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Microsoft Beta Includes Built-in Virus Scanner
Ethereal writes "InternetNews.com reports that Microsoft has begun beta-testing a built-in virus scanner for its Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) that will be included in the final product in mid-2004. The tool is among the operating system enhancements the Redmond, Wash., company is developing as part of its Security Center initiative to rebuff viruses, worms, trojans and crackers. Microsoft will also provide free online training to help developers make the most of SP2's security features, Chairman Bill Gates said at today's RSA Security conference. It's the first time the company has offered training with a Windows service pack release."
I bet the anti-virus software companies are really going to like this one.
You install the software, boot it for the first time, run its virus scanner, which uninstalls said software. Nice, Huh?
this next service pack is going to seriously fuck up some software industries... a better personal firewall, a popup killer, and now antivirus, all now bundled with the OS? and free?!
it's good that MS is being proactive (and i don't think they're doing this on purpose -- there is of course legitimate demand for these features), but it's chilling to see how they're capable of slaying entire software industries with the press of a button. this is going to RAPE antivirus/firewall/popup killing companies/industries, even if they have better products -- most consumers, and even a good chunk of small to mid-size businesses, only need a basic virus scanner, for example. and it's pretty fucking hard to compete with OS-preinstalled AND free.
sigh. grab your ankles.
of course this doesn't apply to all software products, but, what's the incentive to create a clever software product anymore, especially a small but ingenious shareware-type app, if all it takes is for MS to assign a couple of lackeys in MS Research to duplicate your product and then preinstall it with the next version of the OS for free? obligatory examples are netscape and winzip but really they're innumerable.
next on death row: spam stoppers, anti-spyware utils...
they really ought to have split MS up.
-fren
"Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?"
Will the inclusion of A default Scanner kill Norton and Mcaffee? I think they are now sitting ducks. why buy what comes free with your new computer?
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Error! Error! entire system has holes in it for potential viruses. Please change operating systems or send us money immediately!
What happens with these programs? Does both the Windows virus scanner and the 3rd party work at the same time? Or is it something that you can set in the settings, like "default browser".
Interesting!
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
ms shouls have been doing this all along, and i'm glad to see that they finally are. lets just hope they keep on top of updates better than they keep on top other security problems.
Personally, I prefer to blame the incomprehensible Michael Spindler, CEO of Red Ink Corps.
But a good idea, I guess. I'm kind of surprised they didn't get into the anti-virus biz a long time ago. Maybe they felt it would be an admission of weakness or something.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
Would this be a vioaltion of their anti-trust agreement? Seems like this could really put the hurt on Norton, etc.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Monopolistic overreaching of power, or fantastic move to combat viruses? It doesnt really matter, as MS is going to be both praised and sued for this move, even tho it may turn out to be a great one. You cant satisfy all of the people all of the time.
Please change the "goodbye" to "good riddance."
same thing as releasing security updates. But they can set it up to automatically update with this heading and people are less likely to disable it.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
A single byte of new code spawned from the beast just leads to another potential for 1000 bytes of code to exploit it. When will they learn to remove instead of add?
./revolution
It was nice knowing you.
... Microsoft will be including a scanner which can scan for viruses which get in through security holes in their OS?
Ow. I think I just broke my brain.
I love the smell of Antitrust Lawsuits in the Morning.
I bet the anti-virus software companies are really going to like this one.
How long do you think it will take for Symantic, etc to file antitrust against microsoft. 6 months? 12 Months?
How about not making it so easily vulnerable to viruses in the first place. This is like putting a band-aid on a arterial wound. Microsoft needs to get a clue.
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
If I had shares in an AV company I'd be selling them off right about now.
Isn't it a really bad idea to have the primary defense mechanism INTEGRATED WITH THE OPERATING SYSTEM? What the hell?
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
- After central point died, MS just didn't bother trying another one
- Another anti virus vendor cried "Anti-Trust!" and MS backed down
- None were ready for Win95 at the time
- MS just didn't care
- Any combo of the above...
I can't help but think though, had MS continued with offering anti-virus software, they MyDoom virus (amongst other worms) might have been a fraction of the attack it was...so sad......in bed
Its also the first time Microsoft has ever acknowledged virus scanners. Up until now, that would have required admitting that the OS is easily compromised. I guess these days, its pretty common knowledge.
I'm sure the initial product will be free, but something makes me think that MS will be just as eager to charge you a monthly fee for Virus Definition Updates.
So what happens when the virus scanner either deletes a critical windows file or itself cause it _thinks_ it knows what it's doing... I can't wait to see how many fixes come out for this thing.
Even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day.
What kind of viruses will the scanner delete?
Will we have the choice to turn theirs off?
I mean, Microsoft is so lax with their security updates, I am not sure if they would create a false sense of security. Also, what if Microsoft detects illegal software? Is this a virus? Will we retain control? Is this a premonition of the TCPA?
Well, perhaps this time around, we'll get it for free. However, how much will it cost us in the next versions lisence? Or when we renew corporate agreements? And support agreements? Oh, sure...it's just an extra $50/seat!
I can see the hand writing on the wall now.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
They're doing this together with some large AV-vendor like Symantec. .. or are they going to piss off all of them?
I guess the only solution then is to make the software just barely usable such that the AV-vendors can continue to "user friendly" products. See, no toes hurt.
Or I guess MS could stand for the infrastructure and then [help] sell subscriptions from differnet vendors, but that'd be a mess.
(No, I didn't RTFA)
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Dell WinME machines still came preloaded with WinDVD, despite the built in DVD player of WinME. It's all up to Gateway, Dell and such whether to include additional software to match a build in OS feature.
i am waiting for the next round of anit-trust lawsuits. Microsofts actions while they may have good intent are only going to destroy competition and inventiveness. There will be less of a drive to create new things if microsoft monopolizes the market. But funny how this sounds so familiar. Just like every other debate we have over them
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
The next Service Pack is going to turn the DVD burners in to toasters.
General Electric is gonna be pissed!
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Virus found: C:\WINDOWS
vodka, straight up, thank you!
I take back all of the nasty things I said about MS not helping with the anti-virus fight. Service pack help also! I am astounded. We will have to wait and see what develops, but just this step in the right direction has me all teary eyed. Maybe they aren't the evil empire, Borg, baby eating, satan loving jerks that I thought they were....well I won't go that far just yet.
Stay tuned for new sig...
...to protect me from worms that exploit their os... and other such things...
I THINK NOT!
It's bad enought i have to use it im not going to trust it.
A psychopath can't tell the difference between right and wrong. A sociopath knows the difference - he just doesn't care.
Anti virus software needs to be constantly updated. I'm still waiting for somebody to hack the ability to fake a Microsoft Certificate, so they can use the update mechanism to distribute viruses/worms instead. What are the chances of Microsoft's security measures actually becoming yet another vector for compromising security? Am I the only one that wonders if I'm actually getting Microsoft blessed software every time I run Windows Update?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
If there's one software industry I wouldn't shed many tears over the loss of, it's the one whose business model is to profit thanks to viruses.
Get Grisoft.
You probably shouldn't click this.
Microsoft Beta Includes Built-in Virus Scanner
Time to dump your McAfee and Simantec stock as fast as possible.
Isn't that a brilliant scam? (1) Microsoft messes up and makes virus- and worm-prone products. (2) A whole industry develops around the Microsoft flaws like mold on cheese, (3) Microsoft takes over the Microsoft-problem-solving industry.
Brilliant, just brilliant. These guys never cease to amaze me.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Toss vb6.dll out of the development tree!
Punt it! PUNT IT!!
Hate me!
"Holy fucking shit fuck!"
Oh, you are being serious. A company does something to make it's customers happy, and you want government gangsters to split them up because they put someone else out of business? As a consumer, what entitles TrendMicro to my $$$ when I would rather give it to MS (or not give it - service packs are free.
Get a clue. Just because you can write code doesn't mean you understand economics.
Good! One less thing to have to buy every year.
Actually, I bet Microsoft is building in a virus scanner so your (previous) virus scanner won't go off every time one of it's many security holes is exploited. Good thinking. Because your virus scanner didn't pickup the virus, you don't have one!!!! Yipee!
The guitars sound good, now give me about 10db more on the cow bell.
On the flip side, maybe the same companies will try to mitigate their losses by porting their software to Linux. Ok yeah, I know... Linux doesn't suffer from viruses, etc to anywhere near the same extent and even then they would be different viruses to boot. But as it gains popularity its only a matter of time and the free ones that come with the distributions uh... well.. nevermind.
Where would M$ be today if they did this a few years ago?
Hmm so Microsoft can't add anything to their product because there's another company already doing the same thing for their product. Yea that's really bright. Lets deny MS the right to improve their OS then Linux will be the defacto OS -- but oh wait, gotta rip out the firewall because norton makes one, gotta rip out the browser because that would stomp on opera. Rip out that media player because we gotta make sure REAL makes money, oh lord we can't forget about real.
And splitting up MS wouldn't have done jack squat about this. The OS division would have happilly put in virus and firewall protection and you know why? BECAUSE THAT KIND OF STUFF BELONGS IN THE OS! (WoW). Shoot, we can be grateful they didn't split MS up because then the OS division would be all over the place and wouldn't have to worry about bogus (don't let them improve the product!) BS like this.
Crushing the anitvirus industry in the name of security. Good one. I'm sure Longhorn will have more advanced CD burning capabilities too. Wonder what the folks at Symantec and McAfee think about this?
This guy is way out there
Prepare for another round of anti-trust litigation. It's interesting timing, though, right before the final European settlement.
You think if US courts did more than slapped M$ on the wrist this would be starting all over?
From what I hear, they will be including a never before seen virus definition to help weed out machines on the network that have been infected with that "Linux" virus they've been trying to stop for so long. :)
Granted, it's going to spell trouble for many software engineers, but I think the long term benefits will outweigh it. Lets face it, there are a lot of people who don't know much about computers--they wouldn't know how to install a anti virus program even if it came bundled as an .exe with the header reading "I LUV U".
At least now maybe we'll see a drop in computer viruses turning $1,200 computers into spam machines.
Come on, what happened to 'an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure?'
Before long there will be a virus that is distributed through the update service of this feature. Irony will prevail.
I've been working with beta builds of SP2 at work, and from looking at it, I am under the impression that what Microsoft is actually including is not actually a virus scanner, but rather integration with 3rd party virus scanners. The last build I tested (2077), complained that I didn't have any virus scanning software installed, and suggested that I remedy the situation. Poking around revealed that it has the capability to work with many existing virus scanning packages, and warn you when your virus definitions are out of date, and possibly even keep them up to date for you. Of course, maybe what I've seen so far is only a prelude to full blown anti-virus software from MS...
Shawn Asmussen
As if bundling windows media player wasn't enough, they added a firewall, now a virus scanner & pop-up stopper. How do they think the DOJ will let this slide? That aside, McAfee is going to get mighty pissed. You think MS will keep paying them to scan Hotmail attachments once they've cooked up their own inhouse solution? I forsee legal action in Microsoft's future.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
> I'm sure the initial product will be free, but something makes me think that MS
> will be just as eager to charge you a monthly fee for Virus Definition Updates.
No, it's only logical that a company in a capitalist society should choose to make money by comitting to a lot of work every month, forever, for free.
Of course they're going to charge for it.
I just hope that the next OS (Longhorn?) has an option to NOT EVEN INSTALL these features, but leave them checked by default. Just in case I do want to install my own firewall, my own web browser, my own antivirus, and my own pop-up blocker. The LAST thing we need is more crap "built-in" to the OS.
The microsoft (symantec rebrand) anti-virus software in Dos 6 didn't kill it... in fact it sucked... i expect the new anti-virus to suffer the same fate...
... when it was reported last year by ZDNET / news.com / Network Fusion / pcmag... that Microsoft were to buy a Romanian antivirus company !
Persoanlly I think anti-virus software should run at the router of your ISP. That way PC's are never affected (or rarely).
They will probably avoid all the public relations nightmares surrounding security updates by embedding the security updates in the Virus definition updates. Then, it won't look like the OS is broke anymore.. It'll just be "Virus definition updates" everyday.
Well look,
They have to realize that they are a software company. All of these companies have had a jump on these technologies for a long time. If they are to succeed, their product will simply have to be better than what is included offered at a valuable price to the consumer.
Now, the software business is no different than anything else. In order to reduce risk, you have to diverisfy. If your soul business is personal/firewall and antivirus you will know that you are in a highly competative market(high risk).
If you expect to run a business you will have to design your operations to be able to overcome industry trends or you will fail. There is no sense to cry, its just logical.
Its like a programmer concentrating on 1 language. Sure its great if you know the one language, but when companies don't wanna spend money on developping in that language any more what are you going to do?
Eggs in one basket? Please think.
obligatory examples are netscape and winzip
The ZIP handling features in XP are licensed from WinZip. I'm sure Microsoft is by far and away Niko's best customer.
Your observational humor. Still not funny.
I know no one here checks their work. Seriously, reading slashdot, I don't just believe it, I KNOW it.
I wonder if the windows AV will have support for macros built right in, for convenience sake, that is ;-) And if it's anything like the built-in firewall, Norton, McAfee, Trend Micro, and the rest of the fellas have very little to fear.
I also reply below your current threshold.
they will sell it as the best thing since sliced bread - and will claim the invention..
PAT
SEO Test: TIGI und SEBASTIAN - Online Shop - V
you geeks are funny. you are all against government intervention until it comes to a company's right to sell its products.
HehehehehehahahahahehehahahahahHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! HAHAHAHhehahahehehahahaha!!WHEW!! Oh boy! Man, talk about "always trust Microsoft"....to make with the funnies!
the most profilic viruses use the email exe attachment method or anything...
You're bitching because Microsoft finally added a popup blocker, a better firewall, and some AV utils?
If Microsoft didn't include these items, you'd be the same one fucking bitching that they weren't securing their software good enough.
This goes back to Tim Bray's Sharecropper Analogy.
Essentially, the idea is that if you're not developing for an open platform, you're a sharecropper. Your entire existance as a developer is predicated on the fact that you're working for someone else's platform that they own and control. If they decide that they like your product's functionality, they can either buy you out, or simply integrate it into the platform, most likely putting you out of business.
Apple has does this in the past, with Watson & Sherlock, and Microsoft has done this many, many times. Netscape, Winamp, and now Norton & McAfee. Microsoft has a pattern of simply offering a product as an additional download, then tying it into the next version of the OS with no real way to remove it.
What this means for Norton, McAfee, Trend Micro, and the dozens of other AV people is not exactly clear yet. But it's a good possibility that many of their employees will be touching up their resumes once this Service Pack gets released. Unless, of course, they sue MS. Either way, I see this as a major strain on their business relationships with Microsoft.
...if all it takes is for MS to assign a couple of lackeys in MS Research to duplicate your product and then preinstall it with the next version of the OS for free?
And here I was thinking that copyrights/patents were supposed to protect us from all that...
What?
Setting: Microsoft Board room.
Cast: the usual suspects
Topic: Features to ad to Windows
Hmm, should we:
a) fix the virus problem
b) ship a virus checker to fix the problem after its already happened and pub McCaffee & co out of business
c) integrate the browser into windows
c, b, and at last resort a
Not nearly as long as it will take the planet's collective sys admins to deploy SP2!
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
Is including a virus scanner really a sound answer to the problems of virii and trogans.
Removing the features that allow such programs to operate would be a better technical solution, securing the code. Rather than adding another layer of cruft that can contain holes?
Admittedly securing the code would change the anti-virus business to one that only considered malicious scripts and spyware
How long do you think it will take for Symantic, etc to file antitrust against microsoft. 6 months? 12 Months?
How about not making it so easily vulnerable to viruses in the first place. This is like putting a band-aid on a arterial wound.
To make a silly point, that would also put the AV people out of business, except they wouldn't get one last blaze of lawsuit before they went away.
Of course there will still be the hacks that rely on social engineering...
Whwn was Bill Gates apponted himselft 'Chairman' again?
16,777,216 comments ought to be enough for any forum!
Personal Firewalls and Virus scanners are pretty much essential now that home computers can be connected to the really big network.
Of course the writing was already on the wall. In The days of Windows 3.1 a TCP/IP stack was initially a 3rd part add-on. Then MS released one and killed trumpet, et-al.
The new corporate IT Department excuse to not specify/allow OS X on the network:
Insecure OS. Does not feature out-of-the-box antivirus protection.
The next pasture is always greener
Is Microsoft just begging for another Anti-Trust suit... anyone else think that Norton/McCaffee will be more pissed than Sun was?
Hard Hat Area: Sig Construction Zone
I agree with the poster when he (or she) said Get a clue. Just because you can write code doesn't mean you understand economics.
Anyone who can't see past the words anti and trust are missing the point completely. For too long, McAfee and Symantec have produced inferior, bloated, virus scanners. Combine their personal firewall and anti-spam software, along with one of their anti-virus packages, and you've just blown nearly 32 megabytes of RAM on UI enhancements.
NOD32 works so much better, and in a smaller, less bloated interface. Yes, you also have to pay for it, and it's not a well-known big name company. However, you won't find a better anti-virus package on the planet. Check out their awards here.
If Microsoft wants to bundle this stuff with SP2, then I'm all for it. Free, and forced down your throat so the majority of moronic users stop getting their boxes infected by the latest worm-du-jour.
This is not a free service from Microsoft. It is a free update, but the cost of the service will be built into Windows, either through an update fee or with the Operating System tax that goes directly to Microsoft when you buy your computer.
I think it's the only thing Microsoft can do to "make it right". After all, why should third parties be responsible for tracking viruses and such when it's Microsoft's fault for allowing them to exist in the first place?
I am forever telling my customers to buy antivirus software and making sure that their definitions are up to date, this is an added tax that corporations should never have had to pay. It's rediculous that in order to run a Microsoft product less adept users are forced to pay $40 for antivirus software and then $20 a year to keep getting definition updates. It often seems like an added tax that you're forced to pay even after you've already paid Microsoft for the privilege of using Windows.
So good for Microsoft. They've saved the bulk of their customers that much more money per annum and I think it is well past time they did this.
John the Kiwi
I am not going to give them too much grief for putting a pop up killer in IE since other browsers already have it.
The firewall was shady to begin with especially since it was unconfigurable.
But now putting antivirus in there is just sticking it out there waiting to get it cut off.
Next they should put in their own Microbat PDF creator, Microshop Imaging suite, Windowszip, Microrar, Micro-aware spyware killer, Microzaa P2P client, and MSCD Creator burning client.
Their target demographic is so obvious. Let's just assume that Windows XP is a great OS. That is fine. But to say that their firewall is better than Zone Alarm - it's not. To say that Windows Media Player should be your default for every media on the planet - it should not. To say that their antivirus is better than Norton, Mcafee, etc - of course it's not. But their hope is that the people who buy the prebundled OS will be too lazy to go get good software.
Then they can say consumer choice put all these other software companies out of business, not them.
I don't see how this will see the light of day, but I am sure with enough palm greasing it will.
Sure linux can be affected by viruses. All those linux based web/ftp servers are like the typhoid mary's of the internet.
What admin wouldnt want to make sure none of the files on his public shareware ftp are infected or corrupted?
As linux increases in popularity, I have no doubt we'll see an increase in viruses/trojans/etc targetted for it. Hell, the modern virus spreads by having a clueless user execute it. When the clueless users are on linux, so too will be the viruses.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
It's the first time the company has offered training with a Windows service pack release.
;)
Online training that is. So, that should read that they decided to actually provide documentation for the stuff they fudge together, right?
I was a user of RAV Antivirus on Linux/Postfix. Excellent antivirus with an easy installation and straightforward configuration. Highly customizable too.
Microsoft bought them out... and left me in the cold with a 1 year old product that was abandoned. Too bad.
-sid
Zonealarm and mcafee are shit (I've seen alot of viruses slip by mcafee), but Symantec really knows their business and I have nothing but respect for them. I trust them far more then MS.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Let them compete on an even playing field with other products for other operating systems. Windows simply needs to no longer exist. If Microsoft wants to focus on applications, let them. Just don't let them create operating systems any more.
Last year I found this AWESOME anti-virus program for the linux mail server I was supporting. It, IMHO was the best solution for my linux box. During the 30day evaluation Rav announced they had been bought out by Microsoft and would no longer be supporting linux. This was a very sad day for me. I hope that Microsoft is using this companies tech and allow them to keep doing the great job they were doing before being purchased. Rav's website is http://www.ravantivirus.com/
Excuse me, but "proactive" ? Isn't that just a buzzword that dumb people use to sound important? Not that I'm accusing you of anything like that... I'm fired aren't I?
"The space elevator will be built about 50 years after everyone stops laughing." - Arthur C. Clarke ~1980
Parent is spot-on, and I think the companies mentioned have it coming to them, but I think it's a lot more serious than this, and I don't otherwise think either side is categorically wrong.
My estimate is that 80% or more of the software sold for the Windows platform is 'compensatory': it's stuff you wouldn't dream of having if Windows were as adequate as it should be.
