Slashdot Mirror
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.
Well you editors keep posting the same story 1000 times, so what do you expect?
You guys are in no position to lecture commenters when you live for the page churners.
Not to get off the topic here, but its funny when I see people complaining about the product activation in XP and how it only impacts legitimate users of the software.
With the huge amount of time and effort it takes to make internal hardware changes to a computer such that it needs to be re-activated (ie, searching for drivers, rebooting 50 times in safe mode when the XP drivers aren't right, etc), the five minutes it takes to re-activate Windows seems pretty minor.
Your statement also suggests that illegitimate users all know how to bypass it -- and I would argue that is, in fact, not the case. Technically knowledgable people stealing Windows can do it pretty easily, but it IS effective in preventing counterfeit or duplicate versions being in installed on white-box systems out of dinky shops, and prevents casual breaching of the license ("I got this new computer with XP, and I'm going to install it on my old one so I can use it as a file server")
Its a sign of how biased Slashdot, and how bizarre someone from MS would waste time on this audience that your dig was moderated +5 insightful and not troll.
Its also a sign, since this one will likely be modded "off-topic" and "troll".