Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft to Fight Crime With Spammer's Millions
daria42 writes "It looks as if the $7 million Microsoft won from spam king Scott Richter won't go into a Swiss bank account and never be seen again after all. The company plans to dedicate a cool $5 mil to helping law enforcement agencies address computer-related crimes. Another $1 million will go to New York State to "expand computer-related skills training for youths and adults", with the rest being flagged to pay Microsoft's legal costs."
Sorry, $6M in the business world is not much at all. It's very very little when you need quality tech investigators, lawyers, equipment, etc.
Keep in mind that most spam is now sent from trojaned Windows boxes. While end users are responsible for keeping their machines patched, they wouldn't need patching to this extent if MS had designed their software with security and reliability as the top priority rather than useless features and eye candy. For a long time, MS refused to fix the "autoexecute everything on reception" mentality in their email clients saying that their customers "demanded" such functionality. Furthermore, MS has derailed the process of getting sender validation in email with their demand for licensing parts of Sender-ID (in which the technology is really an evolution of technology, and not "innovative" at all.) Furthermore, MS is making it MORE difficult to patch machines with their "genuine advantage" program.
I'm not saying that MS is responsible for all spam. I'm not saying that MS is all bad. I'm saying that they do, however, have a hell of a big responsibility at this point for the magnitude of the problem given their historically poorly designed products and "standards unfriendly" behavior. While I am happy that MS is making these steps, they are baby steps.
MS is not alone in needing to take steps. ISP's also need to wake the hell up and help identify, and disable spambots on their networks, and take other proactive measures. Frankly, ISP's are in a better position to deal with this problem than MS, and VERY VERY few ISP's are doing ANYTHING about it. Charter, RoadRunner, Comcast, Verizon, SBC, BellSouth, and most all you other big ISP's so TOTALLY suck when it comes to spam. Many of you have agressive inbound spam policies yet do nothing to stem the tide of outgoing garbage...
OK, now I get to sit back and watch the MS fanboys start foaming at the mouth for suggesting that MS has any responsibility for the magnitude of the problem.