Virus scanners, personal firewalls, trojan eliminators, anti-hacker tools - we're always back to square one: Microsoft let the demons in to start with. As Bill Joy so eloquently put it:
They took systems designed for isolated desktop systems and put them on the net without thinking about evildoers.
Apple Macs come with a built-in firewall, and I don't see anybody complaining over there. They also come with a built-in mail filter, and the same thing applies: no one is complaining. In fact, it all makes good sense.
Your Windows 'cottage industries' are never never never going to enlighten their clients anyway. They're never going to really care for them, and tell them the truth, that the easiest way out of this slaughter that continues every day is to ditch the Microsoft ship. No, they want you to keep using Windows; they want you to keep getting the shit kicked out of you; if you migrated to Unix, they'd be penniless.
The ultimate irony of course is that Microsoft themselves are now mucking with 'compensatory' software - instead of fixing the holes that make such gems necessary in the first place (something they're most likely incapable of doing anyway).
No solutions; just observations. The world goes round.
There is *no point* to having a virus scanner if the idiot users do not keep it up to date! So either we have to configure it to call home (which we all agree would be bad) or rely on idiot users to upgrade it themselves.
In this day and age, if you do not keep your tools for protecting yourself up to date, then it's arguable that you should have your box 0wned again and again until you learn your damn lesson. This is already happening; Unfortunately, stupidity is defined as an inability to learn.
Problem is, once they start examining traffic for viruses, you get pressure groups wanting them to do the same for child pornography, spam etc. To retain the "common carrier" status they claim to have (im not sure if they have the same protections as telecoms companies to this regard), they need to exercise a hands off approach as much as possible. Also think of the outcry a false positive would bring, the ISPs would be sued of the face of the planet by certain people who think its their goddamn given right to do what they damn well please, damn everyone who gets in the way.
~~~
The difference is that McAffee, Norton, et. al. have a vested interest in there being lots of new viruses, which leads me to wonder if they don't also assist in creating them. Microsoft has a vested interest in not having their software be perceived as being susceptible to viruses, so this might actually be a feature best provided by the OS vendors themselves -- much as I hate to admit it.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
*Linux has been detected. This can be potentially harmful to Windows. Removing...*
One possible way for anti-virus companies to survive is to offer insurance against damage caused by viruses much like UPS companies offer some insurance against power-surges damaging your equipment. I am not sure if they do that presently. ... or they could get their virus researchers to start generating viruses that attack MS-AV directly, "accidentally" let them escape into the wild and guard against them with their product.
Can you imagine the potential to exploit this? Suddenly everyone uses the MS scanner, right? Not only putting the guys like Norton out of business or making them raise their prices outrageously... But, now the only thing you have to do to defeat Microsoft's security is rely on the fact that they don't know what they're doing. There's no other buffer....it's like putting a firewall on the network and calling it Fort Knox. *sigh*
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will never want for work. - Unknown
Has anybody actually been able to try this beta to see if there really is AV software included? The screenshots I've seen of a slightly older build (2077) show that it's only recommending you to install AV, not that it already has it.
So who was the first to bitch about MS's anti-competitive practices with this one? When are you elitist opensource primadonnas* going to realize that MS can build anything it damn well wants to into it's OS? For fucks sake, you cry about MS security, well here's an extra layer of it built into the OS and we're alrady whining about anti-competitive practices. Will you people PLEASE buy some consistancy here???? And WTF are you worried about anyway? If MS is as bad as you say it is, the anti-virus community doesn't have a damn thing to worry about. MS added native file compression to windows. THAT software industry is alive and well. They added native CD burning. THAT industry is alive and well too. Media playback? Check. Firewall? Ditto.
Shut your gob for once. Please.
*Not all open-sourcers, but you know who you are. You probably just modded me down, infact.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
...as MS is going to be both praised and sued for this move, even tho it may turn out to be a great one.
And then again, it might not. One would have to assume that they would do a better job writting anti-virus software than they do writting virus proof software in order believe that this is a good move. Otherwise, everyone will run the bundled AV telling themselves their safe, while hackers (the blackhats) can focus on a single AV program to fool. It just means that the RPC virus needs to disable MSAV before uploading it's payload.
If this had anything to do with this:
"June 10, 2003 - GeCAD Software announces a definite agreement with Microsoft in acquiring GeCAD's antivirus technology."
Listed here along with a number of their other aquisitions.
Oh, and it's important to note here that nothing from Microsoft is "free".
You know what would have been even better than that?! If MS had wrote their shitty OS so it would be IMMUNE to most viruses.
The road between democracy and tyranny is paved with secrecy in the name of security.
So far there has been a multitude of different virus scanning software on the market designed to eliminate viruses that spread so well because of the monoculture currently inherent in the operating system market. To my recollection, there have also been some viruses that particularly attack and disable Norton AntiVirus because it's the leading anti-virus software on the market.
Now let's make the assumption that the built-in virus scanner becomes the default in over 95% of Windows installations.
Who is going to write a virus that will be automatically removed at the very moment the built in virus scanner has updated its definitions?
That's right, nobody. That's why every new Windows virus will simply disable the market's only virus scanner (or its auto-update facility) upon infection and the user will be under a false sense of security even though his/her system is infected.
Naturally the virus cannot infect computers with updated definitions, but the virus will always have some time to spread in the wild before new definitions are released. If each infection equals one machine with disabled virus protection (and a clueless user who doesn't know how or feel the need to re-enable it), it's not much better a situation than the one we have now.
I consider Microsoft Windows to be a virus. So to be effective this virus scanner feature would have to erase the diskdrive.
The Truth About Slashdot
Installing....
ERROR. 2gb Virus found! Halting Installation....
This tagline brought to you by 1500 monkeys in just under 17 years.
They change the OS because of bugs in their application... instead changing the system model to a more secure one they include post-active tools. Yes rights managament is work, but it is worth it! A lot of windows users have gotten lazy: "Why should i have some rights to do xyz? Under windows it just works!". Thats why other systems are more secure. Damn, i shouldn't care...
McAfee, Norton, etc., will still make money off corporate networks that want remote management, definition push, and all the rest of that crap.
Much like most of the included things, MS's default protection will be enough to mostly keep Joe Random from deluging the rest of us with spam and DDoSes, and not much more.
Yes, but how long until MS designs in something that will invalidate it?
Case in point: Defrag. Yes, NTFS was a major improvement, and I wouldn't go back for all the tea in China. But they didn't tell Symantec about it until the last possible minute.
Reason? It threw Symantec's financial plans in chaos.
Symantec bled majorly over that one.
I'm thinking the next file system will probably have built-in transparent, journaling compression. See Niko thankful to MS when it happens.
... and in other news WinZip announces it has found another paying customer. Happy days are here finally...
who really downloads anything other than the evaluation copy and puts up with the little message that pops up whenWinzip starts up...
continue evaluation... sure I'll continue.
everyone will run the bundled AV telling themselves their safe, while hackers (the blackhats) can focus on a single AV program to fool
According to the report, and MS themselves, its more of an all encompassing API that hands functionallity off to third party virus scanners. Its making the existing system easier to work with for third party developers, which is why they are also providing training with SP2 (online, but still...).
The Anti-Virus makers have totally missed the entire spyware industry in their AV products, instead recommeding that you buy their whole suite that includes a pop up blocker, anti-spam filter, and firewall-for-newbies product. They then price that suite at three times the cost of the original AV program.
The truth is, it'd be much easier if we just had one program-scanner that'd alert on both viruses and trojan horses, and the better spam products are coming from suppliers who don't have AV products, and firewalls are best built into routers anyway. So... uhm, we don't need the rest of the suite.
Take the core product from the AV companies, and their other products won't have a leg to stand on anymore...
Next they should put in their own Microbat PDF creator, Microshop Imaging suite, Windowszip, Microrar, Micro-aware spyware killer, Microzaa P2P client, and MSCD Creator burning client.
Then they can say consumer choice put all these other software companies out of business, not them
And what about a typical Linux distro? Doesn't that include these features as well, and even for free (as in beer)? I don't see a large difference. At least Microsoft is charging customers and paying royalties.
(ducks for cover)
The next step will be microsoft making most of the programs run as non-root, with you having to type in a password if u try to change settings. This will turn Windows users into non-power users even faster, but wont do anything but forcing virus creators to find two security holes where they needed one before.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
Unless MS choose the easy option and licence the existing AV products, like they did with WinZIP. This way Symantic/Norton could concentrare on the real AV stuff, have some bells-and-whistles premium products and soak up lots of cash for MS doing the retail side for them. In this scenario they'd be the last people to complain.
And that is why you are not a Network Engineer.
Not to mention the fact that this new security patch is going to ALSO have bugs/exploits. Now when someone hacks your machine, they very matter-of-factly know which libraries to disable.
Its very ironic to me to see how Microsoft has created this industry by their own negligence, and then as soon as a few opportunistic companies come along and 'patch' their (gaping, devastating and numerous) security holes, they are ready to replace them, effectively profiting off their own mistakes.
TK
I'd just be excastic to not only have kernal patches that are released 6 months after the vulnerability is known publically, but virus definitions that are updated for download 6 months after the viruses come out.
How much you wanna be they just want to cash in on the "Pay for Updates" model AV vendors use? That's one way to slip in their subscription model.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
The Solution:
Stop developing for Windows, and port your software to Linux. DUH!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I know some people are chomping on the bit, here, but the problem isn't at all due to MS. It has to do more with software developers who are convinced that their product is marketable as standalone. See: antivirus vendors, browser makers, entertainment apps, etc.
When you get a car, there are certain assumptions that are definite. It's going to have an engine. It's going to have windshield wipers. However, the difference between these two things is that windshield wipers came much later, AFTER other people made businesses in enabling people to "see while it's raining". At some point, a secondary technology becomes so invaluable that you can't imagine the first existing without including it. Find me an OS, any OS today, that doesn't include a browser of some kind (whether it be free, Free, or monopoly).
Somewhere along the line McAffe and, to a lesser extent, Symantec, should have realized you can't have your business rely solely on fundamental flaws in other products. You're relying on their business model, then, and if they fix it you're sunk.
If MS closes the gaps better, they're screwed. If they include their own antivirus program, they're screwed. No matter what way you slice it, MS is actually doing the "right thing". Those doing "the wrong thing" decided their fate years ago.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Is it just me or does it seem that by the time Microsoft has a "secure" OS we'll need a 100Ghz processor with 20Gb memory and 200Gb hard drive to hold it?
All generalities are dangerous except ones that start with "All
I'm not sure that this is such a bad idea. Hear me out before the flames start. :) I've discovered too many family members and coworkers that aren't even running with an antivirus program (I did fix those). I know that the MS firewall (if you can call it that) works like crap, but I think all of the non-tech people could benefit. I'm sure you'll be able to disable it and keep NAV or others on your machines. This will benefit all of those people who don't know what an antivirus program is. This will benefit the users who open up any attachment and spread the viruses. While it could give a false sense of security, I think for all of the people without AV, at least they'll have some protection. When it comes down to it, I don't think Microsoft is trying to put the AV companies out of business (I know that this flies in the face of history). They've had a lot of criticism for all of the security holes and viruses on their platform so I think this is their solution. As soon as a worm like MyDoom is discovered, they could automatically update all of the AV programs and block many of them. There are a lot of windows users out there that have no idea what security means at all. I for one, am glad there will be at least a minimal protection installed by default on those peoples machines. Until we can force computing licenses, I think this may turn out to be a good thing for the tech-illiterate. Now, I still don't think that Norton or McAfee will be happy.
-
Tech News, Reviews and Tutorials
"trust is a dirty word that comes from such a liar"
Then again, I don't think MS could win this argument on either side of the Anti-Virus campaign. Include one and people will say they should fix their software instead. Don't include one and people will say they need to own up to their mistakes.
This attitude stems from the fact that MS security hasn't been all that grand. I can't find myself trusting a MS-written Anti-Virus simply because of their previous track record. Will they be releasing virus sig updates on a monthly basis as well to fit the patching cycle? How much time/effort/money will they spend on virus research as opposed to more features?
If you EVER want to fuel the FUD of a monoculture, welcoming a totally MS-based security system along with their OS will be enough to scare the bajeezus out of people who understand.
In order for Linux to remain competitive we should also start bundling some linux A/V software with our distributions. To facilitate this I have included the source for a feature rich virus detecter and removal program for Linux.
#include
#include
int
main(int argc, char **argv)
{
int i;
printf("scanning");
for (i = 0; i 8; i++)
{
sleep(1);
printf(".");
}
printf("\nSCAN COMPLETE, YOUR COMPUTER IS VIRUS FREE.\n");
return 0;
}
Don't most of the virus out there attack vulnerabilities in Windows? McAfee/Symantec etc provide virus protection to stop the virus getting to windows in the first place? And now microsoft are going to package a virus killer into windows?
Wouldn't it just be easier to write more secure software in the first place?
And at the end of the day who in their right mind would trust a microsoft virus killer? If they can't secure their own software what chance do they have of writing a virus killer that stops vulnerabilities in their own software?
---- There are 10 types of people in the world. Those that understand binary and those that don't
new in service pack 2: exciting new features to protect your pc!!
12 months later..."Windows Update":
I see your MS virus protection is out of date, click here to purchase next year's subscription
In other news, the MSIE core was (is) licensed from Spyglass. Them folks were dancing on tables as Microsoft signed a deal that Spyglass would get 5% of gross revenue on the browser.
The next day, of course, the Spyglass folks woke to the news that Microsoft was giving the browser away for free.
Every time a new creative utility popped up, the would make their own version which was bundled into the OS. Every time the third party vendors would be pissed. But on the flip side when all was said and done, bundling the functionality really did improve things for the user.
Bundling is a interesting issue. There really are legitimate reasons why it is better to provide one integrated package, but from a market point of view it just reaks of anti-competitive behavior. Which is another reason why open source software is so interesting in the grand scheme of things - because an open source operating environment (OS + stuff) could have all the benifits of bundling, with none of the detriments of a monopoly.
I totaly agree with you, makeing third party software for windoes is a lost cause.
haha so true
True, but I disagree with Symantec's product activation. I wish there were a better way to give people antivirus software than that. I'll probably just end up buying NAV anyway and writing the about it.
When life gives you crap, Make Crapade.
Sluggy Freelance.
I've been using Linux for so long now I've forgotten what it's like to get viruses and need anti-virus software... But seriously, although it's nice to see Microsoft improve their product, this is going to destroy the AV companies since most people don't care about how robust a solution is, as long as they're told that it's there.
-------
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
I'm very sure that a typical Linux distro would include a free virus scanner as well if there was a larger *user* base.
You mean by not allowing users to run software ? That'd be popular...
I think you're the one who needs to buy a clue. Microsoft's bundling is not comparable to Ford putting carriage makers out of business. Killing the market for a competing product by producing a better, more efficient product is not a problem. What is a problem is killing the market for a competing product by using a monopoly product as a platform for distributing a knock-off of the competing product. It would be more like Ford, being the only maker of automobiles, including an in-dash navigation system using their own GPS satelite network in order to kill the market for aftermarket navigation systems. Add to that Ford taking measures to ensure that you can't remove the navigation system to replace it with another without rendering the entire vehicle useless even though the navigation system isn't strictly necessary to operate the vehicle and you've got a much better approximation of Microsoft's anti-competitive activities.
There was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of a bus to never-ever land.
When in Windows95/98 appeared stripped versions of programs from Norton Utilities Tools Package nobody complained (for instance the SpeedDisk(Defragmenter), Disk Doctor (ScanDisk), etc.). Those tools were sooo limited that they were good incentive to buy Norton.
On the other hand remember Norton Commander? Total Commander has killed it.
You can defy gravity... for a short time
>A company does something to make it's customers happy, and you want government gangsters to split them up because they put someone else out of business? As a consumer, what entitles TrendMicro to my $$$ when I would rather give it to MS (or not give it - service packs are free.
Yet, when Linus Torvalds offers a free Linux kernel to the world, SCO tells the U.S. Congress (your "Government Gangsters") that Linux is a threat to the security and economy of the U.S. Ironic, huh?
That and a few other things are the only thing they don't make. By making a anti virus program bundled with the operating system they put the anti virus companies out of buissiness and if they do get anti-trusted they can always make a OS that works well and dosent get virri thus making the current AVs unnecesary.
Office, Games, Operating system (with GUI), web browser, WYSIWYG, etc, etc after anti virus maybe theyl make hardware
I believe they were stripped down versions of Central Point Antivirus (which later got bought out by Symantec) in much the same way that the later DOS's SCANDISK and DEFRAG utilities were stripped down versions of the Norton's Utilites that performed the same functions...
I don't see why MS would bother to write their own virus scanner this time around, either... I'd think either of the big 2 companies would jump at the chance to license MS a stripped down version of their product, with a convenient "Upgrade now!" button prominently displayed, of course. Or maybe even the full product, but you'd still need a definition subscription from them. Basically, whichever company did it, would put the other one out of the desktop market.
I don't think either big player will go under, though, both McAfee and Symantec have well entrenched server markets... At one previous employer (Gov agency), the inter-departmental flame wars over what (if any) virus scanner to standardize on for departmental email servers reached a 'vi vs emacs'-like level.
Yes. Now you can trust the same people who create
the bugs to decide which ones are important enough
to look for....(thinking)...."inforrmation security
best practices"...."seperation of roles".....nahh.
---eludom
Right, 'cause none of your computers have floppy drives, CD, or DVD ROMS, and you never run SSL or IPSec connections through your ISP which your ISP had damn well better NOT be able to scan for viruses... oh, and you don't have any wireless cards running unencrypted either...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
(looks at Debian box)
No problem.
Young people today! The internet isn't the only way a virus can spread. But it's certainly the fastest way.
The ISP would have to much work todo anyway. Imagine scanning for every known file transmission protocol. Some of these newer ones use encryption and it would be illegal in many countries for the ISP to be scanning that. Even scanning data in the clear is on a fine line.
You think the Linux world is any different? VMWare came out with a great product and the next day there were 39 different Open Source virtualizers coming out.
Fact is if you are doing "system-level" stuff for another vendor, the lifetime of your product is inherently limited.
(A great example was QEMM386. You know you're an ABMer when you complained about the fact that Microsoft put out an OS that actually managed memory.)
Chances are that Microsoft is going to license the Antivirus technology from some little company that signed a big contract. Much of the tack-on technology in Windows XP wasn't created by Microsoft, but licensed from small companies. The zip functionality came from the makers of Winzip. The disk defragmenter came from Executive Software (makers of Diskeeper).
As I recall, people were declaring the death of Zone Alarm and Black Ice when it was heard that XP would contain a firewall. I remember the predictions of Symantec's doom because Windows 95 had a disk defragmenter (3.1 and NT did not). The deaths of MusicMatch and REAL were all too.. er... real, when Media Player was to be included.
These companies will either adapt, dissapear, license technology to MS, or create a product that is so much better than the included software that people will be willing to shell-out $$$ to make their OS better.
I don't see Microsoft going out of business because Wordpad is included in Windows. Clearly, a direct competitor to Word and Works! Okay.. bad example.. but you get my point.
Tag line, copyright 2004 RadioActiveLamb
And the Gubmint ignored them. Case closed.
...and all the the other AV vendors out there.
Yeah, perhaps so.
But only because the gubernment is the best authority to deal with it.
I mean, we could get together a militia, and go handle it ourselves, but that seems a bit wrong, too.
"How long do you think it will take for Symantic, etc to file antitrust against microsoft. 6 months? 12 Months?"
Boy, Microsoft can't win with you guys, can they? You bitch every single fucking day that there's some security exploit, and when Microsoft addresses that, suddenly you're crying anti-trust.
It really is hard to take anything you guys say seriously when it's all about bringing Microsoft down.
"Derp de derp."
Am I the only one the stopped reading the headline after reaching 'Virus'.
I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole. - Leo Kessler
No matter whawt MS do the AV vendors are going to take a hit. they include a virus scanner, everyone will use it killing them in the market place. they fix their OS so it's less vunerable, AV vendors have less of a market. good riddence i say AV companies are as bad as used car salesmen.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
But who decides what "should" be included in the OS and why do we have to buy it from MS instead of (insert vendor here)?
Personally, I think if mail admins got off their fat asses and blocked EXE, PIF, and so on, 99% of the current virus problem would disappear.
do you REALLY trust your ISP?
I don't exactly trust mine
S
I guess we should get rid of hospitals, since all they do is profit from our health problems.
You think the Linux world is any different? VMWare came out with a great product and the next day there were 39 different Open Source virtualizers coming out.
Who cares? People still buy VMware because the open source equivalents pale in comparison. It is likely that VMware will always be better than free alternatives. And if they can't keep up, then they deserve to lose out.
Microsoft has done this before. Windows and the improved Scandisk and Defrag drove Norton Commander and Disk Doctor out of the market, but Norton adapted by becoming a major player in the antivirus and firewall business.
