05.09.10
Quote of the Day: Apple and Microsoft
“We have to let go of the notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose.”
–Steve Jobs
[relevant to Apple's recent help to Microsoft's monopoly, parent ventures, and fight against software freedom]
04.26.10
Quote of the Day: Conficker Still a “Loaded Gun, Waiting to be Fired.”
Summary: Conficker is still a major problem, a long time after it first appeared (affecting only Microsoft Windows)
It’s been about a year since Conficker/Downadup hit in 2009, and although the threat didn’t turn out to be as grave as it had the potential to be, the 6.5 million PCs that remain infected today represent what Symantec Corp. calls a “loaded gun, waiting to be fired.”
It has been almost 2 years and Microsoft’s blunder with Conficker still has these damaging proportions that cost everyone a lot of money. █
Old posts about Conficker (starting with 2008, oldest at at bottom)
- Why Conficker is a Blessing to GNU/Linux
- Microsoft’s Blame-Shifting Strategy Precedes More Trouble
- Leave Microsoft Alone
- Never Blame Microsoft, Blame Users and Exploits
- Botnets and Bounties Versus Real Security
- Is Windows to Blame for Cracking of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)?
- Windows Problems Take Down Airplanes, JFK Airport, Houston Municipal Courts
- Turkey, France, United Stated Under Attack by Microsoft Windows Insecurities
- Microsoft Adopts Malware Techniques to Advance .NET
- Windows Botnets Go Out of Control, Obama Web Site Delivers Windows Malware
- One Windows Worm, One Week, and Possibly 250,000,000+ New Windows Zombies
- Death by Microsoft Windows
- UNIX/Linux Offer More Security Than Windows: Evidence
- US Army Becomes Zombies Army; London Hospitals Still Ill (Windows Viruses)
- Eye on Microsoft: Another Messy Week for Security
04.17.10
Quote of the Day: “Microsoft is to Blame for Spam.”
Summary: “Up to 88% of Fortune 500 companies” are said to have been affected by the Zeus trojan alone, so questions about Microsoft’s liability arise again
WE PREVIOUSLY showed that about one in two PCs that run Microsoft Windows is a zombie PC.
An argument regarding an earlier post brought up the following response that cites an item from the news:
Microsoft is to blame for spam. Almost all businesses that use Windows have a Botnet problem.
Up to 88% of Fortune 500 companies may have been affected by the Zeus trojan, according to research by RSA’s FraudAction Anti-Trojan division, part of EMC. The trojan installs keystroke loggers to steal login credentials to banking, social networking, and e-mail accounts. [...] Smaller companies (those with fewer than 75,000 employees) appeared to have a higher proportion of infected employees.
My bet is that 100% of computer networks with Windows are infected and that the missing 12% are so well captured that those watching are unable to tell.
Blame for this universal failure can only be laid at Microsoft’s feet. Either the whole world administers Windows incompetently, or Windows is hopelessly insecure. If it were possible to secure Windows, the majority of Fortune 500 companies would not have a problem. No other software has this kind of problem.
As I argued yesterday, “systemic neglect is Microsoft’s fault [1, 2, 3]. Microsoft does not patch known holes until the attacks begin. We wrote a lot of posts about this in January [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12] since a known Internet Explorer hole that Microsoft had ignored for 5 months caused enormous damage to many businesses, Google included.”
Last year, when researchers showed that it was simple to take control of Vista 7, Vipin Kumar was quoted as saying that “There’s no fix for this. It cannot be fixed. It’s a design problem.” █
“Our products just aren’t engineered for security.”
–Brian Valentine, Microsoft executive
04.15.10
Quote of the Day: “Truth is Sunlight to the Microsoft Vampire”
Summary: Witty quote from a reader of ours and some new Wiki structure which covers Microsoft issues
Credit goes to our reader FurnaceBoy (Twitter account), who made the statement above. Our Wiki, which we are rebuilding these days, currently contains the following basic indexing pages:
- Comes vs Microsoft
- OOXML Abuse Index
- Microsoft Reality Log
- Microsoft PR Agencies
- Microsoft Technical Evangelists
- Patent Trolls Connected to Microsoft
- Microsoft influence in the United States government
- Microsoft influence in the Indian government
- Microsoft influence in Europe
- Microsoft influence in Asia
- Microsoft – Windows
- Microsoft – Office
- Microsoft – Consumer Hardware
- Microsoft – Dead Divisions or Products
- Microsoft – Layoffs
- Microsoft – Major Departure
- Microsoft – Financials
- Microsoft – Legal
Please help contribute to the Wiki by creating an account and extending the content. █
04.11.10
Quote of the Day: “Pharma patents are not about drug discovery, but about jacking up the prices on drugs.”
Summary: What India is teaching us about the impact of patents that increase wealth (in the West) rather than reduce mortality as a matter of priority
IT HAS been a long time since we last explained the fundamental problem with pharmaceutical patents [1, 2]. The following item from the news (some context here) led to the following remark from Mike Masnick:
However, Jamie Love points us to the news of a new report that found that the Indian patent office has gone against this law and issued such patents quite frequently and, no surprise, the main recipients are among the world’s largest pharma companies, including Pfizer, Novartis and Eli Lilly. Is it any wonder that they’ve all been pushing to dump sections 3(d) and (e) all along? Remember, pharma patents are not about drug discovery, but about jacking up the prices on drugs.
When it comes to pharmaceutical patents, life is at stake (there is Novartis for example [1, 2, 3, 4]). A lot of disinformation is being spread to teach the public that there is no better way. █
04.08.10
Quote of the Day: Microsoft’s 6% Market Share in Itanium
“An Intel spokesman said that most of the Itanium servers around the world do not run Microsoft Windows anyway. He said that it represents six per cent of current Itanium sales and most Itanium users run HP-UX.”
–Nick Farrell, 8th of April, 2010
02.19.10
Quote of the Day: Steve Wood About Microsoft
Summary: Quotes from one of the first Microsoft developers, who quit Microsoft in 1980
“I don’t want to work for a toy computer company [Microsoft], I’ve got real iron here at Yale. [...at Microsoft] We don’t have a manager who cares about what we’re doing [...] We don’t really have a clue as to what we’re doing from a strategic standpoint. [...] This is shitty. If you guys want to do something with a windowing package like Vision’s, then you need somebody running the group who knows about it.”
–Steve Wood, early Microsoft developer
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02.11.10
Mark Shuttleworth: “If Windows API Becomes the Default on Linux Then What is the Point of [GNU/]Linux?”
Mr. Shuttleworth is a very clever guy. So why does he keep the Windows API (Mono) inside Ubuntu GNU/Linux?
“Every line of code that is written to our standards is a small victory; every line of code that is written to any other standard, is a small defeat.”
–James Plamondon, Microsoft Technical Evangelist. From Exhibit 3096; Comes v. Microsoft litigation [PDF]
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