality to not harm their marketshare. In other words, they're evil -- but it's a limited sort of evil. It's not like they 're shredding puppies. All they have done is retard progress in the computer industry, and perhaps (though unlikely) the computer state of the art.
Whenever Microsoft is in court, though, I almost always root for them. Microsoft fucks with (or more often: gets fucked by) com [wikipedia.org]
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One of them has some legal business, the other is purely illegal and harmful.
Choose the lesser evil.
Yeah, but I still have a hard time supporting the malware vendors.
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Steve, is that you?
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He must mean Jobs. Ballmer wouldn't have any problem with supporting the malware vendors...
Re:Brain... locking... up... (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't entirely understand the fight though. Is MS suing these folks for damage done only to their company directly? Or possibly for some kind of defamation by making Windows appear insecure? Or are they suing on behalf of everyone affected by these ass-hats? Like a class-action thing on behalf of everyone with a computer?
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Microsoft doesn't need any help at all in looking bad.
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"superfluous bullshit"
Yes, because if they eliminated malware it would make Windows' vulnerabilities irrelevant and give users one less reason to switch to another OS. It's not really as if anyone cares about the users as long as they use the politically correct OS.
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But, it seems to me that if MS stopped working on superfluous bullshit, and concentrated on improving security, they might beat the malware people without ever going to court.
I think Microsoft can afford to do both. Besides, perfect security may be achievable only if the end user is not physically allowed to install or run *anything* that MS haven't signed. Obviously that isn't going to work - and if MS allows users to install 3rd party apps that's where malware people come into play. Scare the user, off
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Suppose that they can afford to do both. Why haven't they done the latter?
Choices include, 1: don't want to 2: don't know how 3: don't understand the need to do so 4: no amount of money would be enough 5: it's more lucrative to sell unsecure systems
Add more choices, as you see fit. Maybe Ballmer will sign in here, to explain which if any choice is right.
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"don't understand the need to do so" (Score:2)
"don't understand the need to do so" - this lawsuit clearly shows that at least now MS understands that their lack of security hurts them.
Close. This lawsuit shows that they understand that the existence of malware hurts them. It does not show that they see themselves as culpable in any way.
While I don't think this is the explanation you seek, I think you dismiss it to quickly. Surely there are many people at Microsoft who don't understand the need. It's a question of: "how many, and who?"
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6. have a tradition of single-user systems and a blazing stream of past bad security decisions that lots of legitimate apps take advantage of, so they can't do security right without breaking a lot of malformed but useful apps 7. can't really stop somebody from installing software 8. work in a culture of running with maximum privileges, resulting in many apps being written by developers with elevated privileges and tested as such 9. work in a culture where people typically have access to one account,
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While some malware does rely on security holes and/or bad design descisions in windows a significant proportion of malware is spread through social engineering/user stupidity (see for example the fake virus scan adverts). Short of forcing all software to be approved (see the iphone/ipod touch app store for the downsides of that approach) there isn't a lot that can be done about this. Some malware does both of course.
Re:Brain... locking... up... (Score:4, Funny)
if MS stopped working on superfluous bullshit
Bullshit is not superfluous to MS.
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"We know that Microsoft is harmful and has been convicted of an illegal monopoly"
Well, now we know that you don't know the difference between criminal and civil law in the US.
- Troll - (Score:2)
Microsoft Up to Something Good? (Score:3, Insightful)
Greg
Re:Microsoft Up to Something Good? (Score:5, Funny)
I suspect the main hurdle here will be the court clerk reading "qiweroqw.com" aloud.
Kee-weh-roh-koo dot com (Score:2)
I suspect the main hurdle here will be the court clerk reading "qiweroqw.com" aloud.
Kee-weh-roh-koo dot com, until corrected by a reputable witness. Perhaps some people who are linguistic Americans[1] might have trouble, but anyone exposed to other languages will try sounding out a word in all known languages at once, plus IPA notation.
[1] In the sense of the old joke: The word for understanding three languages is trilingual, two languages is bilingual, one language is American.
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That would explain all the immigrants in the US that can't speak or learn English. They must have been kicked out of their own countries for not being bilingual. It's okay though, cause we provide them with translators (who must be imported from some other country).
This is a great idea! (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't give the Godfather his cut... (Score:2, Funny)
About time (Score:2)
As a Mac user, I say go Microsoft go! (Score:3, Funny)
Less malware = less infected Windows boxes = less useless traffic on the internet.
Linux users should applaud this too.
Of course BSD users can't applaud, because Netcraft confirmed they're dying.
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BSD users can't applaud because the linux app hasn't been ported yet.
Warning: unwarrented personal attack (Score:2)
True, but they could still get the clap from RMS.