What I am really interested in is how exactly Norton will adapt to this, as I'm sure that they will find a way to do so.
And that guy who invented that polio vaccine, worst of the lot.
I presume you have never used an anti-virus product. I have and I'm happy to pay to clean up the mess that other clueless idiots create with virii and worms etc.
And now with one only analysis done on a virus and no competition to get the fix out how long do you think you will be safe.
But only because the gubernment is the best authority to deal with it.
Yeah, only when the party in power isn't recieving large sums of money from the defendant.
Lots of people have had to get a lot of training due to previous MS service packs. Usually through the MS Knowledge base three Months after the service pack is released.
Get a free ipod.
I'm always amazed at how much patchwork goes into securing the Windows desktop.
An obvious first (and large) step would be to not have every user running with Administrator privileges. Has anyone heard of any initiative by Microsoft to change this unfortunate default?
Wouldn't running your everyday apps (e.g. Outlook, IE) as a non-privileged user mitigate a lot of these worms? Some of the worms that just blast off a emails via script would be unaffected, but those that install SMTP servers and other backdoor processes would be stopped.
The current setup seems just like giving everyone a key to your house and then hiring a team of live-in security guards.
Too bad Microsoft's software features are ultimately dictated by their marketing department and not by the user community. I really feel they need to break backwards compatibility, force users (even so-called "Power Users") to use unprivileged accounts, and provide a convenient equivalent to Unix's "su".
Sure, a lot of companies would have to release updates in order to cope with use by non-administrative users, but with the current hype around security these days, I would think most companies would be willing to do so for little or no charge. Most average Joes these days have heard of viruses, worms, etc...I think it would be really bad PR for a company to say, "well, MS improved the security of Windows, and it broke our software." Most, it seems, would rather say, "MS improved the security of Windows and our software is no exception...here's the free update you need."
"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." -- Lord Acton
It's amazing how by simply licensing WinZip and incorporating it into Windows, it suddenly crashes when zipping to a samba share. Microsoft doesn't even need to write the code to make it crash, they just have the Midas touch.
Just take an old product, and continually remove chunks of code from it. That's smart thinking right there. New features? Nah. They might have bugs.
~Berj
So what's different about Grisoft's business model? That they have a free version? - I hope you don't use it on any networked computer, cause that's against their EULA.
How is this different from Open source releasing a free Virus Scanner?
Usually, Microsoft has to use its monopoly to leverage the product in an unfair way to stifle competition.
Or do you think companies have a constitutional right to make a profit, like the RIAA?
This would be a lot stronger arugument if they made the addons available with similar difficulties as their competitors - ie download (probably for free) from the MS website.
This way there would at least be some incentive for people to look at alternatives to MS Zip, MS media player etc.
No, not totally fair, but about as far as you can get when one company has a monopoly.
MS can extend their market share from 0% to probably >>50% of the AV market in _ONE_ release cycle by leveraging their existing market share - how can that possibly be considered good for the economy?
Beep beep.
Actually an MS monoculture will make the job of the virus writers *so* much easier - they'll only have to write a bug smart enough to disable one AV product! :-)
If I had a $.10 for every post to MS newsgroups that complained about problems with these other software applications I'd be richer than Peter Norton. /. can't kick anon coward off can they.
It's about time an integrated solution is added to Windows.
Linux, BSD, Solaris, and every other OS has no integrated solutions to these problems do they.
Do I need Webmin or bastille, no I don't it's integrated and they just make the process easier.
The last NIS update I installed busted NIS and I went back to using @tguard. This has happened several times since I started using NIS. I wait several months till Symantec pulls their head out then reinstall it. @tguard was a near perfect product and Symantec has constantly screwed it up ever since they purchased the rights to use it.
McCafee I haven't touched their trash since before it became Network Associates.
Zone Alarm is for your Momma, then cross your fingers and pray to die after your install it.
Every one of these companies is a parasite living off parasites and deserves to perish.
I can rip out any component in my linux box I want, and replace it with a compatable piece. On Windoze, you can't. M$ did this on purpose. That is the difference, and it is huge.
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
Note that virus scanners are quite useful on Linux as well. I use ClamAV, and am pleased with it.
:-)
Why?
Because I get eight bazillion Windows-oriented viruses in my inbox each day. I use SpamAssassin on my machine, which does a great job of blowing away actual *spam*, but short of blocking anything with Microsoft attachments, isn't that great at blocking worms.
If you use ClamAV *and* SpamAssassin on each email that comes in, however, and dump all inbound worm emails into a box called "virus" or similar, you can avoid all the worms you get *and* all the spam you get.
Actually, I'm quite peeved that one of my inbox providers started filtering out viruses, since it means that ClamAV can't get a positive on that email as a virus and dump it in the "virus" bin.
May we never see th
Microsoft's already working on the anti-spam.
It would be more like Ford, being the only maker of automobiles, including an in-dash navigation system using their own GPS satelite network in order to kill the market for aftermarket navigation systems.
Kind of like what GM does with their OnStar system? And like every manufacturer is now doing with anti-theft devices (immobilizers, etc.)? Viruses in the Windows world is an everyday reality and this is a good step to take, just as vehicle theft is an everyday reality in the automobile world and the manufacturers have taken good steps to prevent theft.
A business shouldn't be prevented from innovating simply because of the existence of third-parties which have profited from that business's lack of innovation in a certain area. If what they're doing is really so innovative, then they should get a patent and protect their innovation and license it back to the business. That's the purpose of patents.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
oh, there's a large enough user base alright. People use virus scanning modules for the major Linux MTAs ... scanning mail attachments for windows viruses on non-windows mailservers is cool (safe, too). Actually, GeCad was one of the more proeminent seller of such modules (for Linux, BSD, Solaris, OSX) before getting bought by Microsoft ... whaddya know, the webpage is still up for that (http://www.ravantivirus.com/pages/isp.php), makes one wonder if MS is still selling those ;-)
Not me. Microsoft has the right to sell their own product just as the open source community is free to give away theirs.
Problem is, once they start examining traffic for viruses, you get pressure groups wanting them to do the same for child pornography, spam etc. To retain the "common carrier" status they claim to have (im not sure if they have the same protections as telecoms companies to this regard), they need to exercise a hands off approach as much as possible. Also think of the outcry a false positive would bring, the ISPs would be sued of the face of the planet by certain people who think its their goddamn given right to do what they damn well please, damn everyone who gets in the way.
Not to mention, this is just not what routers are designed to do. They're fast and stable, largely because they're fairly limited in their function.
Routers, at their core, only care about where a packet is coming from and where they're going. To inspect for viruses, these packets would have to be viewed in the context of the protocol they're part of. This means higher layer inspection, and a serious amount of additional work for the router.
The problem is that you're assuming that everyone on Slashdot has the same views, and that the community has one united view, which is far from the truth. The people who complain about Windows being insecure are not neccessarily the same people who complain about Microsoft monopolizing.
True enough; but the safeguards built into UNIX to protect it from mischievous and creative college students over the years give Linux a substantial head-start. I'm thinking user accounts, file/group permissions (esp. executable bit) and root-only-where-necessary.
Yes, MS is doing better than it used to. XP is a far cry better than Win98. But they have to maintain as much backward compatability as possible and that's a fundamental problem that won't go away.
How many times do I have to say it? If everybody's grandma used Linux, viruses would be just as widespread. Look at the dates on these vulnerabilities.
Linux: Free if your time is worthless.
How about not making it so easily vulnerable to viruses in the first place. This is like putting a band-aid on a arterial wound. Microsoft needs to get a clue.
It's much easier, and more fun, to create a new product than it is to grind out the fixes to all the problems with your existing products. This is why Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Initiative has been a complete failure thus far. Microsoft will add cheesy Anti-Virus, Personal Firewall, and Anti-Spam features to Windows that are "good enough", but will continue to have the same problems that they've always had due to their mediocrity.
Bill Gates has stated that customers never buy upgrades to fix bugs. That thinking reveals quite a bit. He's right of course, but it's because customers feel that bug fixes are owed them as part of the original product purchase. He's wrong to believe that because there's little money to be made by fixing bugs that he shouldn't have to do it.
Now I can get rid of my Norton Virus Scanner and rely soley on Microsoft's virus scanner which will be better because it is built in. [note: sarcasm]
If the choice was between a hardware firewall or no firewall, most people would choose none. Having dozens of AV softwares running on a multitude of OS and hardware platforms would be the best solution overall for keeping viruses down, but we don't live in that world.
Integration problems aside (let's be honest, it's about as integrated as that in-dash radio the kid from Best Buy installed in you car... flush but separate) this means there will be a standard target for viruses to attack. In other words, this will never be as secure as a world with many players competing. But this will be more secure than a world where 90% of users have nothing installed at all. Back to the previous analogy, a standard doorlock is easier to pick than a doorlock with a multitude of key shapes and sizes, but a standard doorlock is still better than nothing. Since doors are usually installed by professionals, they know to put in a lock. Computers aren't like that, and so could use the help. If you don't like their door lock, you can always upgrade with a deadbolt.
It's a compromise, and probably a good one. I'd rather the Beast spend it's unnecessarily large rewards improving their product than, say, hyping a digital watch that can tell if it is raining. And if it will reduce the number of MyDoom variants that trickle into my inbox, I will be very happy.
The ______ Agenda
> And if they can't keep up, then they deserve to lose out.
And do you believe that to be the case for Windows Anti-Virus companies as well?
What's your point? the problem with microsoft is that you can't replace, for instance, Internet Explorer. I don't mean just using an different Browser, but really replacing (deleting/uninstalling) it. Also, you can't really get rid of Windows Media Player etc.
That's the problem, I think it's ok to improve your product, it is however a problem when you are forced to use some program, having no choice no matter what you try.
dont all u d00ds uze VB now?
is that they'll use a modified licenced scanner from mcAfee/Norton/... (probably mcAfee, since hotmail also uses it). Just like they did for their defragger and zipper.
One way to get people used to the Bill Tax...
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
what if MS comes up with a way to actually make the OS so fool proof (in Bizarro World) that no Womrs/Viruses/Whatever have a chance at all? No Virus scanners needed? Maybe in the trustes computing houpla? Would also make Companies marketing virusscanners redundant. Same shit different wrapping - still antitrust worthy? How exactly can anyone cry foul play if a company takes care of the problems in their software anyway? "hey, give us all the vulnerabilities back and some more, we can't survive without them!".
It's not just the fact that they make it.. it's the fact that it sucks. Windows's Firewall sucks compared to Norton's... and so will this Anti-Virus. I don't really see a problem with it as long as it doesn't take over the world... as with every other Microsoft program...
Microsoft is a monopoly though and that you can't disagree. I mean for God's sakes... they saw how companies were making quick cash selling music for 99 cents per song and decided to input that into their trusty Windows Media Player. Can they just not get enough money?
I think Bill Gates should just go ahead and buy the damn government... it'll save him some trouble in the long run.. heh.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
Did Henry Ford have a monopoly?
This is NOT the same thing. Microsoft is a MONOPOLY. They were found in a COURT OF LAW to have abused that monopoly. THAT IS ILLEGAL. And Microsoft continues to abuse this monopoly.
It is the fault of the United States government that they refused to enforce their own monopoly laws.
Maybe YOU should read up on the Sherman anti-trust laws, which Microsoft violated again and again in spades (and didn't even get so much as a slap on the wrist by the Clinton and then Bush administration).
I can't imagine Norton or McAffee is really worried. Norton and McAffee have spent years improving their scanning engines. Microsoft is foolish if they think they can make a product rivaling them the first time. The defragger that is included with Windows *works*, but nowhere near as well as other real defraggers. Unless Microsoft leases out Norton or McAffee's engine for use with Windows, I think the antivirus industry has nothing to worry about it though. And if they don't, do we really want to trust an antivirus solution made completely by them? I hate to bash Microsoft, but they don't have the best track record for building secure software.
Not to mention...bundling in yet another product that eliminates the need to buy outside software...well, doesn't Microsoft already have enough Antitrust problems? Are they trying to get more companies pissed off, and more charges pressed against them??
One small problem with your critique. My analogy assumed a monopoly in the automobile market. Activities that are perfectly acceptable responses to market forces in a competitive market can become anti-competitive if practiced by a monopolist. *THAT* is the problem with Microsoft tying everything under the sun to their OS.
There was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of a bus to never-ever land.
I didn't say they were right to do so - i expressed no opinion about that -- i just asked how long you think it will take.
Think before posting, I do not appreciate knee-jerk reactions to my posts
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
And making this 'firewall and anti-virus protection' program mandatory and not interchangeable makes it anti-competitive which should be anti-capitalistic by your own standards but i'm sure that concept is too difficult to grasp.
Let's say MSFT puts a virus scanner in WinXPSP2.
I run WinXPSP2.
I get infected by a virus that deletes all the files on my hard drive.
Interesting liability issue there... (Not to mention the threads that would show up on slashdot.)
Considering the slow uptake of Windows NT, Symantec's only had about 6 years to plan for NTFS. Also, NTFS has had transparent compression for many years, but that doesn't help you on a network.
The real scandal is how long it took MS to integrate ZIP functionality. It would have been a much more useful feature than MAPI and the gazillion other oddball features they've added to their platform over the last decade. ZIP is really a baseline feature that should have been built into Windows 3.1, for god's sake.
I have a feeling that this is an intentional side effect, as that is the real problem in the first place as far as worms go. In terms of viruses, it's the users fault for openning the stupid file.
No, because there is no longer any competitive pressure on the monopolist. What does it matter how a company becomes a monopoly; whether it becomes one because it's the best or because it lied and cheated its way to the top. No moral judgement should be made in determining that a monopoly exists.
But if my memory serves me well, monopolies are considered economically inefficient. Why then cannot a government interfere to assuage the worst impacts of a monopoly in the interests of the public.
I have never met a capitalist who wanted to be in competition with anyone. The idea is to achieve a monopoly. The resultant competition is good for consumers. If someone achieves their aim of no competition why do they assume the same rules will continue to apply.
Microsoft has a vested interest in not having their software be perceived as being susceptible to viruses, so this might actually be a feature best provided by the OS vendors themselves -- much as I hate to admit it.
Well said. There's little hope for the future if the AV corps benefit from virus activity--MS defintely seems like the lesser of two evils here.
G-Force music visualization
I did not say whether or not they're right to do so - I am not expressing an opinion about that -- I am simply posing the question.
I am [obviously] also saying microsoft should spend less time on a anti-virus program and more-time making it so those vulnerabilities are not there in the first place
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
No, but it is logical that a company who's product's image has suffered so heavily due to viruses would want to make sure all users have up to date software. I think it's actually of far more benefit to Microsoft to keep the updates free.
a virus scanner does not fix an exploit.
If it works as good as their firewall does, only halfway that is, then the antivirus companies have nothing ot worry about.
Surely the first thing a visus will attempt to circumvent is any built in virus protection. It will effectively be useless. In addition there is the usual chicken and egg problem. Virus protection needs known viruses to be totally effective, therefore the operating system cannot know about a virus until it is in the wild. Then Microsoft will have to patch but by that time the virus has had an opportunity to undermine the AV components and the update components.
It seems to me like you'd be well advised to stick with 3rd party AV in addition to the Microsoft AV stuff, if for no other reason than it won't be the primary target of every infection and the Microsoft AV software obviously will.
I expect virus writers (the actual code authors not the script kiddies) are actually thrilled by this development because it represents a new challenge.
I don't think this will harm third party antivirus companies. My theory is that people who actively seek out antivirus software now, are most likely the kind of people who like to assess the choices available to them and make an informed decision. They will continue to get their antivirus software from whatever source they think is best. Microsoft bundling antivirus software with the OS is a good thing. It just means that Joe Average, who doesn't even know what antivirus software is, will be protected.
Hmmm. Sounds interesting. It will be nice to see what this addition looks like after the beta.
;-)
Quack, quack.
Microsoft isn't technically a monopoly though. Among others, there's Mac and Linux which people can migrate to. In reality, however, Microsoft has acquired a certain monopoly status simply due to user inertia. People have too much invested in their old systems and the change would be much more expensive than staying with Windows and dealing with the inevitable problems.
If everyone gets sick of all the Windows viruses and mass-migrates to Linux and Linux becomes an effective monopoly, should Linux distros be prevented from including free anti-virus or anti-spam software?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Ya think?
Does MS write anything these days? Of course they will use third party. Just long enough for them to understand it then discard it for their own "home grown" AV software.
Hey, less money spent on AV software is more you can afford for windows NTv4.
next you're going to tell me I have bad writing. Grow the F**K up. I don't need 37 emails like this from you and your yahoo account.
"I didn't say they were right to do so - i expressed no opinion about that -- i just asked how long you think it will take."
Fair enough, I apologize for putting words in your mouth.
I was thinking more in a general sense about how the Slashdot community feels about Microsoft, but you're right that I focused it too heavily on you.
Just so you understand, my frustration here isn't about blind defense of Microsoft. Rather, it's an attitude I percieve that Microsoft isn't being treated a objectively here as it should. As a result, I worry that the concerns expressed here (especially the valuable ones) won't be taken seriously by the people outside like the mainstream media. "Oh gee, Slashdot's got their panties in a twist again, of course they just hate Microsoft."
Hopefully, at least, you'll understand my point of view a little more clearly. I regret not being more tactful and forthcoming the first time around.
"Derp de derp."
This is free as in beer for private home use. Including updates twice a week. You Sir are a clueless faggot...
If Microsoft's "Trusted Computing" thing ever panned out, they'd be goners anyways... You can't sell security add-ons if the operating system is "secure enough". This doesn't really change anything, it just accelerates it.
c.
Log in or piss off.
This step would prove very good for the average home user than the more literate computer user.Most people still dont have AV scanners and even if they do they hardly update it.This would be nice for that section of people as it would be easy to update ur Anti Virus from your start menu or say your IE.
A half decent AV is still better than no AV.Also this could prove to be more effective(if the AV itself isnt a bugggy software which needs security patches every month) than other AV scanners because MS has an upperhand in know the windows internals.
Lord of the Binges.
So where does the line come between MS enhancing Windows and using Windows to force competitors out of the market?
Should Windows not come with a firewall because someone else makes a firewall (Zone Alarm)? Should Windows not come with a browser, because someone else makes a browser(Netscape)? Should Windows not come with a TCP/IP stack, because someone else makes one(Trumpet)? Should Windows not include multitasking, a GUI or a memory manager because someone else makes those things? (DESQVIEW, Dr-DOS, QEMM)?
As time marches on things progress. In 1993 it was perfectly acceptable for a computer to require $80 worth of additional software just to browse the Internet. In 1998 you expected to be able to plug in a brand new Windows machine, tell it the number of your ISP, and be browsing the web right away.
Now if the only way you could buy Windows was by also buying Office that would be an abuse. But does anyone complain that a perfectly usable word processor, WordPad, is included with Windows? No, because it's a basic application. It's designed to give the casual, out of the box user the basic functionality they expect from their Windows computer. Windows XP included a basic firewall, the idea being that security was becoming a requirement rather then a luxury and so users should have something out of the box. Now is the included firewall very sophisticated? No. If you want a professional firewall you get one yourself. Same could be said for a lot of other features; you want a browser with tabs, popup blocking, automatic history on open, etc? Get a "professional" browser like Opera. The time has come that virus scanning is a requirement, not a luxury that only the 5% of users with a clue should have. MyDoom spread like wildfire, despite it being an easily detectable virus totally blocked by any version of Outlook updated in the last few years and requiring total user stupidity. MyDoom makes MS look bad because the child like masses expect someone else to take care of them. While some people want a professional virus scanner, the average 90% user wants it to be dealt with from the moment they turn on their Gateway machine.
...a virus comes out that exploits a buffer overrun in the scanner?
(Yes, I've read "Jennifer Government".)
"Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard. Take over the world."
I never knew making a product that "sucks" was a crime worthy of antitrust implications. Huh, you learn something new every day.
Nope, this is America and here they have every right to pursue a profit motive.
The Ezine Directory
Did Microsoft build the virus scanner, firewall and file backup software or are they water-downed 3rd party OEM software? Something along the lines like Executive Software's Diskeeper? If they are 3rd party OEM stuff, will this protect Microsoft from being taken to court by McAfee and Symantec?
This has been coming for a long time.
It's just yet another step towards a perscription based computing service. First they'll have a virus update fee, then they'll start giving their OS away to compete on "TCO" with Linux - and increase the fee for virus updates, as TCO assessments never take into account viruses, it seems. At least when done 'by' MS.
It won't be long now until it's not possible to actually purchase hardware: everything will be a 'service'. The short lifespan of computing hardware only makes it more inevitable.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
As linux increases in popularity, I have no doubt we'll see an increase in viruses/trojans/etc targetted for it.
People repeat this year after year and it fails to materialize. I wonder why...
...I'm a bit bored with that shit now.
I just want to rinse it out proper!
