07.10.12
Microsoft Libelled Android/Linux
Summary: The FUD war of Microsoft against Linux is reaching new lows, bordering laws, and Microsoft quickly backtracks
THE FUD from Microsoft was noticed not just by us. Microsoft staff is trying to accuse Android of sending out SPAM, but there is soon a retreat. As the WSJ put it, “Internet security researchers said Thursday they may have been mistaken about claims that mobile devices powered by Google Inc.’s Android operating system were hacked and used to send spam emails.
“The researchers from security company Sophos Ltd. and Google rival Microsoft Corp. each had written blog posts in recent days identifying what they said were incidents of Android devices being used to generate spam emails from Yahoo Mail’s app. A “spammer has control of a botnet that lives on Android devices,” Microsoft engineer Terry Zink wrote in a blog post Tuesday. A botnet is a cluster of computers taken over by hackers.”
So much for ‘researchers’. At Microsoft, “secure” means does not work with Linux — a claim that the FSF has been challenging and others played along with. As Christine Hall put it: “The FOSS community is understandably upset with both Red Hat and Ubuntu for their planned ways of implementing UEFI Secure Boot. Indeed, both companies plans are unacceptable for a variety of reasons. Free software isn’t free if it requires permission from an outside source before it can be loaded onto a new or used computer. This is true even if the permission comes from a well-meaning bureaucratic regulatory agency. It’s doubly true if that permission must come from a self-serving monopoly with an anti-FOSS history, like Microsoft.”
“Microsoft’s folks usually pretend that Microsoft used to truly create valuable stuff rather than a lot of dirty tricks.”Microsoft has turned to dirty tricks and FUD, just as it always does. It tried to daemonise those who complained about UEFI; one of Microsoft’s mouthpieces labelled them “fanatics”. Microsoft’s folks usually pretend that Microsoft used to truly create valuable stuff rather than a lot of dirty tricks.
Pogson notes that EU cyber security agency ENISA” now suggests that we “Assume all [Windows] PCs infected”. He adds: “If the banks cannot trust that other OS, why should users? I recommend Debian GNU/Linux, an operating system that works for you rather than for criminals.”
Debian supports the FSF's position on UEFI, whereas Canonical is aiding criminals at Microsoft, so that’s another way/context in which to phrase the above remark.
A former Microsoft executive has just spoken out against Microsoft. As one report put it, “Microsoft has fallen behind the times in several key industries; the company’s mobile position has deteriorated and left it with a low single-digit market share, and Microsoft won’t launch Windows RT, its response to Apple’s three-year-old iPad, until later this year. In a recent piece titled “Microsoft’s Lost Decade,” Vanity Fair contributor Kurt Eichenwald analyzes the company’s “astonishingly foolish management decisions” and picks apart moves made during the Steve Ballmer era.”
“So why does Microsoft bother trying to FUD Linux or Android on grounds of “security”?”The company is already publicly reporting losses and security is not improving. We gave examples of serious security flaws in Vista 7 and the new article “How Hackers Attack” shows that it’s continuing to affect large institutions. To quote: “The firm’s computers run on the Windows 7 operating system and the company uses an internal firewall to connect to the Internet, Mr. Keilson says.”
“”We see far more infections on Windows than we do Macs, Unix and Linux,” says Wade Baker, author of the Verizon 2012 Data Breach Investigations Report, a study based on cybercrime investigations conducted by Verizon’s team, which is comprised of data-breach reports from Verizon and various law-enforcement groups around the globe, including the U.S. Secret Service and the Australian Federal Police.”
So why does Microsoft bother trying to FUD Linux or Android on grounds of “security”? Maybe it’s just a sign of desperation. But using libellous remarks is no noble way. It’s also a path to legal entanglements. █
