08.23.10
Gemini version available ♊︎Vista 7 Defeated by Disobedient ‘Consumers’, But Florian Müller Likes it and Makes Friends With Microsoft Apologists
Summary: Vista 7 refunds become possible, Microsoft apologist Florian Müller makes friends in the Mono camp, and MSNBC writes about malware on the Spanair computer system, but somehow it doesn’t mention Windows
ARLIER TODAY we wrote about Tim's efforts to open the door for Vista 7 refunds in the UK. There’s good news because it’s succeeding. A few hours ago Tim wrote: “My quest for a Windows 7 refund has gone well. Apparently Acer will be refunding me. I’ll keep people posted!”
This is great news and it can help British people (even Europeans) demand a refund not just from Acer. It’s all about precedence and it needs to be publicised. Refunds are possible if one tries hard enough, knows which prior cases to cite, and knows the exact procedures to follow.
Let’s face it; Vista 7 is just lipstick on a pig (Vista) and security-wise it’s even worse than predecessors. The former managing editor of Linux Today has just had to use Vista 7 for a while and he says that “looks aren’t everything” (referring to deceiving appearances and labels). From his post:
This anecdote kept bopping around my head this week, when I’ve had the opportunity to work on Windows 7 more than I usually do.
[...]
It’s still Windows.
And that that means is that no matter how much anti-virus software I would put on this platform, and how many security precautions I take, whenever I start visiting the Internet, which is easily 50 percent of where I do my job, the risk factor for getting infected by malware is far more than using Linux.
The lesson here, as always, is that pretty looks aren’t everything. It’s easy to get distracted by the gadgets, gimmicks and all the shiny, especially as a geek. But is it worth your data? Because, to me, the ability to keep my work and personal data secure is way more important than transparent windows or
And, it’s not like Linux doesn’t have eye candy and shiny of its own, if that is indeed what floats your boat. GNOME, KDE, and even LXDE offer gorgeous, streamlined interfaces that are getting better with each release.
Want to know who happily uses Vista 7? Florian Müller, the guy who pretends to represent “FOSS” interests when it comes to patents (while defending RAND, which is incompatible with Free software). Well, Müller is a complicated story of what seems like a Microsoft lobbyist. Right now (all day today) he is busy talking with all the Mono boosters and those who only ever attack Techrights while defending Microsoft. It’s like he finally found his colleagues. It’s amusing really as it invalidates and voids any credibility he had left as a lobbyist for “FOSS”. It’s a fake friend.
A couple of days ago we showed how Müller blamed Trojans and malware on IBM (he wants people to believe that IBM — not Microsoft — is a threat to “FOSS”). Watch this coverage from MSNBC. Being Microsoft’s pseudo-press the imported article says and does nothing to call out Windows. MSNBC was previously caught censoring an existing article which named Windows as the cause of a problem. Here is a portion of this article: [via]
The malware on the Spanair computer has been identified as a type of Trojan horse. It could have entered the airline’s system in a number of ways, according to Jamz Yaneeza, head threat researcher at Trend Micro.
Some of the most likely ways are through third party devices such as USB sticks, Yaneeza said, which were responsible for the International Space Station virus infection in 2008, or through a remote VPN connection that may not have the same protection as a computer within the enterprise network. Opening just one malicious file on a single computer is all it takes to infect an entire system.
“Any computer that is connected to a network is vulnerable to a malware infection,” O. Sami Saydjari, president of Cyber Defense Agency, told TechNewsDaily. “Standards have not been set to protect critical infrastructure.”
Those who foolishly believe Müller might think that it’s a mainframe’s fault. He increasingly becomes a source of humour. █
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