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
What does Microsoft have to gain by putting antivirus and firewall companies out of business?. Their motivation is more likely to be trying to stop or at least slow down the constant waves of windows security exploits and viruses. They know they can't guaruntee that their software will be exploit free, so they're implementing preventative measures to their virus problems. There's nothing wrong with that.
Microsoft may not be an absolute monopoly in the classic sense, but they most certainly are a monopoly for the purposes of the Sherman Antitrust Act with respect to the desktop PC OS market. The Linux market presents a different case because, while there is only one source for the kernel, that is only part of the entire OS and there are a multitude of sources for a complete system, including firewalls, anti-virus and anti-spam tools, browsers, media players, etc. Even if the positions were to be reversed and Linux was in a monopoly position, the mere fact that the source is available and anyone can fork or modify it for their own purposes makes anti-competitive behavior very difficult.
There was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of a bus to never-ever land.
The OS division would have happilly put in virus and firewall protection and you know why? BECAUSE THAT KIND OF STUFF BELONGS IN THE OS! (WoW). assuming this (interesting??) idea didn't fall into the moronic category of 'all that runs on Windows belongs to the OS' ...
there's an implicit circular reasoning here. windows is tightly integrated so for any 'service' to run decently enough it has to 'belong to the os' and all the stuff that gets added this way only increases integration. not a good idea. modular kernels (the long-forgotten starting point for NT) were about loose integration. so antivirus and firewall services are os add-ons.
on a different tune, since we all know Microsoft is singing the 'monthly update' song now, an integrated antivirus that will use windows update for signature updates will fare poorly - remember that most current antiviruses have a high-enough failure rate to bless us all with the recent epidemics. Microsoft will have to include a 'disable' feature to allow for competition in the field and guess how long will take the virus writers to update the list of scanners to disable at virus startup?
can you say 'false sense of security'?
Only clueless idiots use words like "virii."
The tool is among the operating system enhancements the Redmond, Wash., company is developing as part of its Security Center initiative to rebuff viruses, worms, trojans and crackers.
I thought Microsoft had already announced their plan for dealing with crackers.
Yes, it would be like that. And a car company providing such a navigation system would be perfectly legal. Or here's another example: at one time, cars didn't come with cd players (since they didn't exist). Now, many cars do come with cd players. Should the federal government break up car companies that sell cars with cd players since they are hurting the market for anyone who wants to sell an "aftermarket" car cd player?
I'd rather be lucky than good.
You know, usually I would be the first to cry foul upon seeing MICROS~1 attempt to crush another industry... but this time, I really don't care.
I've yet to see an antivirus program for Windows that doesn't suck ass. Maybe the 409 kg competition will force Norton, et al, to spend actually spend money on improving their product, rather than burning money on INTRA WEB VIRUS ALERTS that read like PRs (oh wait, they ARE PRs).
The firewall products are just as bad--even if they don't crash your PC, mangle your system files and corrupt your registry, they are still completely useless--there's nothing to stop a malicious program from disabling the firewall you carefully set up, before carrying out its evil deeds. If there's not a Linux, etc, box, or some hardware firewall between you and your gateway then you are not safe, full stop.
Plus, I often get Spam advertising Norton's products. So for all I care, Norton at least can burn in hell.
>Or how long will it take them to release a service pack to fix the anti-virus program?
Never let it be said that I pass up the chance to bash Microsoft, but Symantec and McAfee don't win any prizes here either. My Soyo motherboard came with Norton AntiVirus, which crashed everything from video drivers to Word. Had to format C: and reinstall everything to clean up the mess. McAfee is better, but not by much. At least it runs without thinking I need to be in 640x480 video mode.If Microsoft can build a virus scanner that is compatible with their own operating system, great. I think I'll try to get an early bet down on "NO", however.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Just wanted to say thanks for the link in your sig. I'm a huge fan of the MOO series (although 3 was a bit of a let down), so it caught my attention.
:P
Carry on now
#include <sig.h>
Huh? NTFS has existed forever (NT 3.1 came out in 1993). Besides they liscensed the defrag code in XP from Executive Software makers of Disk Keeper, a MUCH bigger player in the defrag market then Symantec.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
It's different because you can choose between MySQL and PostgreSQL, vi and emacs, gzip and bzip2, apache and zope... etc.. If you have the temperment you can roll-your-own.
MS is anti-choice.
(btw, windowszip and MSCD Creator are (pretty much) both in XP)
No joke! I'm still angry about Henry Ford putting all those carriage makers out of business.
Oh, you are being serious. A company does something to make it's customers happy, and you want government gangsters to split them up because they put someone else out of business? As a consumer, what entitles TrendMicro to my $$$ when I would rather give it to MS (or not give it - service packs are free.
It makes a difference, legally. It remains to be seen whether MS uses its windows monopoly in an anticompetitive manner with regard to antivirus software, but it's something to consider. If they strongarm their OEMs into not bundling McAfee or Norton so as not to compete with their version, then they will likely run afoul of anti-trust laws. If they don't, they will be OK. I think what people on this site are saying is that MS has never passed over a chance to exploit their monopoly, which is why they've been in court so much.
Get a clue. Just because you can write code doesn't mean you understand economics.
Likewise, just because you understand economics doesn't mean you understand anti-trust law.
Those companies wouldn't exist if it weren't for Microsoft writing bad code in the first place. Surely they had clue that some day Microsoft would fix their code and these companies wouldn't be needed anymore.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
What a peculiar move isnt it? If the problem lies in the underlying system why bolt some more services ontop of it? The solution should be to prevent virueses to propagate in the first place. A virus scanner is only an intermidiate solution to a problem in windows, its by no mesure any real solution. Why not be bold and use a sandbox to open attachements in? Bochs style anyone? I can come up with numerous things that would be better than a virus scanner ontop of my head, why cant they?
I am stunned by how incredibly good salesmen they are and at the same time such loosers come to technology.
HTTP/1.1 400
Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. The problem I have with Microsoft tying everything to their OS is that they are using a monopoly product to atempt to gain a monopoly in another market where there is already active competition. There is nothing wrong with having a monopoly. There is nothing wrong (inherently) with seeking a monopoly in another product. Every company that makes a product wants a monopoly. What is a problem is using a monopoly to kill competition and gain another monopoly.
There was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of a bus to never-ever land.
The car vs carriage analogy isn't valid.
The competitive advantage of cars over carriages is that cars are more useful than carriages.
In this case, MS isn't providing a more useful virus scanner or a better product. Their virus scanner will arguably be less useful than existing offerings in the market. However, (and this is where my anticompetitive gripe comes from) they're able to instantly capture a majority stake of any given market just because they own the underlying platform, whereas other vendors are forced to blow millions on sales and marketing and trying to entice consumers to download and install their product. To add insult to injury, MS includes the product for free with the OS, knowing that given a free pre-installed product that's "good enough" the vast majority will be too lazy to look for better alternatives.
-fren
"Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?"
The people who complain about Windows being insecure are not neccessarily the same people who complain about Microsoft monopolizing.
But the people modding up the people who complain about Windows being insecure, and subsequently the people metamodding them, all just hate Microsoft so dont give a shit anyways.
If MS did a better job of writing their OSes in the first place (for example, by giving viruses less room to run and not allowing them to do what they want by default), their OSes probably wouldn't have had such a desperate need for anti-virus and security software. Extra locks on the front door aren't bad - but when the windows (pardon the pun) are large and unsecured, the added security is only illusory. Fix what's broken, rather than adding kluges to cover over the cracks, and then MS OSes might actually work better and be more secure.
The other issue, of course, is that if their antivirus sftware is as problematic as some of their other software, it may provide an even more illusory sense of security (because the AV sofftware doesn't work when users think it does). Do your software right the first time, and you won't have to do it badly a second time.
When MS gets going with TCPA, then this will really get fun - like having a large pit bull with a weak chain dragging you around. When the chain breaks, your computer will be yours, for as long as it takes for the pit bull takes to reach you. TCPA has the potential to take bad security to a whole new level - giving MS (in addition to the spammers and other malcontents who have already been doing it) the opportunity to take over your computer. Giving more power to your computer means that the security (the chain) has to be really good or people will be able to use your computer to do more against you as well. Bad security is the chain and the dog - when bad security becomes antagonistic to its users rather than merely useless, users will be hurt. Adding more software to do this is like adding links in the chain - only one has to break for you to be in trouble, and the dog can more easily bite you as well.
This is consistent with a business model of "embrace and extend" which wouldn't be good even if MS did what they extended to well. Since MS hasn't done well at extending (the software they've extended to such as IE hasn't been great), this doesn't necessarily improve security. Adding bad software to cover the flaws in bad software is not a good solution to a security problem. To borrow a Scotty quote from ST (well, badly), "The more plumbing they put in, the easier it is to stop up the drains."
It's not making the product and it sucking that makes the monopoly... it's just making the product in general.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
except they they arent writing the AV code.
they bought it from RAV, who consistently score in the top 5 in virus detection tests
I've been using the linux version of the software they bought-out, and it works great.
Yet another new source of revenue for M$. In the future, you'll not only have to rent Windows you'll also have to pay to learn how to use it. And everyone thinks I am a freak for using Linux...
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
This is the wrong place to complain about microsoft. O.S. improvements are good for everybody. MS should be split ( Goddamn you W.puppet ) into an OS and an applications company because what will happen is that MS will use this like they use everything else. It will be used to eliminate choice. In order for users to get up to date virus data you will have to use a whole bunch of choice destroying products IE,MSN etc. This will give microsoft leverage to go after search engine/portal competition as well as keeping the door shut on open browser standards.
This program was made possible by a grant from the Ultra-Humanite, and viewers like you.
What's the big deal?
The firewall in XP is positively useless. Many ISPs still include the free or pro versions of ZoneAlarm.
Do you really expect an antivirus product to be any better?
If we're lucky, it'll be on par with other free antivirus solutions like AVG.
Pop-up stoppers are already free for IE, and built-in to Mozilla, and AFAIK also in Opera
Having one built in to IE won't kill any businesses, it will just make it easier on the Google Toolbar coders who won't need to have this feature anymore.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
What's to say that you can't buy it from (insert vendor here)??? You buy a car and it comes with an engine, but if you want a performance engine, you can go get one from somewhere else...
Those of us that ran communiate pro email server software have been familiar with Microsofts plans for about a half a year. GeCad, makers of RAV (reliable anti-virus) were purchased by MS
u n0 3/06-10GeCadPR.asp
i =1 53
1 03 a.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/j
http://www.ravantivirus.com/pages/shownews.php?
http://antivirus.about.com/library/weekly/aa061
RAV was a fair to middling anti virus package. They usually were not first to the punch to catch new virus' but they did get patches out before the new threat became a real problem. I wish that MS had bought NOD32 instead. www.nod32.com. NOD32 is the best anti-virus package that nobody has ever heard of. They have one more VBtn awards (www.virusbtn.com) than anyone, including symantec and mcaffee.
RAV is better than nothing and at least they picked something that is relatively unobtrusive in operation.
Greetings earthling.
You seem to be under the impression that slashdot is one huge monolithic ball of opinion.
Yes, there are people on slashdot who bitch about Microsoft software being retarded security wise.
There are also people who are bitching about them bundling a virus scanner.
There is no evidence to say that there is a significant overlap in these groups.
For more information, see Discrete Mathematics.
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
> Microsoft isn't technically a monopoly though.
Judge U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ruled that Microsoft had abused its monopoly power and was guilty of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act. It doesn't matter what *you* think, "technically" or otherwise. Like it or not the judge ruled Microsoft a monopoly.
You do have a choice you are not forced to use their software!!! You can install real player instead of media player, you can install netscape or opera instead of IE. What more do you want??? Shit linux comes with a huge bunch of software now, but if I don't want to use it I can download something else and use it instead.
oh wait, there aren't so many...oops.
I guess users really don't do that.
Let's take your treasured Linux, for example. Why will people buy a different OS when they can get it for free? What about that OSS virus scanner that's available? How come you don't rail against that one for helping destroy Symantec and McAfee?
Then again, when one is a hypocrite, one forgets these things.
what I meant to say - Improved product - good. tying monopoly product to other products - very very very bad.
This program was made possible by a grant from the Ultra-Humanite, and viewers like you.
Yeah. And I'm *really* peeved about the record companies going out of business because of filesharing.
Obviously these companies aren't responding to what consumers want - free music. Their business should wither and die, rather than being propped up by government copyright gangsters.
(I was only an egg, but then I cracked)
Please mod parent as insightful.
Nice analogy there. Good show.
wbs.
Huh?
That's the life of a sharecropper.
Also, a company is allowed to try and make money. The fact the MS used media player to download mp3s legally is a smart move for them. It gives users the ability to download some music without needing to dload a "special player" first.
Bill Gates going and buying the gov't may be a good thing... then there may be some punishment for people who dload pirated software, and for people writing viruses.
just my 2 cents...
That's not what Jerry would say. That's what George would say.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
Look... MS made Symantec. Peter North and Bill Gates are like best college buddies basically. I mean... why would MS have left so many areas open to other companies to fill in the gaps? It HAD to be intentional. I remember using Norton Desktop for Windows in 1994 with my Win 3.1 box. They really made Windows usable and tolerable, if more unstable. So... I doubt they'd want to put their best buds out of business. ;P
Un-news
I have media players of all sorts, and an ungodly number of other programs installed, including giga-byte eating games, and I am barely within sight of filling half of my entry-level primary hard drive.
...considering they could have solved the entire vb-script email/word attachment hole in millions of machines around the world just by turning one thing of by default over 5 years ago! Instead we hear about whole mail servers brought down for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Well, there would be a case for an antitrust suit, firstly.
Second, we tear down MS because they do moronic things. Instead of including a Virus scanner how about just working to make virus infections less of an issue in the design of the OS?
-
So.. what happens when the virus scanner
tries to call explorer.exe or win.com a virus?
In related news... Microsoft now admits their
next version of windows will have a neat "uninstall" icon on the desktop.. only they plan to release a patch at some undisclosed date.
It won't take long before MS does that too. They do it with 'Windows Installer' (putting InstallShield out) and they will do it for virus protection.
IntechHosting - Free domain, 2GB, PHP, £4.95/$8.95
Is it just me, or is including a virus scanner with windows like including a New, Improved, More Absorbent Sponge to people living below a dam?
filter: +3. Hey, look! all the trolls went away!
6 months my ass. they have been so tight with ms and now they're getting backstabbed, i wouldn't be suprised if they tried to get an injunction preventing ms from realeasing this. No way they're gonna wait 6 months.
And this move will create a monoculture among anti-virus products, and a single choke point through which virus updates will be forced. As if the OS monoculture wasn't friendly enough to viruses, how will a big virus be fought if the single source for the anti- code is slashdotted?
Mashed potatoes can be your friends!
Oh, I see what you mean. Free is good when Open-Source does it. Free is bad when Microsoft does it.
Thank you for my daily enlightenment.
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
"There is no evidence to say that there is a significant overlap in these groups."
Really? Then how come, in both cases, there isn't a ~50/50 balance of opinion?
This is the sort of double-standard that always kills MS - they can't win no matter what they do.
.MAC services down your throat when you set up a system... =)
Apple bundles a browser with their OS, a media player, mail filtering, pop-up blocking etc. and everyone applauds them - MS tries to do so and people scream anti-trust.
Remember when MS put an MSN icon on the desktop of Windows 95 and people screamed bloody murder? I like how OS X tries to stuff
I guess the message is market leaders can't improve their product (i.e. engage in anti-competetive behavior) but everyone else can...
More often than not when MS adds stuff like this to their OS they provide very basic capabilities which can be improved upon by third parties. And it's often licensed from an established vendor. ZIP capabilities are licensed from Nico, but WinZip is still much better. CD burning in XP is licensed from Roxio, but it's very basic, and if you want more capabilities you can buy a commercial package. When they added backup to NT is was a slimmed down verion of the old BackupExec. NT defragmentation was a licensed version of Disk Keeper, and so on...
MS has done some messed up stuff, and I hardly consider myself a fanboy, but cut them some slack already... =)
PC World wrote an article in June 2003 outlining Microsoft's original acquisition of the AV software firm. According to the article the software was going to be sold separately and that the acquired firm, GeCAD, would continue to operate as a small consultancy, providing customers signature updates. GeCAD are the creators of RAV AntiVirus. Lastly, you can see the press release for the acquisition here.
When you get as large and immoral as microssoft, that is one of the prices you pay.. people from all sides wishing for your destruction...
I can remember when IBM was treated the same, though they didn't whine about it, they just continued on ( until they fell out of the PC boat they built... oops )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
So do you learn how to jizz buckets at Harvard?
1. selling an OS full of security holes
2. letting viruses, worms and hacks on the whole planet.
3. Any media hype - "fear ! fear !"
4. Announcing anti-virus integrated inside the next OS to be sold
5. ???
6. profit !!!
I'm so tired of hearing this crap.
If Microsoft wants to include their own browser/media player/virus scanner/popup blocker/disk defragmenter/image program (Paint?)/insert-your-program-of-choice-here that's just fine. Why does it bother people so much? You don't HAVE to use their apps.
Truth be told, your average Jane/Joe probably doesn't want to go out and try to find some free/expensive program to do those things. They'd just rather it be there and work.
Besides, I don't know if you've been keeping up with the virus scanning industry, but it's pretty much gone to crap. And one of the last decent pieces of software, Grisoft/AVG is FREE. Oh no! They're going to put Norton out of business! Bye bye McAfee! (insert sky-is-falling-type-remark-here.) Oh wait, they're still around.
Your other examples of "Microsoft Monopoly" are pretty weak. Winzip? Pfft. I won't even start on the Netscape issue. I hate to break it to you, but Outlook has had spam detection in it for a while. Oh no! All those poor spam detection companies are going bankrupt! Oh wait, they're not.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
It's not so simple.
MS is more than welcome to make and SELL AV software.
But by including it free, if that's what ends up happening, then they are exercising their monopoly (again) to drive competitors into bankruptcy.
And even then it's not so simple. Obviously free software exists. But such software is not built into the OS.
OS + free browser, then + free webserver, now + free AV.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
How long do you think it will take for Symantic, etc to file antitrust against microsoft. 6 months? 12 Months?
Where do you think ms will get the AV scanner?
Just like defrag came from symantec I am sure that the AV scanner will come from symantec also.
Symantec is not stupid. They work with ms and license to ms whatever ms wants.
Microsoft provides neither an MPEG2 codec nor a CSS decrypter as part of any Windows version.
In order to watch DVD's under Windows, a third party solution (such as WinDVD or PowerDVD) is still required.
Granted, when such a third party-player is installed, Windows Media Player also becomes DVD-enabled automatically, because it will immediately take advantage of the newly installed DVD-related shared libs.
So even if people solely use WMP to watch DVD's, they'll still need third-party software.
Therefore, the same anti-trust argument, as in the case of Netscape, Real and now possibly the antivirus solution providers, doesn't apply here.
"Oooh, does that mean we get to kick some puffy white mad zionist butt?"
OK, I've heard a lot of rants about how evil Microsoft is for bundling a virus scanner (big surprise). They're going to put all these AV software companies out of business. OK. Well, let's imagine a very hypothetical situation: one day, Microsoft releases a service pack that renders all Windows operating systems completely immune to viruses and worms and we're to assume that new viruses and worms never appear. That's good, right? But wait -- those AV companies will go out of business! That's wrong and Microsoft is evil for patching up their operating system, right?
Since that scenario clearly will never happen, Microsoft is instead opting to create a program that will, in theory, eliminate or significantly reduce the threat of viruses and worms on their operating system. The end result of either patching up the OS or creating a good, integrated AV program is the same -- significant reduction of viruses and worms, much to the detriment of existing AV software. What's the big deal?
As much talk as I hear on Slashdot about how record companies are trying to cash in on a dead business model, I'm baffled that is hasn't occurred to anyone that AV companies are cashing in on a business model that, in theory, will completely dry up.
Yes, the only logically consistent stance is to be pro-regulation or anti-regulation on every issue. Nevermind the issue itself, it's irrelevant. You must choose either anarchy or totalitarianism, because I, Anonymous Coward, will call you a hypocrite otherwise.
It really is hard to take anything you guys say seriously when it's all about bringing Microsoft down.
well, mr perfect, just take your ball and go read some other website then.
eh?
what's the problem?
oh... you LIKE to get annoyed at how everyone else is such a jerk?
well, then you've come to the right place.
Microsoft is about 6-8 years behind what they should be. They should have implemented antivirus while it would actually do anything. Their operating system is so full of holes, it's like waterproofing a sponge. And on the topic of symantec, etc. Microsoft is never going to match their quality. How about instead of this, implementing a replacement for ad-aware. It would be much more useful.
What will Microsoft's definition of a virus be? How long before we see messages along the lines of 'Warning, a non Microsoft product has been detected on this computer whichwill now automatically be removed'? This could just be a mandate for them to flag any rival products as being insecure. Do they actually enjoy antitrust cases?
when will it get out of Beta?
