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Ask Microsoft's Security VP
There's always lots of discussion on Slashdot about Microsoft's security problems, and whether Windows is or isn't more secure than other popular operating systems. In a "Let's clear the air" move, Mike Nash, Microsoft Corporate Vice President, Security Technology Unit, has agreed to answer 12 of the highest-moderated questions you submit here. (You can skip the "Microsoft and security in the same sentence?" comments we've all heard 1000 times, and ask actual questions, since Mike is answering for himself instead of having PR do it for him.) We'll post his answers next week.
What is the status of the Windows OneCare program? Is a released product expected soon?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Please mod parent up - it's been 4 years since Bill Gates' statement "Security is priority" and we've all seen WMF bug in Vista beta...
Yeesh. This sort of quote reminds me of when I was a naive little proto-geek, wondering what sort of supercomputer my favorite MU* ran on.
Microsoft has only 60,000 employees TOTAL.
Of that count, surely no more than 50% (and probably much less than that) are programmers. Remember, that count includes not only the veritable hordes of management types and marketroids, but the guys who clean the toilets and the ladies who answer the phones. (And the ladies who clean the toilets, and the guys who answer the phones. And the guys who clean the phones, and the ladies who answer the toilets...)
So you're off by at least a factor of ten.
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Furthermore, as Windows is (for better or worse) the most widely-deployed operating system, why doesn't it make a better job of educating users about security? (That is, why does it pester me when the AV or update is out of date, or the firewall is off, but doesn't remind me of the destructive potential of doing ordinary stuff as Administrator?)
To waste more karma (and correct that Would of / would have slip)
That was not a troll , I was inquiring into how someone with a track record like this is able to keep his job in a very competitive environment .
Microsoft's Security situation has hardly improved , yet there is little change beyond mere words and new slogans
A genuine question , perhaps asked a little abruptly .
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
No one ever said for a moment that either of those was a "complete rewrite". If you heard that somewhere, you were misinformed.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
No, the case is refunded, not free, and is dependent on whether or not MS agrees with whether or not the bug being reported is an actual bug, or "working as intended". You have to put up the deposit money on the support case first.
Personally, I'm not taking that chance.
-Tommy
"I got a half gallon of Jack, and 2 dozen Ant Traps. I'm about to get wild." -me
I don't know the exact number of coders in Microsoft, but it must be above 300,000.
Check out Microsoft on Wikipedia. They have approximately 60000 employees, and while it doesn't say the number of contractors, I would be shocked to find it is four times that amount. Also, remember that a large amount of these employees are *NOT* coders but managers, marketing and sales (that's a biggy), accounting, secretarial/administrative, researchers, and HR.
Actually, the design of Windows is largely the same as the design of OS X and KDE in this regard. If you remove khtml from KDE, lots of stuff breaks. Sure, you can use Gnome or Busybox or something, but a distro designed around KDE would break if you removed khtml.
Similarly, Lots of stuff in OSX is designed around WebKit. Take away WebKit and tons of stuff breaks.
IE is no more or less "integral to the OS" as either of those. There's nothing magical about it.
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