Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft to Focus on Security
Anonymous Minion writes: "The Associated Press is reporting that Bill Gates announced to employees Wednesday a major strategy shift across all its products to emphasize security and privacy over new capabilities. In e-mail to employees, Gates referred to the new philosophy as "Trustworthy Computing" and called it the "highest priority". Gates said the new emphasis was "more important than any other part of our work."" People criticized Microsoft for treating security breaches as a public relations problem, so Bill Gates sent this email out to the Associated Press to prove them wrong. (rimshot!) Meanwhile, Richard Smith notes that the Globally Unique Identifier in every installation of Windows Media Player allows websites to universally track users, and Microsoft does not consider it a security problem.
Right. This is not a security problem. This is a privacy issue.
And speaking of which. Many of us have fixed IP addresses. Web sites already track our actions with cookies. Telcos sell information about us to anyone who wants to pay for it. Get over it. We have no privacy to begin with.
Last time I installed Mandrake 8.1, it automatically partitioned my drive, and auto-detected and properly configured every piece of hardware in my laptop (including my 802.11b card). There are still applications out there that could use some usability enhancements, but the major obstacle (installation) is pretty much out of the way. The only thing Linux needs to be a true competitor on the desktop is applications. These days, the desktop-oriented Linux distros are just as easy, if not easier, to install as Windows. It is the lack of applications that is holding back any progress Linux might make on the desktop.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
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