Technically an economist would define Microsoft as having market power. In their case it's pretty obvious since their products sell for something above marginal cost. Every successful software company has market power since we all know what the marginal cost of a software product is.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
I'd imagine they will go with Symantec, and integrate similar to the way the took on Diskeeper for defragmentation. Which is nice for Symantec and easy for Microsoft, but it *completely* shafts every other antivirus vendor.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Uh... no banana for you.
The Win9x defrag was licensed from Intel (I think it even says so when you run it...)
The Win 2000/XP was licensed from Diskeeper...
Thanks for playing.
"This calls for a very special blend of psychology and extreme violence" - Vyvyan "The Young Ones"
Ah yes, I can see it now. The AV software will be considered to be an "essential part of the OS." Let's see, first we had the browser wars, now we're having the multimedia wars, next will be the AV wars; anyone else see a pattern here. I won't lose any sleep over Symantec and that whole herd of parasitical AV vendors going out of business. However, I will be concerned if the DOJ doesn't step in and nip this move in the bud. Too much to hope for I suppose considering that MS has effectively paid off the administration and the DOJ.
Just my $.02,
Ron
Impeach Barack Obama for violating the Constitutional requirement to be a "natural born" citizen to hold the office of P
Why the hell would they need to create a virus to keep their company alive? There are thousands of people working around the world on viruses and probably create better ones than a norton drone will ever be able to. And the best part for norton, these guys work for free!
"..You bitch every single fucking day that there's some security exploit, and when Microsoft addresses that, suddenly you're crying anti-trust."
I wasn't aware they that they fixed all the holes in their code, I thought they only said they added a firewall. Please point me to where the article said anything about addressing *that*, which is where the security issues arise. My eyes aren't so good anymore so, I must have missed it. Thanks.
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Like doctors? Those fuckin' thieves!
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
That might invite restraint-of-trade lawsuits from virus writers, anti-virus product companies and the women who love them.
I understand your point completely, and you are quite correct.
Now to dabble into the subject which I hadn't expressed an opinion on before: Whether AV makers are right to do so
If Microsoft were simply to write AV software and sell it I would see _no_ problem with this. This is fair comptetition - nothing should bar them from writing the software.
However, including it with their operating system is walking on, if not walking across, the line. When they include it with the operating system many users will be happy to just leave it alone in the belief that they have an adequate antivirus software. This is same as the belief the Outlook and Internet Explorer and "sufficient and secure" because they're with the operating system. This is not even taking into consideration possible code taints from intermingling the AV and OS code and thereby weakining the AV software, possibly to the point of being ineffective.
If microsoft were to offer Windows itself, then with Internet Explorer, Outlook, Microsoft AV, etc as OPTIONAL addons - not bundled, then that would be completely fair - even if they were available as free downloads of Microsofts site (putting them in Add/Remove programs apt-get/yum-style, or in Windows Update would be pushing it)
Why is this fare? - It requires user intervention, and therefore user thought they are more likely to ask questions, consider their alternatives ratehr than thinking that just because microsoft put one there that it is sufficient.
There have been some attempts to say that if Open Source did that it would be similiary underhanded -- which is completely untrue and unfounded.
Why? This is due to the fact that open source operating systems are not made by a single vendor - they may be ASSEMBLED by one and that is called a distrobution. Red hat may bundle OS-AV1 and Debian may dunble OS-AVB. Not to mention to linux kernel code may or may not be written by the same guys as one of those antivirus programs. Just like most of the daemons, libraries, compilers, media players, web browsers, etc are written by people that don't dabble in the kernel. The very nature of Open course fosters competition - If Red hat or Debian are bundling one app (like AV software) with their distro and you're turns out to be better they are highly likely to switch to bundling yours, thus competetion is encouraged.
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
I guess virus scanners suddenly don't do much for dealing with email worms and the like.
Yes, legally, the judge has found them to be a monopoly. And judges are never wrong. However, in principle, they are not and have never been a monopoly. Sorry, wishful thinking, even when backed by a judge's opinion doesn't make it true. I mean, if you really have such faith in this legal decision, then do you likewise believe no innocent men are in jail and no innocent man has ever suffered the death penalty? Every Supreme Court decision is the correct one? Give me a break.
Except when the companies use FUD to sell their software.
Remember McAfee press releasing the "any jpg can be infected with the worst of all viruses"
Yo Grark
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
Yes, except that the newest version of NAV, 2004, has broken approximately 50% of the machines I've seen it installed on. And not just Windows ME (which -shipped- broken) but 2000 and XP as well. God help you if you run 98SE and try to activate a (legitimately) downloaded version. I've seen more systems come into my shop due to NAV issues in the past 3 months than I have in for the past 3 years. Symantec has really shot themselves in the foot; a bloated, buggy product in combination with product activation.
I've been sending my clients to the nice people at Avast. Haven't heard a complaint yet...
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Today I paid a visit to a client who somehow recently got a brand-new Gateway with NO virus protection at all, and were using it like that on their network.
.pif, .scr, etc copies of NetSky.B
The other users were reporting e-mails consistent with the NetSky.B modus operandi, so before installing SAV on the PC I ran Symantec's NetSky.B removal tool. The results:
48,000+ files scanned
6690(!!!!) different
Un-fucking-believable.
It's a win-win situation for everybody. These companies still have potential to gain because well, they are still selling their software. Microsoft gains because of the economic law of comparative advantage. Consumers gain because various companies will be competing to get that liscence with Microsoft. Of course, if say a power user isn't satisfied with the basic firewall or AV software that Microsoft will liscence, they are still free to purchase from other companies which will surely be there to cater to such niche groups.
Take that up with Congress and Judge Penfield Jackson. A company can have a monopoly in a market where they have a hundred competitors but the competitors have a cumulative market share of, say one percent, especially if the monopolist has engaged in anticompetitive behavior (such as onerous licensing schemes, etc.) in order to preserve their monopoly in the face of such budding competition.
There was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of a bus to never-ever land.
If everybody's granma used Linux, then I am sure some nice folk would release a worm targetting those people instead
The article linked to in the story is wrong and makes this argument slightly invalid.
Have a read of the keynote transcript.
"...and from an antivirus perspective, Windows Security Center can tell me if I have virus software installed, if it's on, and if it's up to date..."
That's all it is - a console designed to bring all security features together in Windows, including any installed AV software. It is not bundled AV software, just a firewall and a console that aggregates all your settings and preferences into one location.
Microsoft may NEED to continue to bundle more apps in order to compete with Linux, that is a potential problem for the whole anti-trust argument isn't it? If MS has to open the source of IE, WMP, MS-Antivirus etc. to avoid anti-trust concerns then so be it, if the alternative is loosing desktop market share they will do anything necessary.
I always thought the Open Source Movement should not pursue Anti-trust complaints for just this reason. More free software is better as long as it is our 'good' free software. If you sell your OS you can't make it competitive by bundling necessary apps, but if you give it away you can. I just don't see a consistent way of looking at the situation that stops Microsoft from bundling whatever it wants.
I believe that Linux has removed the monopoly view of Microsoft so they are free to do what they can to survive. Sure Windows still has market dominance but it is no longer a monopoly.
Yes, but if they release the virus themselves, they're pretty much guaranteed to be the first to offer detection of the new virus, aren't they? Aren't you even a little bit suspicious of the first firm to add a new virus to their list? They would look much more competent vis-a-vis their competitors if they wrote the virus themselves... not that I'm saying any of them actually do that.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
" I guess virus scanners suddenly don't do much for dealing with email worms and the like."
Oh, yeah..a M$ AV scanner. I'm reassured. With M$s' track record on bug fixes, I'm sure the virus definitions will be updated in a timely fashion.
That's a much better solution than having the mail client not be able to launch executables or VBS (by default, IIRC), along with all the other glaring security issues that allow virii/worms to run and propagate easily on a windows O.S. I prefer a system in which a virus scanner is considered to be almost needless paranoia, for a home desktop, but that's just me, I guess.
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
we'll decide what constitutes a virus. All traces of the nasty "Linux" virus inhabiting other boot partitions of your system have removed. Windows must now be re-started."
Sigs are bad for your health.
I really don't believe this will be a big deal. Most likely it'll just be a very basic virus scanner. The people who bought commercial virus scanners will keep doing so for a fuller product.
I don't see Microsoft pumping too much effort in to their virus scanner, as just having one will probably be good enough to make most people feel fuzzy. I have a hard time imagining another Netscape-like situation, and I'll tell you why.
Microsoft went all out with IE, not because they simply felt a browser should be included with windows, but because they were threatened. Netscape (and just the web in general) was turning out to be a whole new platform. Interesting technologies like Java were starting to make it clear that the web could be used to make platform-agnostic apps.
You really have to credit Microsoft with having the foresight to notice this was a threat, cause it was. However, the threat was really just that it would have leveled the playing field, which they obviously don't want.
So back to my point, virus scanning is just virus scanning. It doesn't really keep people locked in to a platform other than comparing to other OSes might be favorable. For example, "OS A has virus scanning builtin, while OS B does not." That is why I can't imagine them investing too much money in it or getting in to a competition with a current virus scanner.
FiGZ.COM - A waste of perfectly good web space
here's a thought. If it's an antitrust violation for MS to distribute a free antivirus, what are the implications for Open Source, when and if it becomes predominant in the market?
Will it be possible for there to be an Open Source monopoly, or will it be inherrently impossible because Open Source isn't an entity, but simply a classification for individual efforts?
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Get your facts right. A virus scanner has nothing to do with security exploits. It does nothing to address them - you're thinking of a trojan, or perhaps a worm.
maybe because linux hasn't increased its desktop popularity?
And how does the ruling you mention invalidate my argument? I said they've acquired a monopoly status despite viable competition existing. I don't need a judge's opinion to tell me how I should think, thanks. Nit-picking aside, did you have a counter-argument to make?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Where do you get this idea that it's free? You think Microsoft is some charitable organization, that just wants to give you a gift? Let me lay it out for you:
Microsoft paid money to develop the antivirus software. The cost of it is included in the cost of Windows. Since windows is the defacto standard OS, your forced to buy the antivirus software which comes with it.
Hence, it is not free. Your right about the "forced down your throat" though.
sure why not.
* they are helping microsoft
* all people who help microsoft should be shot.
* ergo they should be shot
* * ergo the Anti-Virus companies should be included.
can you imagine a world where there was no antivirus protection for windows users at all?
oh wait...that would be kind of like most of the windows world is allready.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
I've seen a whole lot of people complaining about antitrust issues, but to be honest, that's not my problem with this issue. My problem is how much control I'm going to have over my own machine.
.ini file and then uninstall it, and the system now generates an error message when a new user logs on for the first time because it can't find MSN.
I use a number of programs for which Microsoft has "integrated" alternatives. I use ACDSee Classic as an image viewer, I use Nero for burning CDs, I use WinRAR for archiving, I use Mozilla for web-browsing, I use Miranda for IM.
But to get ACDSee to work, I had to wend my way through assorted registry entries to disable the MS integrated version (changing registered filetypes wasn't enough). To uninstall MSN Messenger, I had to fiddle around with an
If Microsoft bundled an AV solution with Windows, and included it in the "Add/Remove Software" selection, as every other application is, or provided an uninstallation tool, I wouldn't mind. But based on track history, I'm going to be stuck with a lump of code taking up at the least disk space, and probably memory space and CPU time, that I don't use, don't want, and can't get rid of.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
That's a poor analogy.
If car mfgs didn't as a rule include seat belts, but rather there were actual seat belt companies that sold them, then your analogy might work.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Actually MS didn't license WinZIP they licensed DynaZIP from InnerMedia.
I'm sure the initial product will be free, but something makes me think that MS will be just as eager to charge you a monthly fee for Virus Definition Updates.
Just like they did with that horrible virus scanner they released with DOS 6.0 you mean?
It's not the first time MS have bundled a virus scanner with their OS, remember that.
a virus scanner does not fix an exploit.
It might if the AV scanner is built in to the operating system. Windows Update and the AV signature update could be tied together.
don't you get it? this will allow microsoft to benifit by having multiple viruses in the wild at all times, because you will want to get the 'OS that has a Virus Scanner included! er something like that.
i think the idea of microsoft+virus writer combination is a little scary....
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
{Little Explosive Icon}
This program has not been signed by Microsoft!
It may be a virus...
{Why Microsoft Signing is important link}
(Button "Delete") (Button "Cancel" that ends whole virus scan) (Button "Invite Auditor")
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
a company has a right to sell a product not advertising bull!
I have the latest build as I am an SP2 tester and this is bull. THERE IS NO AV INCLUDED!
Because the bitchers are always the most vocal group. Regardless of the issue or their actual numbers.
I'm sure there's a mathematical proof to show that, but I'm way too lazy to figure it out...
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Of course there will still be room for all of the other companies that provide actual quality products. For instance, you don't see ZoneLabs suffering at the inclusion of a "firewall" in XP. The "firewall" is such useless crap that anyone who knows (or knows a geek who knows) will gladly run out and buy a proper firewall program. Of course ZoneAlarm is free, so.... Anyway, if MS's "antivirus" program is as useful as their "firewall", I think it will just make Norton et al. happy to be able to prvide an AV program that really fixes the virii.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
:wq!
When Microsoft included a stripped-down version of the Diskeeper drive defragmenting software in Windows 2000, it hardly killed the disk defragmenting industry. The stripped-down version they included was absolutely sufficient but was not at all suited to enterprise users because it lacked the ability to schedule defrag runs and could not be fine-tuned.
I would bet that Symantec and Norton's biggest and most profitable customer base is business customers. These are exactly the kind of customers who would want more fine-grained control over virus scanning and who would buy a commercial product that would let them deliver a customized product to their employees.
Just a guess.
you know they sure can kill industries by bundling - but not all of them. When IE got better and integrated with the OS - it killed Netscape. But Netscape's disciples Opera/Konquerer/MOzilla are coming back from the ashes ... maybe mcafee/norton/zonealarm will too...
then again you guyz remember STacker? disk compression? that whole biz is long gone now and never came back...
By removing the profit factor, there is no longer an incentive for companies like Symantec to create new viruses. I predict we'll see a sharp decline in new viruses within the year.
Yeah, ok.
Cause google is actaully a cover operation for men with a small penis!!
Linux is fine for me, suggest you get your windows server, go do it up with a sub, a body kit and some spoilers and go make like an teenager with a nova!
Twat!
In order to do its job, Anti-Virus software must be able to intercept File and Memory calls; therefore it must by definition have elevated privileges.
If they have elevated/system level privileges, and they are poorly written (especially considering they're fucking around with the memory of executing programs) there is the potential for a critical failure/kernel panic/BSOD.
I decided to post in here instead of moderating this discussion because I just saw this today:
Windows XP Service Pack 2 - Security Information for Developers
How long until the virus scanner itself is hijacked and exploted?
You can't mask bad code with bad code. It's just a new product to exploit.
IMHO it's a bit of hype, but I'll wait and reserve final judgement.
I think this is a good decision for Microsoft because they are changing the system so that companies don't make more money everytime a new virus sweeps through. Instead, Microsoft will look like idiots if a virus defeats their OS *and* their virus protection. This will encourage Microsoft to tighten security and no longer will employees or shareholders of antivirus companies write "experimental viruses" (supposedly to be pro-active) and OOPS! it gets into the wild. Money makes the world go around and now more money will be made by Microsoft if consumers are protected. This will slow the inevitable migration of users to Linux, so is a very good decision for them.
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
I presume you have never used an anti-virus product.
I haven't either. Well, not intentionally anyway.
how long do you think you will be safe.
Well, so far so good. I think I'm probably safe for about 50 years, about until enough brain cells die off for my wits do go completely.
In fact, this is good news. It means there will be more computer service jobs. (but then maybe all the displaced antivirus people will fill them...)
It's all me.....
to be honest i'm not sure why you think this way. Microsoft has included antivirus products in it's operating systems at least as long as i had been using (2000-2002, MSDOS 4.?-Win98SE) it's just that they are finally replacing an aging, broken, obselete-10-years-ago part with a new part. this is NOT a NEW reason as to why they are breaking antitrust legislation NOW...(because this is a feature that has always been in windows, from before the antivirus venders even started in the feild)
although there could be an argument that they are EVIL and should be DESTROYED derived from this. but an update? so if for example, 10 years down the road, they give up updating IE, and 20 years down the road they suddenly provide a new updated one full of the features that their previous version had be lacking in Windows 2014 would they still in this case be committing antitrust ? I think we should be thankful that they had crappy code in their anti-virus side for so long.
that being said I also think the most of the antivirus companies should be sued into the ground and seeing them be screwed into the ground by microsoft to me is a reasonable compromise.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Peter North and Bill Gates are like best college buddies basically. Umm, Peter North? Isn't he an adult film star? I think that you mean Peter Norton!!! Just FYI!
I can understand people bitching about the integration of IE or WMP into the operating system, but I can't think of any applications that I would rather have tightly integrated than a AV prog and a decent firewall.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
There was no argument to make. I said your statement was incorrect. You said "Microsoft isn't technically a monopoly though." Well, it IS technically a monopoly. It's a simple fact. The court ruled Microsoft was a monopoly, that judgement has NOT been overturned, and, TECHNICALLY, that makes them a monopoly. That's just how it works. That's hardly nit-picking...it's a statement of fact, your personal disagreement notwithstanding.
;)
As for your conclusion that you don't need a judge's opinion to tell you how you should think...I'll leave that for others to judge.
Linking to capitalism.org to define the word "economics" is pretty funny. That site unabashedly argues for laissez-faire capitalism not on the basis that it's good for society, but rather because it's good for people who make a lot of money.
The anti-trust page that you link in particular to contains arguments that would frighten the hell out of any mainstream economist. Despite what capitlism.org says, anti-trust laws are about preserving competition, not "punishing businesses for being successful." Because it's competition that makes businesses give us good products and services, not the generosity of their hearts. You don't need to look any further for an example of this than Microsoft's own Internet Explorer, which improved in leaps and bounds right up until it killed Netscape, at which point all significant innovation halted.
And what's with the Henry Ford analogy? It makes no comparative sense whatsoever.
The point, for those who missed it, is that competition currently encourages several different anti-virus manufacturers to continually improve their products. If Microsoft gains a near-monopoly, that incentive mostly vanishes.
I should buy some cement.
"..(AND I COMPETATNTLY RUN SOLARIS SERVERS SO DONT TELL ME ANYTHING ABOUT LINUX BEING A PANACEA (dictionaries please boys, oh sorry your word processor doesnt have one),.."
:-)
I hope you meant "competantly", or whoever your running those servers for is in deep shit. My word processor has both a dictionary and a thesaurus, as well as spell checking, but apparently yours doesn't. Nobody is claiming linux is a panacea. But, as far as security/exploits/virii/worms vulnerability goes, windows is much more vulnerable, as your own statement that your work uses Solaris servers shows. M$ has been spreading FUD about *nix, and linux in particular, precisely *because* buisinesses are finding that, indeed, OSS/FS *does* provide a better/cheaper solution. You might have better luck being taken seriously (even as an AC) if you used more facts in your arguments, instead of trollish/childish name calling. Have a nice day
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Okay: Microsoft tried this already with their Firewall. Which in my opinion doesn't work as well as it should. {Its frickin 200 dollars for their OS, I better get an awesome Firewall for that. Not some check box that says Protect My Computer. WTF is that?} Anyway, Before thinking about a virus scanner, I think they need to close some security holes. Viruses are mostly user implied {Mainly clicking on unknown attackments in e-mail} anyway. I mean, is this another reason for them to charge for updates? Its rumored that Gates is trying to implement a subscription service for Windows. {Much like Symantec or Mcaffe Virus Scanners. Pay 14.95 a year for updates or so}. Microsoft needs to watch what they are doing. I think more and more people are going to start converting to OS X or Linux before they know it.
$>man woman
$>Segmentation fault (core dumped)
Is that what the problem is with 2004? I've seen it hose several machines, one so bad it needed a re-install, but the rest just uninstall, reinstall 2003. Fourtanately I'm a linux twerp so I dont need it at home :) I do think its been downhill since NAV 2002 -- when 2003 added the "Norton Fucked Up Recycle Bin" which hoses your system performance to save every temp file your system generates -- it was clear they didnt know what they were doing :) I long for the days of NAV2002 which came as a single 23 meg binary :)
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Actually it's nigh impossible to make a system which is 100% impervious to viruses. At some point in time when Linux desktop usage gets more significant and people start writing serious worms, we'll all need scanners too.
The only real way around viruses is to make a system which doesn't load any code which is of unknown origin. That effectively means implementing Trusted Computing, but I mean 'trusted' in the most correct sense of the word, where the user decides which corporations will be considered trustworthy, not some evil corporation like Microsoft.
Also, you would need to make all script execution trusted too, in other words all your little bash scripts would need to be signed to be able to run, in fact every tiny scrap of shell code which might occur in even a "system()" call would probably need to be signed. Evil... but eventually impervious.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Sad thing is, there were security holes in Windows that allowed just that to happen. I'm not saying it wasn't FUD though.