Standing? (Score:2)
Aside from customers perhaps decided to jump ship to a more secure OS, was Microsoft actually wronged in any direct sense here? Wouldn't they have to organize a class action for this to go anywhere?
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Why do you need anything aside customers jumping ship from MS's OS? Seems to me that's grounds enough for a suit right there.
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Why do you need anything aside customers jumping ship from MS's OS? Seems to me that's grounds enough for a suit right there.
I was making the assertion in a sort of tongue in cheek way. Not only is it indirect and difficult to prove, it would also make for an altogether incredibly pathetic PR stunt. I'm questioning their intent to actually follow through with this beyond a fishing expedition.
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Wouldn't they have to organize a class action for this to go anywhere?
Probably not. This sounds like tortious interference to me. The theory is that Microsoft's interests are damaged by a third party interfering in its relationship with its customers. When it comes to calculating damages there are all sorts of theories you could use. As you say, any would probably start with lost customers, but you can also look at higher support costs, reduced sale of upgrades (moving to a non-MS OS is not necessary for MS to lose profits), stymied growth in market share, etc.
Of course, if w
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I heard you like italics...
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I really am not sure here, but perhaps the cost associated with creating patches for exploits could be thrown into the equation. It is a sort of backwards and stupid way of looking at things but if people did not spend time trying to exploit the insecurities of Windows to steal money or information from Windows Users, Microsoft would not have to spend money to fix these issues which have nothing to do with actual usability of the product. A security breach is only an issue if there are people out there wh
why they are doing this (Score:3, Insightful)
Other stories have demonstrated that someone at Microsoft has finally recognized the threat of cloud computing. The apps which most people use today don't require Windows; they just require a browser. Since browsers are available on Linux and Apple systems, and these systems aren't plagued by the horrible malware situation of Windows, Microsoft has no choice but to attempt to clean up the malware situation. The alternative is a situation in which everyone who can get what they need from the cloud will have a strong incentive to move to MacOS or Linux.
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Are you trolling for an "Insightful?"
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I'm not much into angling.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know if you're trolling or not, but I think you're almost certainly correct (and, btw, that your -1 Troll mod probably isn't fair). Though bear in mind that MS has always had an incentive to clean up the malware situation proportional to the risk of its customers defecting to another OS. The threat of cloud computing to them just cranks up the risk, and thus the incentive. Whether or not it definitively tipped the scales in this case is hard to know - maybe they would have gone ahead with this 5 yea
Still scanning (Score:2, Funny)
Malicious Advertising? (Score:2)
My definition of malicious advertising is, perhaps, different from most. To me, nearly all advertising these days are a nuisance, a bother and do not show adequate respect for my eyes or my attention. I recall the earliest days of advertising on the internet and how angry it made people back then. It wasn't nearly as bad as it is now and look at how passive people have become toward it. (I guess it is rather like taxation... the tax rates and practices that lead to the U.S. Revolutionary War were nothin
I hope MS wins. (Score:3, Funny)
Notice to /. of Intellectual Property Infringement (Score:2, Funny)
The words "malvertise", "malvertisement", "malvertising", and similar variants are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Slashdot's use of these words in this posting and accompanying comments are an infringement of Microsoft's intellectual property. Please remove all references to these words from this website, pending consideration for further action by our legal department.
Thank You.
Chairman, Bill Gates
and "Flying Chair Man", Steve Balmer
Malvertisements! (Score:2)
I'm sick of these malvertisements peddling scareware, crapulizing the comfuser's failurating system. It's just not cromulent.
Re: (Score:2)
From a certain popint of veiw (Score:2)
'used malvertisements to distribute malicious software or present deceptive websites that peddled scareware to unsuspecting Internet users.'
Their site does not distribute MS software, but it is nothing but lies and deception aimed at pulling the wool over unsuspecting internet users by scaring them into using Windows which leave them and their private more prone to every piece of malware going today, and the millions created from today onwards
I'm not the biggest Microsoft fan, but... (Score:2)
I have to say that one thing I've always admired about Microsoft is how aggressive they are at going after spammers, malware creators, etc. It's easy to know who to root for in these cases.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
While my feelings towards the parent post may be colored by the Pavlovian hatred I feel every time someone uses "lol" as a word in a sentence, how are they in any way similar?
Let's compare the two:
a) Committing fraud to compromise people's computers, violating their privacy and potentially exposing them to such risks as identity theft or credit card theft.
b) Selling gold in an online RPG, causing no direc
Re: (Score:2)
Except that the gold sold by gold sellers is usually not farmed up, it's stolen from people who had their account hacked. Several people in my guild were hacked before authenticators became popular, and the result was the same -- all items not bound to the character were transfered off. All items bound to the character were vendored. All items that the character had access to were removed from the guild bank. All gold was similarly transfered off. You don't know if a gold seller got the gold through legitim