If I could mod you higher, I would.
this next service pack is going to seriously fuck up some software industries... a better personal firewall, a popup killer, and now antivirus, all now bundled with the OS? and free?!
Aren't these things Windows should have had in the first place? These companies were just capitalizing on things lacking in the OS. They made their money, they are free to find other niches to exploit. Isn't that what capitalism is all about?
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
They aren't fixing security wholes created by poor programming practices. They aren't even correcting thise poor programming practices. All they are doing by embedding an AV client into the OS is extending their monopoly further. What do you think a monopoly is? If they were fixing the problems then we'd be happy. They aren't. They are extending their monopoly, simple as that.
We can speak quite effectively and accurately from experience. Microsoft still manages to produce some of the most insecure operating systems after being in the biz for how many years now. They still manage to bork installations during minor little updates to things like Microsoft Office. Outlook, IE, and Exchange are still some of the most insecure pieces of software available for purchase today. We as IT professionals can speak from experience when we say that Microsoft will not be able to do this without borking something else.
I would say that Microsoft isn't technically a monopoly, even though it was found legally to be a monopoly. :)
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
BECAUSE THAT KIND OF STUFF BELONGS IN THE OS!
I can understand coupling the firewall stuff with the rest of the networking stack, but what basis do you have for claiming that anti-virus stuff belongs in the OS?
Come play Moral Decay!
I wish MS had just used WinZip. Then it might have had a hope in hell of reading formats other than Zip format.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Add to that Ford taking measures to ensure that you can't remove the navigation system to replace it with another without rendering the entire vehicle useless
My GPS unit sits right on my dash or attaches to the windshield. Also, just get your Ford without the navigation option. No biggie.
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
i thought service packs from ms were suppose to fix bugs and such, not add new features (and possibly introduce new bugs)
this next service pack is going to seriously fuck up some software industries... a better personal firewall, a popup killer, and now antivirus, all now bundled with the OS? and free?!
So the other free AV tool screwed up the expensive paid ones?
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
Personally I wish MS's Zip software worked more like Ark and so forth, where they could handle more than one format. Especially RAR... why do I need a built-in Zip tool when WinRAR does Zip format already? Wouldn't it be more effective to have the built-in tool handle RAR format at the same time?
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
The problem is Microsoft _is_ a recognized monopoly. As a monopoly you must obey different rules because you can destroy any company you see fit.
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
Downmod is an asswipe. Hope you get buttfucked in metamod.
" Do you really type all of your slashdot comments in via a word processor, or type them into a WP and run a spell check before every post? If so, I admire your dedication to the integrity of proper language..."
:-P
Never said I did..just replying to the comment that open source word processors have no dictionary or spell checking, combined with the posters' atrocious spelling. The irony was just too much to resist
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
And, thus, we're back to my previous statement that Microsoft may not be a classic absolute monopoly, but they most certainly do have a monopoly in the desktop PC OS market under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
There was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of a bus to never-ever land.
who really downloads anything other than the evaluation copy and puts up with the little message that pops up whenWinzip starts up...
Hell with that, just use one of the dozens of keymakers... oops did I say that out loud?
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
You MORON!!!
Microsoft can't do anything right for idiots like you. Either they keep putting out an inferior product that's vulnerable to viruses, or they put out a product with virus protection, in which case they're monopolists.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Microsoft has done right by me, as an IT professional and user, since Windows/386.
Foolish child.
See definition #3, then let's agree to end this, huh?
/-k(&-)lE/ adverb
From the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
Main Entry: technical
Pronunciation: 'tek-ni-k&l
Function: adjective
Etymology: Greek technikos of art, skillful, from technE art, craft, skill; akin to Greek tektOn builder, carpenter, Latin texere to weave, Sanskrit taksati he fashions
1 a : having special and usually practical knowledge especially of a mechanical or scientific subject [a technical consultant] b : marked by or characteristic of specialization
2 a : of or relating to a particular subject b : of or relating to a practical subject organized on scientific principles [a technical school] c : TECHNOLOGICAL 1
3 a : based on or marked by a strict or legal interpretation b : LEGAL 6
4 : of or relating to technique
5 : of, relating to, or produced by ordinary commercial processes without being subjected to special purification [technical sulfuric acid] 6 : relating to or caused by the functioning of the market as a discrete mechanism not influenced by macroeconomic factors [technical rally] [technical analysis]
- technically
I don't think anyone lost any sleep over fdisk, the burning application thats bundled with WinXP, or Notepad. So why the big deal over a virus scanner?
There was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of a bus to never-ever land.
Think before posting, I do not appreciate knee-jerk reactions to my posts.
It was a reasonable reaction to your post. You knee. Jerk.
To be perfectly honest, I'm happy to see this. If it helps Microsoft's track record and in some small way prevents the widespread development of fiascos like Blaster, Nachi, et. al., then more power to the effort. Have I been the only one who's found the continued existence of the antivirus cottage industry mildly repugnant?
Extinguish -
....
Say good night McAfee, Norton
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
I hope you meant "competantly",
Hey guy, are you completely stupid???
The word is, "competently".
I guess you're just incompetatnly, er, incompetant, er... incompetent
And people repeat year after year "This is the year for Linux on the desktop!" and it fails to materialize...
Must just be a coninkidink.
Hehehe..I was wondering how long it would take for someone to notice that :-P Congrats! And, no, I'm not anal enough to run my posts through a speel chek. :-D
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
the mess that other clueless idiots create with virii
Speaking of clueless.
> everyone and their grandmother would be up-in-arms (at least, one can hope).
/. crowd.
Well, we can hope. But times have changed. The P3 ID number scandal came before 9/11 and the widespread "Whatever corporate America/Bush wants for us must be for our own good. What Bill of Rights?" attitude that's set in like a mind-virus among most Americans.
Witness the reaction to the RIAA lawsuits--the defendants are settling out of court, the not-yet-sued cower in fear. No one's protesting the unconstitutional practices. These two situations are similar: The corporate interest in both cases is widely agreed to be right by the letter of the law, but their behavior is immoral and at times unconstitutional in many instances.
Of course, this all refers to regular people, not the
And that is why you are not a Network Engineer.
At least, we hope you are not.
sic transit gloria mundi
The software industry is littered with the dead and near dead companies that partnered with M$ and ended up getting the shaft. Take a look at poor Sybase and what their partner did with SQL Server, what a stupid move that was.
That is exactly the point! You should be able to choose. But when Microsoft incorporates the product into the operating system, you have no choice. You are forced to pay for their product. If they package and sell it separately, then you have a real choice as to where to spend that money. Microsoft sure as hell isn't giving you a free Virus scanner (or service packs for that matter,) you and I and everyone who uses Windows are paying for it without choice.
> I long for the days of NAV2002
If you thought NAV 2002 was good, you should try Norton AV Corporate Edition, Version 7. Came out circa 1999. Designed for Win2k/NT. Works like a charm on XP. No stupid bloated interface with fuzzy yellow buttons. No "subscription" reminders to pester you (It just LiveUpdates, the defs and the engine, without bitching). I install it on every computer I build.
If regular users understood the difference between an updated version of AV software and updated Virus Defs and Engine, Symantec/McAfee/etc would have no retail sales at all (they would only have the OEM market). I mean, in reality any old version of AV software will protect you from viruses just fine as long as you keep the defs and engine updated. People just buy the boxed versions because either:
A. they think they have to in order to get new virus defs (this is the dumber group) or...
B. their 1-year "free subscription" is over and they think they have to either buy a new box or subscribe in order to continue receiving virus defs. (Anyone smart could in most cases just remove said software and reinstall it to restore another 1-year "subscription.")
Fuck it in it's stupid ass.
The way to split Microsoft, to make the remedy work, would be to split it into identical parts, with the same starting codebase. In other words, "Microsoft 1" and "Microsoft 2", each with an OS and Office division. The government would need to monitor for collusion between the split parts.
That way, the split Microsoft pieces would need to compete across the board. Some of the pieces might get bought up by other companies, like IBM or Sun, extending the important codebase and patent licensing across the industry; this would encourage interoperability while necessarily fragmenting the fundamental monopolies.
Oh, and also as part of the settlment, public floggings of Gates and Ballmer.
Precisely. What a subtle way to start ushering in Palladium or whatever they call their supposed digital "rights" management system.
> but Symantec really knows their business
Well, you're in luck then. Nothing is stopping you from buying Symantec's antivirus software...
If Microsoft really wanted to improve the product they wouldn't add an anti-virus software to it, they'd fix the core desing that allows virus to exist in the first place.
Why don't they set proper privileges settings by default?
Why don't they make it harder to open an e-mail attachment?
Why not put activex programs in a sandbox (like java)?
The problem is that from a security point of view, the OS desing has critical faults.
And if bundling av software is the only way out, we know they'll do it just like they did with IE or WMP, making it almost impossible to compete with a similar product.
And btw:
put in virus and firewall protection and you know why? BECAUSE THAT KIND OF STUFF BELONGS IN THE OS!
The only anti-virus I have in my OS is to scan e-mails to protect people from another OS. So I guess av software doesn't belong in the OS, at least not in mine.
I think in this case Microsoft clearly has a much better incentive to offer a more effective product than the others. Once they do start including it, they will take even more blame for outbreaks and will therefore be even more inclined to have the best possible solution.
I have long thought the position of companies like Symantec and McAfee to be somewhat questionable, at the very least in appearance. What is their motivation? Do they really want to see an end to viruses? Is there any independent verification of their techniques?
However, while I think Microsoft will do a better and more honest job than these other companies, I also think that the best possible solution will come from open source. I think this is true of anti-spam software as well. These things need to be done by the community, which is the only entity that has pure motives with regard to truly eliminating these problems. These are also problems the solutions to which benefit greatly by the number of eyeballs (and brains!) that can be applied to open source.
Antitrust? The argument in this case is much weaker than in cases in the past that failed (disk compression, TCP/IP stacks, web browsers and all).
I beta tested the PC Satisfaction trial for MS which was an enhanced firewall, antivirus and backup utility. That beta has now ended with no real product in site. The latest drop of XP SP2 has no Anti-Virus in it. It does have an enhanced firewall similar to the PC Sat trial, but not all features. Not sure where they got their info, but it is wrong.
Hoyty
Bad example. Let me clean that up for you a bit.
Imagine if seat belts were an aftermarket feature only, and then Ford (as per your example, the only car company in existence) goes ahead and puts them in standard.
Gee, poor aftermarket companies! Who's Ford to make us buy cars safe from the start?
Virii cost companies billions of dollars in damage. They cause Joe Average to throw out his computer in frustration. Virus scanners and updates (oh, fancy that - Windows Update) save money for companies like seat belts save lives. Get off your high horse - this is something that really should become a standard operating system feature.
i'm amazed that i survived - an airbag saved my life.
If the AntiVirus vendors sue and lose, Microsoft sets a precedent that would allow them to expand the empire into new ground.
If the AntiVirus vendors sue and win, Microsoft will remove or modify the expansion, Gates could probably just cut a personal check for any judgement, but imagine the PR bonanza! i.e. "We're trying to improve the security of our products, but the anti-trust laws stifle our ability to innovate and remain competitive!"
Since you're pulling definitions:
:)
Main Entry: monopoly
Pronunciation: m&-'na-p(&-)lE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -lies
Etymology: Latin monopolium, from Greek monopOlion, from mon- + pOlein to sell
1 : exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action
2 : exclusive possession or control
3 : a commodity controlled by one party
4 : one that has a monopoly
Microsoft doesn't have exclusivity, nor is the PC desktop controlled by only one party. Hence, according to the technical (strict) definition of a monopoly, Microsoft isn't one. That is all I meant.
So does that end it now?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
" Yes, the only logically consistent stance is to be pro-regulation or anti-regulation on every issue. Nevermind the issue itself, it's irrelevant. You must choose either anarchy or totalitarianism, because I, Anonymous Coward, will call you a hypocrite otherwise."
anti-regulation is not anarchy. It is an affirmation of individual rights. The only regulations that should be imposed on a person are to prevent the infringement on the rights of others. Arbitrarily imposing regulations on businesses simply beause you don't like the way they do business is totalitarianism. The govt has no right to tell MS what they can include in Windows than they have the right to tell Red Hat what they can include. Forcing MS to give you what you want at a price you want is a type of slavery.
Vote for Pedro
Symantec - yeesh, where to begin - it destabilizes and slows down any computer it's installed on. To be fair it does a halfway decent job at detecting viruses if you keep it updated, but Eset Nod32 is a much much better piece of software. I love the new version - it automatically installs with what I think are the best possible defaults, then stays out of your way for a year until it's time to subscribe again.
"[Windows] isn't that horrible. For 90 minutes at a time it's a great gaming platform."
I think you meant MacOS 9, and I'm not exaggerating about the 90 min.
Aside from the various anti-competitive problems... I can bet that MS will shove their anti-virus into the kernel (alteast somewhat), even though stuff like that is far better as a user-space program. And we probably won't be able to disable it. Yes, some of us who aren't dumbasses don't need anti-virus programs working all the time.
#include "sig.h"
Apple Macs come with a built-in firewall, and I don't see anybody complaining over there. They also come with a built-in mail filter, and the same thing applies: no one is complaining. In fact, it all makes good sense.
...)
You do accoasionally get complaints on the Mac side, when Apple has done similar things (eg. Sherlock vs Watson).
But in general it's not so much of a problem.
I think the main reason this is so, is that instead of providing a complete solution, Apple add the infrastructure to the OS, and leave room for others to provide 'compensatory' products that use that infrastructure.
For instance, the built in firewall in Mac OS X (ipfw), is part of the OS where it belongs, but they only provide a pretty basic interface to it, unless you want to get your hands dirty with the command line.
This provides a market for things like BrickHouse which add an easy to use GUI over the top.
Even when they provide a total solution they don't necessarily kill the competition. When Apple released Safari, people were worried about what would happen to Opera.
Opera is still around, they've even moved to using the WebKit core, so they no longer have to worry about all the complicated HTML rendering code, and can instead concentrate on the bits and pieces around it that differentiate their browser. One could argue that Safari being released actually helped them. (Whether or not that translates into sales is another question)
The Mac has always been a very extensible platform. In the past, third parties had to use traps and patches and other nasty low level hacks. In Mac OS X, they have made it easier and safer through the use of frameworks and plugin bundles. (eg PithHelmet, GPGMail,
Apple could do a much better job of documenting these (Try working out how to write a Mail plugin. Every single one in existence seems to be based on GPGMail which did the hard work of reverse engineering it) but they do not try to squash competition.
Symantec is way byond viruses. They have been behind some very good software tools for Microsoft Dos and Windows predating the whole virus issue.
Most of what they do is make commen sense improvments to Microsofts products that are well overdue.
So Microsoft bundles software with Windows that should have been released with MsDos 4. Mcafees hypes the problem Symantec sells software pacages.
If Microsoft crushes the virus industry: Good riddence. Virus experts have lived off FUD for long enough.
Symantic is just selling the software tools people want.
Mcafee is creating that want through fear.
Goodbye Mcafee hello Norten security analisis pacages.
I don't actually exist.
It will be ready as soon as they figure out how to keep it from deleting Outlook!
#1. Open source software kind of does the same thing. #2. Quite often, Microsoft buys the software rather than developing it. It's usually a pretty good payday for the developer. #3. Software, like manufactured goods, has a downward pricing slope, that soon reaches near zero. Make your money on the early releases, before the market scrapes bottom.
But that's assuming Microsoft is innovating instead of just buying the software they need. RAV anyone ?
Besides, an anti-virus program is not as simple as you might think. And Microsoft has been so incompetent that their Office suite spawned an entire generation of new viruses you would have never thought possible before.
"Yet, when Linus Torvalds offers a free Linux kernel to the world, SCO tells the U.S. Congress (your "Government Gangsters") that Linux is a threat to the security and economy of the U.S. Ironic, huh?
And the Gubmint ignored them. Case closed."
They didn't ignore MS. That's the hypocrisy.
" This would be a lot stronger arugument if they made the addons available with similar difficulties as their competitors - ie download (probably for free) from the MS website.
This way there would at least be some incentive for people to look at alternatives to MS Zip, MS media player etc.
No, not totally fair, but about as far as you can get when one company has a monopoly.
MS can extend their market share from 0% to probably >>50% of the AV market in _ONE_ release cycle by leveraging their existing market share - how can that possibly be considered good for the economy?"
Who the hell are you to tell MS what they can or cannot bundle with their OS. And who the hell are you to force people to waste time downloading software if they would rather use what MS provides. Fascist.
For the anolog to be complete the medical industry would be saying preventive medicen dosen't work.
That keeping your home clean and bathing is a waist of time you'll get sick anyway.
There are good anologs between the medical industry and the software virus industry.
The best would be ADD. It's a real disorder but so populare that a good number of kids labled with ADD are actually just suffering side effects of the medication.
But annother anolog that may be more appt today would be bloodletting.
Bleading patents to cure them of the commen cold.
Using anti-virus software to stop worms.
Sure they clean up the mess AFTER the damage has been done. Congradulations your screwed. Your anti-virus software will do exactly NOTHING to save your butt. By the time it's detected it has already cleanned out your bank account, trashed all your files and contacted all your friends.
The anti-virus industry would have you believe anti-virus software is the ONLY way.
If you don't patch your machine and keep regulare back ups your alternitive is to stick your head between your legs and kiss you butt goodbye. Becouse nothing will stop a worm if you fail to secure your box.
On that... Symantic sells very good system backup software I recomend buying it.
I don't actually exist.
The reason that so many worms and viruses attack Windows with so much success is because of unnecessary services having gaping security holes in them. Look at Blaster binding itself to DCOM on port 135. DCOM is a completely unnecesary service that practically nobody uses. ANd what's even funnier is that Microsoft's workarounds to security holes are often the solution. Microsoft's workaround for Blaster: Run dcomcnfg and Disable Distributed COM Services. That's not a workaround, that's a solution! If DCOM isn't running, then Blaster can't bind to its interface. Workarounds to ActiveX exploits. Disable ActiveX controls and plugins. Again, that's a solution. Turn off things that are insecure. A built in virus scanner also creates insecurity. If it's part of the OS, then any security holes it might have could also compromise the rest of the OS. And I have a funny feeling that Windows File Protection and the anti-virus program aren't going to get along very well.
Excuse me as I wipe the cola off of my monitor.
Raj Against the Machine! http://social-butterfly.appspot.com/
were in dos, and thus before Windows 3.1 even existed!
Cover your eyes and click this link!
I don't think outlook had a spam filter until outlook 2003.
It actually works pretty well too.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Because working to make virus infections less of an issue in the design of the OS is a much more expensive and complex undertaking. Including a virus scanner is a fast and cheap solution that gets the job done. What is moronic about that?
um, just because you bitch on slashdot doesn't mean your understand economics. This isn't similar to Ford putting carriage makers out of business. This is similar to Rockefeller expanding from the oil business to take over railroads, pipelines, and various other industries over which he could exert influence from his monopoly position. Having one single company making ALL SOFTWARE is not good for the economy, is not good for the people, is not good for, well, anyone but Microsoft and it's employees. The rest of us would like to see some good old-fashioned capitalist competition in the market. So that we're not stuck with Microsoft's carriages when we could have automobiles...
Actually linux comes with MULTIPLE browsers, MULTIPLE firewall products, MULTIPLE media players, and multiple, well, everything. None of them are integrated into the OS, and all of them are fully interchangable. The linux software market is full of competition. Unlike the Windows side, where you're stuck with whatever Microsoft makes and gives away for free, because they drove everyone else out of business.
Instead of fixing the problem let's just copy what the third party companies are doing because the bucks are already there. What a f#%ked up company. THIS IS ACCEPTABLE!!!
I work on OSX play on Gentoo and laugh at Windows.
The reason no one complains about Apple is because they don't have anything approaching a monopoly, and have not proven themselves a threat to the software industry nor to numerous open standards.
(or maybe they have tried to be a threat, but the fact is they suck, so no one cares)
1) Microsoft is a natural monopoly. The value of your product gets geometrically higher to have closer to a natural monopoly. To achieve and maintain a natural monopoly is nearly impossible and requires you to offer value BELOW the cost of entry into the market. These natural monopolies have provided tremendous value to the country. The nation's formost economist Alan Greenspan explains this here.
2) Do not confuse a natural monopoly with an unnatural one - IE - the post office, the DMV, etc.
3) The Sherman anti-trust act, as bad as it is, is for the protection of consumers, not competitors. You have to prove demonstrable actual damage to consumers - you can put your comptitors out of business all day long.
This message is sponsored by the letters A, Y, and N.
Just think -- in the next windows version they might create an OS that's easy to use and big free, thus killing the tech support industry... Talk about anti-trust!
We bitch about lack of security then bitch when they take steps in the right direction. I think the AV industry can always make a profit with "added value" applications. There's no way MS can provide the same level of support.
-precog
And the constitutional convention ruled slaves as 3/5s a person. That does not make it so, and 'because someone said so' is a poor argument.
You have conveniently left out the Sherman Antitrust Act contents from your argument. Sure, Microsoft is not the singular entity producing operating systems but according to the SAA, they certainly are in violation of anti-trust laws. They possess a massive market share not through user choice over viable alternatives but through shrew and unsavory business practices designed to eliminate their competitors either by discrediting said competition or by simply buying it up and forcing it out.
I just had a scary thought. Remember a while back when Microsoft was talking about how they want the ability to force users to apply patches to their systems remotely? They said this after another round of worms exploiting well-known vulnerabilities. Remember the outcry after they said that? I took a cursory look at the older articles on /. and didn't find the one I'm referring to but I know it's there.
You should think your analogy through before you make it. Seatbelts are government mandated safety features of all cars. This was not always the case. Seat belts actually used to cost more if you bought them from the manufacturer until the government stepped in and required all manufacturers to install them. If Microsoft is providing the seat belts to my car I'll ride the bus running Linux. Fancy that, the bus doesn't need seat belts for anyone but the driver!
Any company? That must be one hell of a monopoly!
Um, hello? hospitals, doctors, and drug companies ALL have a vested interested in there being new illnesses so that they can keep their jobs treating them. If they cured all disease, they'd be out of a job. There'd be no one to sell drugs too, no patients to treat, etc.
Heck, as long as we're being cynical, funeral parlors obviously have a vested interest in people dying. How do we know they aren't going around shooting people so they can sell more caskets??!
Who the hell are you to tell MS what they can or cannot bundle with their OS. And who the hell are you to force people to waste time downloading software if they would rather use what MS provides. Fascist.
That's the point. If it comes bundled no one has a choice. Microsoft is not creating something new. They will probably deliberately undermine other companies to gain the competitive edge because most users simply will not bother to look for alternatives if Microsoft provides something bundled. If they shrink-wrap it in a different box from Windows and sell it or give it away for free that's their prerogative. When it becomes bundled, there's little incentive for people to get something better.
I can understand coupling the firewall stuff with the rest of the networking stack, but what basis do you have for claiming that anti-virus stuff belongs in the OS?
Your body protects itself from infection from the inside, why shouldn't an OS?
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
For that matter they could have used info-zip... not like anything ms does comes with a real assumtion of "fit for use" and the info-zip would have been as usable.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
Parent post makes a good point. Microsoft has a history of misdirecting resources and misplacing priorities. The proper solution would be (would have been perhaps since the horse left the stable years ago) to engineer things from the bottom up to be secure against virus attacks. Although no system is perfect, Linux, *BSD, All UNIX variants, MacOS etc have FAR fewer problems and consequently a much smaller market for anti-virus software (even in proportion to their market shares).
... well ... every release of Windows after 95 and NT4 where MS boasted about the new Windows booting up and shutting down "faster than ever!". Somehow it escaped MS that perhaps a better way to reduce wasted time on startup and shutdown by making the damn system more stable so frequent reboots were not required! And as far back as DOS 6.2, rather than streamlining their system they opted to integrate DoubleSpace compression into the OS.
This reminds me of
*sigh* Oh well, I've always considered anti-virus software to be like most lawyers: parasitic waste of money but unfortunately a neccesary evil at times. Therefore I give kudos to anyone and anything that can reduce or eliminate the need to (legally) pay for the crap. Maybe MS will feel extra charitable and give away integrated virus protection for win2k also. Until then I'll only pay for Norton AV for business (to stay legal) and use free Grisoft AVG at home.
I hope Symantec, McAfee et al don't bitch and whine about this development, get up, dust themselves off and redirect efforts to software that is acually USEFUL and does not take advantage of a poorly designed OS (perhaps security, encryption, privacy and so on, being they already have some involvement there)
Don't get me wrong, I do think that XP is, by far, the most stable OS that Microsoft has developed since MSDOS 5.0 . It still does not mean that I have to agree with the BS they keep pushing on us.
Here's an idea, how about Microsoft start by making tighter code, instead of this lame ass bloatware that they keep pawning off on the public. How about MS also start by understanding their code so that there are not as many "Buffer Overflow", and other gaping holes that have been produced in their "OS"
Remember, half of the worlds population is below average intelligence.
Don't know about the rest of you but I'm sick of hearing about Windows viruses.
This is a no-brainer for us Linux users.
Just don't run unverifiable code.
Is it really so complicated?
That's one of the hazards of running a windows-based software business... you pay Microsoft for windows licenses so that they can compete with you. MS takes your money and then uses it to fund a competing product, it really is a futile endeavor.
I happen to know, and I'm not saying how, as it would not be a good thing for my job, that companies that "license" things that go into windows don't get paid for it. They get a mention in the license page in their feature, and a reasonable assurance that M$ won't crush them... for now.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
When the stock for McAfee (or other) is really low, MS can buy it for the technology and slowly improve its own lacking anti-virus over the next 10 years ;-)
I hate being pessimistic, but i mean, Microsoft has a hard enough time trying to patch their software, now they're going to keep after definition updates for an anti-virus software?
There's such a thing as "don't spread yourself too thin" and "don't fix a problem with the cause of another problem"
I really don't hate Microsoft. They have the MONEY and manpower to fix the problems they're having, but what's the hold up? Some guy in his basement can fix a problem in linux code and put his patch up for availability for FREE, and yet it takes months to patch a known problem for MS?
*shrugs* some things we'll never know.
A Penny for my thoughts? Here's my two cents. I got ripped off!
It would be good enough to add an option that disables execution of any code that is not signed by MS or by the customer. Corporate environments would be very excited, since only official, trusted and licensed code runs. MS already has this for the drivers, why not to extend it to .exe and make it changeable by admin only?
Look at this scenario:
Small Company makes great product, threatens MS rival product.
MS include in the next virus definition (that's automatically updated by windows update) code to detect and block competitors product.
User attempts to install software, but is thwarted by a message saying "This software contains a virus and/or spyware.". User decides against software product due to mistrust.
Small company sues Microsoft for this behaviour. After drawing the lawsuit out for a while to weaken the company with its dwindling cash reserves and rapidly declining sales due to MS tactics; MS settle with the company.
By now the company is pretty much dead, their brand name is in ruins, and the settlement only gets the execs out of debt while leaving all the employees up sh*t creek.
It's that easy. And they've done similar stuff before (hello stacker? DR DOS?).
In this case, MS isn't providing a more useful virus scanner or a better product.
.zip files are just folders. Not an original idea, I am sure, but it makes sense for this to be included.
I could easily argue that an operating system that has virus scanning built into it is insanely useful, but are you saying these are the only tests? What about ADDED VALUE?
Microsoft should be severely punished since it violated laws to acquire its monopoly in the OS world. However, they were not severely punished. Therefore they should be permitted to improve their products as any other dominant company may do.
I used to bitch about their inclusion of MSIE and how it was essentially game over for competing browsers. But the market is proving me wrong -- look at the success of Mozilla. It is a viable choice in the market, and has exerted market forces to cause Microsoft to improve their product or face more customer erosion (witness the upcoming addition of popup blocking and other ideas taken from 3rd-party browsers).
There is definitely value added by Microsoft including certain things in the operating system. Where do you draw the line?
One of the most popular file formats on earth is PKZIP. For the longest time, PKZIP had the most market share, and then WinZip has held it for a long time. But Microsoft added "Zip Folder" support in XP, and it MAKES PERFECT SENSE. Why should I pay extra and have to download WinZip every time I install a new version of Windows? The OS should be able to open common file formats for the sake of usability. AND the way Microsoft implemented it is easier to use than WinZip --
It makes sense for an operating system to come with features to keep it secure. Are the same people that bitch about the Windows viruses plaguing the same as those bitching about Microsoft including A/V features in the upgrade? I sure hope not. This is a logical step, one that should have been taken way back with Windows 98.
whereas other vendors are forced to blow millions on sales and marketing and trying to entice consumers to download and install their product
Those other vendors haven't spent the BILLIONS on R&D, marketing, and sales that Microsoft has spent building Windows into that "underlying platform" that you refer to. Where would these competing software vendors be without Microsoft in the first place? If they want to continue to be successful, they should improve their products.
Microsoft should have been punished and broken apart for breaking the law to build it's monopoly. But it wasn't -- that was the government's fault. And so now it will compete as though it is your standard monopoly -- something which is NOT illegal in its own right.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
My browser actually checks spelling for me (Safari under OS X). I'm surprised Mozilla hasn't used the idea yet (or maybe it has, it certainly doesn't do it by default).
As usual, MS works with third parties to solve a problem, encourages them, etc, then builds their own to roll into the OS, screwing the third parties. Over and over and over. This is the biggest single reason I loathe MS. And no, I have never been one of the third parties. I just think their attitude sucks, and is terrible for both the software community and the user community.
Of course, if they just solved the real problems, this wouldn't even be an issue. Viruses wouldn't be rampant.
Does the current viral situation remind anyone else of midevial Europe? Black plague, anyone?
""As I recall, people were declaring the death of Zone Alarm and Black Ice when it was heard that XP would contain a firewall. I remember the predictions of Symantec's doom because Windows 95 had a disk defragmenter (3.1 and NT did not). The deaths of MusicMatch and REAL were all too.. er... real, when Media Player was to be included.""
Well, BlackIce is just about dead. ZoneAlarm is popular because it's free & offers the all-important application-based rules. They also offer a nice value-added version that you can buy if you want bit more features. Compared to that, XP firewall is crippleware. XP firewall is also not 'visibly' there - you don't get a 'let's configure your firewall' wizard after installation. Heck, most people do not *KNOW* XP has one. And it's, funnily, disabled by default (And there will be lots of issues when it automatically turns on with SP2. I can't wait for all the support calls due to stuff 'no longer working' after SP2 turns it on silently. People use lots of odd stuff that needs open ports...)
95 and later disk defragmenter *has* just about killed the market for defragmeters. No home user buys a product to get a disk defragmenter. They might use symantec one if it comes bundled with bunch of other stuff, but they wouldn't go out and buy one because windows has one builtin and it seems to do what is needed.
And, like it or not, MS Media Player has a sizeable market. Only reason people also install RealPlayer and others is the sea of incompatible file formats. If MS software would play RealMedia files, realplayer would go byebye in a flash.
who MS stole this product from.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Well with the current state of affairs, trojan wirters/ virus writers/worm writers all need to write special code if they want to shutdown/bypass AV software cause its so varied. If everyone uses MS's AV software then that makes the virus writing that much easier. And if an exploit is found in MS's AV then the whole world of Microsoft will be immediately in danger unless they are running a 3rd party AV.This is in no way good especially considering MS's track record. In a worst case scenario prepare to see a new wave of next generation self morphing viruses not detectable by crap signatures.
Regards,
Steve
Emacs + LaTEX + M-x flyspell-mode
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A professional looking, proof-read,
properly spelled paper
that looks like it came out of a
professional journal.
Knuth himself would be proud.
For those of you who missed the announcement on Slashdot, this is the antivirus product they bought. (V. Good :D)
Especially with all the /.ers complaining about windows virus's, you'd theink they'd be happy to see the (potential) end of them all
The backup and restore people don't seem to have been hurt by the fact that Microsoft's bundled a backup program in Windows NT since NT 3.1, they seem to be doing just fine.
Executive Software also seems to be doing fine selling defrag utilities, even though Microsoft includes a defrag utility in NT too.
If M$ continues in it's trend of bundled software, the AV software they bundle will be just good enough leaving lots of room for 3rd party utilities.
I suspect that the bottom line for this is that they want to be able to put virus updates on WindowsUpdate and get people to download them to their machines automatically - which doesn't necessarily happen with Symantec and McAfee.
"It's nice seeing someone who isnt the usual /.er with blind hatred towards MS "
Thank you.
Unfortunately it earns me accusations that I own MS stock or something. I just want more objectivity and less "I hate them so everything they do is wrong".
"Derp de derp."
> Microsoft is a monopoly though and that you can't disagree. I mean for God's sakes... they saw how companies were making quick cash selling music for 99 cents per song and decided to input that into their trusty Windows Media Player. Can they just not get enough money?
I'm with you on this, except for the interesting fact that nobody is making money on the music download business, except the record labels. Apple is just using it to sell iPods, and God knows how Roxio is expecting to make a profit with Napster.
Which raises the question: What kind of sick fucks are they at Microsoft? They know there's no profit to be made in that business, and yet they are going to drive out everyone else anyway, with no financial incentive to them. They're just doing it to ensure Windows Media's continued dominance as an audio format.
Likewise, in the anti-virus market, Microsoft won't be directly benefiting from bankrupting all the anti-virus vendors; however the benefit to them is more tangible than in the music analogy--they can put out press releases pretending like their OS is secure once Windows users stop contracting so many viruses.
But Netscape's disciples Opera/Konquerer/MOzilla are coming back from the ashes.
One small company and two open source programs. Sounds like a thriving "industry".
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Antitrust law does not forbid you to hurt your competitors.[*] All competition does that. In fact, that is what competition is. Given a fixed number of customers, any enterprise that tries to attract as many customers as possible necessarily hurts its competitors, who will either lose customers or not gain as many new ones as they would have otherwise. Thus, the competitors will be financially worse off than they would have been had if they had been able to lay their grubby little hands on those customers. Or at least they should be. Competition is supposed to punish inefficiencies and reward efficiency, thereby allocating scarce resources the best/most efficient way possible.
What antitrust law primarily seeks to protect is competition, not competitors. Now, it might admittedly be just a little bit hard to have the one (former) without the other (latter) and much of tension within antitrust law and the debate surrounding it centres on that particular problem: should antitrust regulate structure or behaviour?
In Alcoa[**] Justice Learned Hand stated that it was not the objective of antitrust law to punish efficient companies: in case a party has had a monopoly 'thrust upon it', its position was not unlawful. However, he went on to say:
This so-called Alcoa doctrine placed monopolies under a strict per se-rule: i.e., monopolies were prohibited as such. The issue became one of structure: does an enterprise occupy a position of monopoly (within a relevant market) or not. If yes, unless it can be proved that the company is a mere passive recipient of its monopoly position, it is unlawful.
The Alcoa doctrine was severly critized, notably by Robert Bork in his The Antitrust Paradox: A Policy At War With Itself. Justice Hand seemed to find Alcoa guilty of being nothing more than a better competitor; better at doing business; in fact, Alcoa was being punished for being more efficient. And as the criticism took hold, courts reverted back to an ante-Alcoa, U.S. Steel[#] rule of reason approach centring on the behaviour of monopolizing: simply put, intent + harm. This would appear to be the (established) law today.
Bork and the Chicago schoolers sometimes seem to go futher than that however: one sometimes gets the impression that to them, the existence of a monopoly shows nothing more and nothing less than superiority in the market place. In other words, a position of monopoly is evidence of superior efficiency; efficiency is a valid exculpatory defence as it contibutes to increased consumer welfare[##]. A lot of the defence of Microsoft's monopoly case seems to rest upon this premise. See, for instance, here and here; for a more sober view, see Posner's article Antitrust in the New Economy , in particular, perhaps, pages 8-9.
Neo-classical economic theory and its antitrust exponents (to which Bork and the Chicago-schoolers obviously belong) are not without critics however. See, for instance, this piece by Metzenbaum and Foer in which they write:
The liver is evil and must be punished.
I can only second that. We've got nod32 running on most of our XP client customers, aswell on most linux servers (amavis+postfix). Works like a charm, one can switch on "invisible" mode with autoaction for even the most stupid user, and it is way faster than any product I've ever seen.
0 001 11 1
For the automotive industry, I've likened it to oil companies giving away cars for "free" and hiding the cost in the price of gas.
*poof* bye-bye automotive industry.
for years virus writers have had to make tough decisions on what anti-virus software, if any, their virus would circumvent. do I write for Norton, McAfee, Sophos? there are just too many choices to get around them all.
once Windows AV has taken the market share and driven out the competition, this tedious job of getting around virus protection will become much easier.
knock out Windows AV
infect computer
How the fuck would you do that when your user base is stupid enough to double click an executable attached on an email from bob@growyourpenis.com?
If they're deriving this information from Gates' keynote at RSA, I think they may have misintrepreted what they saw. First of all, he (or Zachary Gutt, the product mgr. who actually demo'ed SP2) never said anything about incorporating MS anti-virus. HOWEVER, he did mention that you will be able to turn anti-virus software on and off as well as display its status using the new Security Center. They actually had a copy of eTrust AV running on the demo machine, which is certainly not MS anti-virus.
The security center itself allowed you to manage several aspects of XP security that had previously been de-centralized, i.e. firewall, anti-virus, system security settings, etc.
The fact that InternetNews doesn't specify a source makes me doubtful...
[-_]
does MS have to write every "standard operating system feature"? Right now most folks with a clean computer buy an OS and a word processor. Why not bundle Word into Win2006?
MS won't bundle Word into Windows until there is a viable competitive product to crush. That means probably never.
But they bundle an antivirus program, a disk compressor, a firewall, a http server, an email client and a web browser. More "standard operating system features"? Or previous walks down the same road?
Viruses in Windows have two causes:
1) The e-mail programs allow received code to be executed.
2) Bad programming practices.
They could easily solve number 1 by putting an option in their e-mail applications to stop code from executing (or execute the code in a sandbox, in a virtual filesystem/registry, whatever).
The second one would take them lots of audits, but the least they could do is write a program which parses their C/C++ code for references to arrays and automatically reports where each array is used, if it is indexed using a signed integer (instead of an unsigned one) etc.
here.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I remember they had on a MS-DOS instalation an antivirus (MS AV)...
We used RAV Antivirus for our Qmail installation for about 3 ro 4 years. Smashing product, updated itself every hour over ftp, kept us free of iloveyou, anna kournikova, all the way up to mydoom, netsky and bagle et al, and most of all CHEAP. But, last september, they posted this message, announcing that they would be ceasing new sales and terminating subscriptions at their next renewal because they had just been bought by Microsoft. I Immediately thought Hmmm, how long before we get Microsoft Antivirus. Looks like I was right.
So, those of you who are worried out Microsoft's programming prowess, fear not. Your PCs will be protected by a romanian team with 10 years experience.
You'll note that AV vendors don't tend to compete on detection - detection rates among most of the established players are pretty much identical - there's also a policy in the industry of swapping virus samples with each other immediately.
There's absolutely no financial sense for AV companies in doing this: best-case scenario is that they have to spend money to get a minute advantage that most AV vendors claim *anyway*, worst-case scenario is that the company directors get ripped away from their yachts, mansions, and BMWs to spend time in prison.
Think, before engaging fingers.
Score:-1, Funny
my body creates a load of crap too - oh wait, sorry I see where your going with this one.
Actualy it's a double hit for M$. Not just they bought one of the best antivirus technologies of the moment, but they also eliminated one of the few decent Linux antiviruses (IMHO). I still believe that 1) the RAV guys should not have sold their product together with every right they had to write antivirus software ever and 2) they sold too cheap. But it's a free market.
A month later or so after its shipment with new Windows, you will probably find patches for the scanner becoz of...
Buffer overflow vulnerability in AV scanner could allow code execution
...
It's not FUD. It IS both teoretical and practically possible, even for Linux.
The recently leaked Windows code proved that any image-file can lead IE to execute arbitrary code. Just do a quick Google on it and you'll see.
Of course, it depends on vulnerable code installed on your machine.
I wonder how much this will help all the noobie developers actually create viruses using the holes left by M$ :-)
http://efil.blogspot.com/
What about Windows 2000 (and ME/98) version ?
I'd imagine they will go with Symantec, and integrate similar to the way the took on Diskeeper for defragmentation. Which is nice for Symantec and easy for Microsoft, but it *completely* shafts every other antivirus vendor.
MS doesn't even need to do that. It's been already mentioned once or twice in earlier posts: MS bought an East-European antivirus maker called RAV a few months back. IIRC, RAV was regarded as pretty good antivirus solution. MS bought them out, payed the owners, hired a handful of developers and discontinued the product after a few months of updates. I understand it was an especially bad blow for Linux users, because RAV was widely used and efficient on Linux servers as well as on Windows.
So if you ask me, this is the obvious and logical next step: putting the AV solution they bought where they usually put stuff like this, bundle it with Windows. And from what I gather from the way they went about it, they don't intend to to depend on Symantec or other AV vendor for this.
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
Anti-virus software isn't particularly clever, the only thing that has changed since the early 90's is the size of the virus list. I will be glad to see the end of their bait and switch tactics to get users of new PCs to buy overpriced subscriptions after the antivirus software that came pre-installed on their PC suddenly declares that it was only a trial version after all.
...working at the anti virus companies.
I bet the first version of this M$ AV tool will suck but then they will gradually improve until most people do not see the reason why they should buy another AV tool.
If I would work at Symantec/Sophos/... or whatever company that produces anti virus software, I would look for a new job now.
They're scanning for questionable software, mp3, isos, and kiddy porn.
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
TechNet Security Bulletin:
KB9765432 - Microsoft AV Security Update:
A vulnerability has been found in the Microsoft Anti-Virus utility that allows a virus in quarrantine to escape with Administrator access and grant a remote user full access to your computer.
KB9876543 - Internet Explorer Security Update:
A vulnerability has been found in the Pop-Up Blocker utility that allows a pop-up to side-step the pop-up blocker and use Active-X to gain Administrator access and grant a remote user full access to your computer.
KB9654321 - Windows Firewall Security Update:
A vulnerability has been found in the Windows Firewall utility that opens all of your ports, granting a remote user full access to your computer.
KB9543210 - Windows Messenger Service Security Update:
A vulnerability has been found in the Windows Messenger Service that allows a remote user to turn it back on and spam your computer with net sends.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
>Yeah. And I'm *really* peeved about the record
>companies going out of business because of
>filesharing.
>Obviously these companies aren't responding to
>what consumers want - free music. Their
>business should wither and die, rather than
>being propped up by government copyright
>gangsters.
Are you joking? This comment is moronic to the extreme. Of course consumers want free music. Consumers want free everything. I'd love a free car. But as you clearly were sleeping during the entire dot com debacle let me tell you that producing and distributing something for which you receive no remuneration is not a business that lasts very long. The music industry will wither and die far faster by giving it all away for free than by not giving consumers "what they want."
Given the numerous sheep who begin every post with "I hate M$ (sic) as much as the next guy", I can see how someone might make such an assumption.
> I can't think of any applications that I would rather have tightly integrated
> than a AV prog and a decent firewall.
You lack imagination then. There are lots of things that I'd rather have
tightly integrated with the OS than superfluous antivirus software. (The
firewall is another matter, but it's also off-topic for this thread.)
What would I rather have integrated with the OS than AV software? How about
a secure shell server? How about an X11 server so that GUI apps can be run
over the incoming and outgoing ssh connections? Gosh, wouldn't that be nice?
How about a thing that automatically checks with a network time server on
the internet and keeps the system time accurate? Wouldn't it be nice if the
OS came with Perl and a working CPAN.pm out of the box? Which brings up
another point -- what about a full development environment, complete with
compilers or interpreters for several popular languages?
Antivirus software should be integrated with the mail server, but it doesn't
necessarily need to be integrated with the OS.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Don't think for a second that MS coded this software themselves. They purchased RAE Antivirus about a year ago and promptly shut down their software development (I know, I use their software to do server level email scanning), but definition updates are still forthcoming. I saw this coming a long time ago.
Prospective station wagon buyer: "I know what you say is true...but...er...I don't know how to maintain a tank!"
Decent firewall? I want one that _works_. Period. Plus, I want it hardware based and not tied into my OS. Or, conversely, I want a box dedicated to running just a firewall and passing the data on to my main pc. I do NOT want my firewall integrated into my OS and tying up resources needed to run the system - especially the memory hogging Windows. And, please, before you start ranting about memory being cheap - that is a relative state. To you it might be cheap, to me a single stick of DDR333 512Mb RAM could be more than I could afford without saving for two or three months. Not everyone is making $20+ an hour that has a computer and can afford to slap in new memory to increase its capacity. So, back to the firewall and AV, basically I say no to the firewall. Give me hardware that I can flash upgrade as needed and doesn't affect the speed of my computer system by hogging memory and just works. Lots of them on the market for less than the price of 512Mb of RAM and they tend to be much, much, MUCH harder to crack than Microsoft software. Plus, most script kiddies don't have the will to figure out which firewall you run, look for exploits, try them, try them again, etc. But, hey!, you're running Windows Firewall v1.x on WinXP with no service pack 4.x. w00t! This little program right here should let me through....
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
I guess we know what he does in his spare time!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I mean, how many XP boxes are still pre-SP1? Probably more than the % that are patched up-to-date, otherwise we wouldn't have these kinds of virus-outbreaks.
So in conclusion: Is this a marketing technique? Mostly, I think it is, but it's not bad to have this as a baseline security (fresh install, connect to internet for updates, get virus, unable to get further updates scenario is pretty common these days). Just let the users know that they should stay up to date. I think that is M$'s biggest problem.
The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
You've seen stuff slip by McAfee? Really? Was it updated correctly? Yeah, I doubt it. I take care of several small companies (under 20 pcs per company) as their network consultant/troubleshooter/hardware dude/whatever and all of them, including the one employing me full-time, have never had a virus slip through McAfee EXCEPT for one dumbass employee who decided their computer wasn't running fast enough and started shutting down programs - including the firewall. Then they checked their e-mail. Yeah, after I charged them around $500 for stopping the virus and cleaning up their system and then telling them WHY they ha the virus, the employee's job was hanging in the balance. I also had an instance of a couple of computers not updating correctly and one of them got a virus but, all in all, I'd trust McAfee as much or more than Norton.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
Most people do not buy windows seperately from a new PC anyway. For one thing, it's damn expensive unless it's part of a bundle, and for another thing, most people wouldn't feel comfortable buying it and then looking up the FCC number for their sound chip/scanner/video card/whatever MS forgot to provide a driver for on the install dist to find the vendor so they can download and install the driver.
Most people who use computers do know how to reinstall their system using the re-image disk bundled with their Dell ( or whatever ) because they've been gatored/infected/corrupted enough times to have been forced to pick up that skill.
99% of computer manuacturers do bundle an antivirus program already. Manufacturers know that preventing virus protection will prevent some customer tech support calls and save them money. The antivirus software, although bundled, is not part of the OS, though it is part of the package the customer bought.
There must be very few people who installed their own copy of windows from a CD purchased from microsoft not bundled with their computer who have not installed a virus checker. Those who would know enough to want to upgrade their systems would probably be savvy enough to install some kind of virus checker such as the one available for free at http://www.free-av.com
And corporate users have IT departments to keep viruses at bay. Corporations already install non-free virus checking software.
Why would microsoft add this? Not to cut down on viruses: very few nodes have no virus protection. Virus protection that has not been updated recently with the latest virus definitions is the fault of users. But those users do not want to be forced to update either, especially if they are late for an appointment, and do not have time to wait for them to download before they can check their email.
And though windows is a McDonalds $2.99 combo meal and you can not buy just a Diet Coke for 99 cents, I don't see people paying more for windows because of this.
Microsoft wants to say it's more secure than Linux because it has a 'built in' virus checker. Of course it will not be 'part of the OS' as that would be stupid. But they will call it that because it will not be uninstallable, and will be bundled on the OS install CD.
Of course there are Linux distributions that come with virus checkers. These checkers are not 'part of the OS' because one can exhibit a Linux without a virus checker installed. But including it in the distribution is just as retard proof as including it 'in the OS'. One would have to go out of their way to uncheck the 'install virus checker' option on an install of a distribution that included it by default, and if someone went out of their way to do that then presumably they have a good reason such as wanting to install a different/better one in it's place.
Eat at Joe's.
And by extension to really stop the problem the anti-virus software should run at the source PC...
Oh wait.
-- Gary Goldberg KA3ZYW 301/249-6501 AIM:OgGreeb Digital Marketing Inc., Bowie, MD
At least provide a link to clue him in. http://www.perl.com/language/misc/virus.html
-- Jason
I can't believe no one realized that this was intentional. And I am happy with the mod as well. This was certainly a fresh attempt at trolling.
Un-news
How long do you think it takes, for someone to find a hole in this piece of software, to easily upload vira to someone's computer with WinXP? ;)
a virus scanner does not fix an exploit.
Well, what if 'an exploit' is actually a dumb user who clicks on the attachment?
Mathematical nitpicking: half the world's population is not necessarily below average intelligence.
Average of 1,6,6,6,6 is 5, but only 1 number is below the average.
You can have a small group of REALLY stupid people bring down an average a lot, and still have more people above the average.
Umm...your skin is one of the first lines of defense against infection. I would say that is outside your body...(not to mention that the outer layers are dead cells)
-- The Genesis project? What's that?
And giving away software you've worked on long and hard for free isn't moronic? Hmm...
Boy, Microsoft can't win with you guys, can they?
Good point. Though note that you are in fact posting on a site where just about every article about Microsoft is accompanied by a picture of Bill Gates in his Borg attire. =)
<insert witty linux comment here>
Okay let's see: Virus breeding ground for an OS. Commercial security software makes tons of cash.
OS that is secure. No commercial security software.
Wouldn't suprise me one bit if someone at the virus companies was at least aware of who makes the viruses.
+5 troll
Edit: I just noticed that I forgot to include the link to the PC World article. You can view it here.
Why should Microsoft add support to read TAR/GZ formats into Windows?
It would be nice to be able to (de)compress ACE and RAR formats though.
Virus infects both Windows and Linux!
you liar
Since I've never contracted a virus on my operating system and I've never ran any AV software on it I suppose there are quite a few things I'd rather see *included* with my operating system. I'd prefer nothing be forcibly integrated with it though.
Since I've never contracted a virus on my operating system and I've never ran any AV software on it I suppose there are quite a few things I'd rather see *included* with my operating system. I'd prefer nothing be forcibly integrated with it though.
I suppose it's a whole different world of there.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
Actually they do have that right. Considering that at least one judicial body has decided that they are a "monopoly", Federal anti-trust laws apply to Microsoft.
RAV and AVG have consistently outperformed McAfee and Norton AV for me. Must be the proximity to the former Eastern bloc driving them to anti-virus perfection...
If ms can't fix holes in their OS, then why would we trust them with an anti-virus program from them? By they're record, it should be as buggy and bloated and probably not catch what it needs to catch, and also there will be some hole that a remote hacker can take control of your virus scanner and disable it or something (remember german guy and the PIII?)
Because the people who aren't bothered by the issue don't post. You only hear from the people who are bitching.
You don't get many posts saying "I don't really mind.", do you? Obviously they don't care enough to post. Or at least they're never modded up. You're not seeing a representative sample.
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
Applying a Band-Aid to a sucking chest wound doesn't fix the problem.
:)
How much more "complex and expensive is it" than (poorly) 'integrating' umpteen disparate applications into a single code-base?
It's moronic, because, in doing so, you run the risk of breaking the original code you're attempting to 'integrate' the seperate code into, and/or breaking all the outside code you're attempting to merge with the original.
And with Microsoft, that usually ends up being the norm, rather than the exception.
As for adding AV code to the OS.. I'm sure that'll be just as useful as integrating WinZIP into the shell. Sure, it was good at first, but it has since become outdated. Is there some way of upgrading that 'version' of WinZIP that I've been unable to find? MS may or may not regularly update the virus definitions, but I seriously doubt they'll bother to update the scanning engine, 'cause that would just be too 'complex and expensive', wouldn't it?
By closing the gaping security holes that allow said attachments to exploit stupid users.
.exe, 'cause the gap it enters through isn't there.
If the holes are closed, it doesn't matter if Joe Retard opens an attached
Microsoft needs to stop adding useless bells and whistles to their already-bloated OS, and address the -serious- shit.
We don't need a 'new, even MORE gaudily streamlined GUI' with every release.
We don't need five-hundred newly-integrated features that we can get (usually far better) from 3rd-parties.
Unfortunately, as long as humanity is driven soley by the quest for money, Microsoft (and others like them) will continue to attempt to jump on every new bandwagon that clatters past their door, and we will continue to blithely accept poorly-designed, badly-written crap while smiling happily and asking, "Thank you! May I have more, please?"
Frankly, I'm amazed we make any progress at all, what with seemingly -everyone- taking the 'quick, cheap, half-assed' approach to "upgrading".
No. Believing that money, and the acquisition thereof, is the single-most imporant thing in all of existence, and "Why should I do anything if I don't get something out of it?" is moronic.
When we all wake up and extract our heads from our asses(where they've, sadly, been stuck for far too long), maybe we can start making some -real- progress and advancements.
Until then, we get Microsoft Windows.
Bleading patents...
Innocent misspelling or Freudian evidence of a deeply rooted hatred?
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
It's nice seeing someone who isnt the usual /.er with no manner's either
Exactly how is one Open Source AV scanner monopolistically killing another Open Source AV scanner? Open Source is by definition anti-competitive to Closed Source. (Not quite what I want to say, but as close as I can get with a 151 hangover.)
I agree that this will trigger yet another barrage of antitrust lawsuits for Microsoft.
Bundling the OS with antivirus software seems like a good idea, but it also has certain long-term implications that aren't so great. What happens when support for legacy OS's with built-in virus protection? Will older systems continue to be honeypots, festering with every new incarnation of worm and trojan simply because the sale of that OS isn't profitable anymore?
I also don't see why MS keeps trying to value-add their products by piling on support for add-ons (MSN, Media Player Updates, IE Updates)rather than more robust features and better security. It is nice to have a fully-usable OS right out of the box, but it sucks to be force-fed an entire OS upgrade simply because MS finds it no longer feasable to support an older OS plus all of its bugs/exploits and cruft.
IMO, MS needs to dump the extras, plug the third party guys that make Windows marketable in the first place and beef up the operating system itself in terms of security, speed and usefulness.
Also an API for standard OS-program hooks (anti-virus software, browsers, email, etc) would go a long way to make things better for everyone, not to mention avoid hemmoraging cash in the form of legal fees.
Since I've never contracted a virus on my operating system and I've never ran any AV software on it I suppose there are quite a few things I'd rather see *included* with my operating system
How do you know that you don't have a virus if you have never run an AV program? OK your data hasnt been deleted... yet, but that doesn't mean that you aren't infected. Do you take any other measures against viruses? (Like not using a vulnerable OS like one of M$'s attempts?)
- Muzz.
"Mr. Gates, we simply can't get the security holes in our own OS patched fast enough... the users keep finding new ones! What about if we just include a virus scanner instead of fixing the problems that let them do damage?"
I think the majority of people that this is aimed at are going to be the kinds of people who really don't know their arse from their elbow. I am nowhere near the tech genius that a lot of people are and I take great care to use the best virus scanners and firewalls available to me. I don't equate free with good and I doubt a lot of the people who currently use seperate virus/trojan solutions will fall into that category. I am a little concerned about how easy it will be to remove from my system when I update but remove it I will and I will carry on with the products from the companies I trust.
When they discover the centre of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it.
Seems like internetnews.com were wrong when it was first posted. Scroll down to the bottom of the article. Now it says:
Corrects earlier version which incorrectly stated SP2 would include a built-in virus scanner. The offering actually includes a pop-up monitor that checks the settings of third-party anti-virus and firewall applications, and allows users to modify them if necessary.
A built in virus-scanner would have been nice, though ;)
Where does it say they are including an anti virus papp in SP2, I am using SP2 and I sure don't see it. The security center will tell you if a THIRD PARTY AV progie is installed and warn if it is not enabled.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
chairmen bill says to the menions, "make a virus scanner product".
why didn't he say, "fix the opeating system"?
Yes. That was sarcasm.
On one hand you have a company essentially putting other companies out of business because of consumer demand, even though the government has told them to stop doing such things.
On the other, you have the government propping up businesses with outdated models of distribution, even though consumers are demanding change.
Do you not see the inherent contradiction in these two things?
(I was only an egg, but then I cracked)
Do you take any other measures against viruses? (Like not using a vulnerable OS like one of M$'s attempts?)
Yes, that's the point I was trying to make.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
Oh, and the drug companies love incurable diseases, since that gives them a customer for life. There is more money to be made in palliative measures then cures, so that's where they focus their research. If doctors and hospitals really valued our health so much, wouldn't they focus more on preventing disease, rather then waiting for patients to get sick? I never claimed anti-virus companies were actively writing new viruses. I just said that they have a vested interest in not preventing them from being written. Just as firewall vendor's stock doubles whenever a new worm comes out. Police and firemen get paid the same whether or not they prevent crime and fires. The more viruses there are, the more the stock of the anti-virus companies goes up... that means the officers of the AV companies have a fiduciary responsibility in their being new viruses.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
The article in question has been corrected, since SP2 does not include an antivirus scanner, but only an antivirus software monitor that monitors if 3rd party antivirus software is installed, enabled and up-to-date.
heh, well if not moronic at the least bit somewhat odd.
-
And this lack of money feeds the family and pays the bills? Hmm, another interesting point from the anti-Microsoft bandwagon....
Anti-virus softwares are useless without up-to-date virus definitions. How will MS implement this? Forcing users to dial-out everyday? When dialing out, what info does MS get? Even scarier, knowing that MS implementation of all softwares is buggy as hell, will users get suckered into false sense of security?
When will MS acknowledge that merging softwares with OS is not a good idea for the users and more importantly, when will users acknowledge that Microsoft cares only about Microsoft and get rid of Windows?
The next-generation virus may even spread through MS anti-virus software because it's tightly coupled with the OS's services.
Why are we all so supprised???? Come on its Microsoft.... not like they wouldnt venture into a market to steal potential income from another smaller more inferior company....
Won't work. Forcing a user to tick a box to "sign" the code that is supposedly going to show them t33n b00bi3s before running it will barely slow them down.
Corporate environments would be very excited, since only official, trusted and licensed code runs.
Corporate environments could probably do this right now with the existing technology simply by limiting execution permissions.
MS already has this for the drivers, why not to extend it to .exe and make it changeable by admin only?
Because for the vast majority of vulnerable and already affected machines, the ignorant user *is* the admin.
You don't understand, anti-virus market is essentially "artificially created" due to Microsoft's crap OS design - the epidemics we have in the Windows world should never have existed, had Microsoft decided to implement proper security models and design that ALREADY EXISTED BEFORE DOS 1.
Anti-virus software is SYMPTOMATIC TREATMENT of an underlying broader problem.
Did you even read the article? Look at this point at the very beginning of it:
The tool, which checks for third-party anti-virus and firewall software and lets users know whether it is enabled or not.
Microsoft is NOT including its own AV software with sp2, but will include a program to monitor 3rd party AV software and 3rd party software firewalls for you, warning you if you have it or not and if its definitions are updated or not. Typical slashdot biasness.
Microsoft are not going into the AV business with this.
My Gawd WTF...
With AV software built into the OS the black hats will only need to crack 1 (one) AV layer to get into 90% (or more) of computers. We go from an OS + Office monoculture to a an OS + Office + AV monoculture.
All in all it makes the problem of breaking into a random Windows box much easier.
Stonewolf
Because people distribute software in that format.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=98239&cid=8390 406
Your original
and he's done it before
Microsoft used to ship an AV "solution" with DOS. As I recall, it was the most effective method of spreading new viruses I'd seen up to that point, but was pretty useless for detection.
We'll see how this one does, but as with most Microsoft software it will probably take them until the 3.0 or 3.1 release to get it right...
The article states that the new anti-virus feature "checks for third-party anti-virus and firewall software and lets users know whether it is enabled or not".
That doesn't sound the same as a competitor to Symantec/McAffee/etc., they're just writing a monitor to warn the user if they've got AV running or not.
Does anyone else read it that way ?
I am unsure what corporate environments can do right now. They can reset all exec bits all they want, but how will it work if the stoopid luser is allowed to save t33n_b00b135.jpg.vbs, short of prohibiting any save onto the local drive? Even if you inherit "disallow exec", there are always other drives, like floppy... and such a setup is awfully tedious.
But I guess this is coming anyway, in Palladium form or some other. As long as the owner has the signing key, it is OK.
If Microsoft wants to play just like everybody else, they can lose their monopoly status. Simple, isn't it? If they want to keep their monopoly status, then they can't be like everyone else (mono == one). While it's not illegal to be a monopoly, it is illegal to leverage it to raise a barrier of entry for others to compete or to gain entry to a secondary market. Is it so hard to understand?
If Microsoft were split up, they might just have to compete on merit, i.e. to write a better OS or Office or browser instead of the swiss cheese they call Windows. Isn't it a fact that Microsoft based their decision from the marketing PoV? Do you need scriptability in Office without limitations such that a macro virus can be written? Do you need to auto-launch email attachments? Do you need to tightly integrate a browser to an OS? And so on and so forth.
And who said not letting them to improve a product? Nobody prevents Microsoft to clean up their codes and protocols and APIs. That is how MS can improve their OS instead of putting hacks upon hacks on them or patching them like a quilt.
I think that /. should have a filter on threads about monopoly for posts that say "But Apple includes..." or "But linux includes..." and redirect the poster to a page about legal and illegal monopolistic practices.
It seem some people have a hard time or just plain refuse to understand the concept of limiting monopolistic power for the good of competitions.
Not a flamebait or a troll, just tired of reading ignorant posts.
Who distributes Windows software in .tar.gz???
*sigh*
Do away with money and monetary systems. Do things because they're necessary, not because "I get paid."
Everything is free. No bills. If you need something, you go to the store, pick it up, go home.
It's a very simple concept.
Linux doesn't need to include a virus scanner by default; Linux doesn't get viruses. But, if you're running a mail server for a LAN that includes Windows machines, there are virus scanners for Linux. But they're just to interface to mail servers because that's all they're needed for.