MS Security Guru Leaves for Amazon.com

Rocky Mann writes "Jesper Johansson, a security guru for Microsoft, is leaving the company to join Amazon.com. Johansson served for some five years as a 'senior security strategist', and is considered one of the world's leading experts on how to protect installations of Windows." From the article: "Johansson is also an advocate for the use of safe-passwords techniques in the enterprise. At the height of the WMF zero-day attacks earlier in 2006, Johansson offered measured advice on the use of unofficial patches and he was constantly on the move, traveling around the world to help customers figure out how to use Microsoft's products securely."

Comments

Great Quote

[gooman]

...he was constantly on the move, traveling around the world to help customers figure out how to use Microsoft's products securely.

Kind of says it all doesn't it.

Steve Ballmer

[Yvan256]

At some point in the conversation Mr. Ballmer said: "Just tell me it's not Amazon." I told him it was Amazon.

At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office. Mr. Ballmer then said: "I'm going to fucking bury that company, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to fucking kill Amazon."

Thereafter, Mr. Ballmer resumed trying to persuade me to stay....Among other things, Mr. Ballmer told me that "Amazon is not a real company. It's a library."

Re:Steve Ballmer

[moria]

Is the Ballmer the Chairman?

Why are people who leave microsoft relevent news?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see how Scoble and Gates leaving MS should make slashdot, but this is just random fluff. Slashdot loves reporting that (not really) important people are leaving Microsoft for Google, or apparently Amazon.

Do we get to also see the random people who leave Google and Amazon.com? Mod me down if you like, but I don't really see how this is relevent news.

And let me guess....

[LittleBigScript]

...he signed a Non-Compete Agreement with Microsoft so he's working as front door security.

Amazon?

[justsomebody]

Thanks god it is not Google. MS chairs will probably thank him publically.

Re:Amazon?

[jrumney]

Thanks god it is not Google. MS chairs will probably thank him publically.

MS bookcases on the other hand, are quivering in fear.

Yikes! Time to close...

[dpbsmith]

...my Amazon account.

Must be...

[Shook18]

the smartest man alive! "...and is considered one of the world's leading experts on how to protect installations of Windows."

Re:Must be...

[MooseByte]

I swear when I first read that, I parsed it as "one of the world's leading experts on how to protect installations from Windows."

And it still made perfect sense (codebase problems and all).

I met this guy

[DnemoniX]

I attended a small security lecture with about 25 people, he was the presenter. He walked through some real time hacks against Microsoft products that he had running in VPC. Nothig to stunning for me, but most of the people there had no clue about security so they were all blown away. I didn't see anything special. One thing of note that amused me, was the bumper sticker on his laptop that read "My other box is your Linux box". I said that I couldn't fit "My other box is a 10,000 node zombie cluster of Windows machines" on a bumper sticker....he chuckled...

If you run his name on Amazon you will find his book, which is really very good if you are a Windows Server Admin and are new to the security game.

Re:Why are people who leave microsoft relevent new

[justsomebody]

You only have three options:
- you think you've entred some SeriousGeekSanctuary.com??? You suddenly realize "it is a /.". God, that would be a red pill for you
- feed your kitten and pretend nothing happened, go to sleep and hope it will go away. No pill and you wake up hungry, while /. still exists in its current form in the morning
- go with the rest of us and take the /. blue pill, code for nothing and post bull for the rest of the day

But here it is "IT IS A SLASHDOT, WHADA'YA EXPECT???"

p.s. since you were agreeing with being modded down, your wish come true. I on the other hand agree on being modded up.

Breaking News

[quokkapox]

Any tech guru leaving Google, Yahoo!, Amazon, YouTube, or any other innovative company, to go work for Microsoft, *would* be breaking news. Hate to say it, but it ain't happenin'. Somebody, prove me wrong.

Re:Breaking News

[EvanED]

Does the Sysinternals guy count?

Any other M$ joke cliches?

[kimvette]

Cliche M$ humor attempt #1:

(#1a)
Amazon? Amazon? WTF?

I can imagine it now:

Some random M$: Exect #1

Amazon has enjoyed a moderate amount of success, therefore online book, CD, and video sales is obviously Microsoft's space. How dare they take food off of Microsoft's table by doing business in an industry kinda-sorta-maybe related to anything we at Microsoft do? And what the hell, now they're stealing our talent to do it? We own that space, we're in that space (maybe. somehow, in a future. Maybe we'll buy them out! Hey wait a second, we have a division called Microsoft Press, don't we? I think we can sue Mr. Johansson and put a stop to our competitors' stealing our employee!

Ballmer:

I'm going to F***ING KILL AMAZON! I'LL KILL THEM AND BURY THEM! I've done it before!
(meanwhile, Microsoft's new AI-equipped motorized chairs, which have been provided due to Ballmer's costing the company millions in damaged chairs and the need to avoid these recurring losses, detect Ballmer's impending annurism quickly roll out of the room)

(#1b)Bill Gates:

Meh. I've had my day of being a right ass. I couldn't be bothered being a hater any more. Besides, I'm quitting soon. *donates another $10bil to save the children to appease conscience*

Cliche M$ humor attempt #2:

A Microsoft Security expert? You mean, HE'S the reason Microsoft Windows is so "secure?"
Just what the hell is Amazon thinking?

(I kid, on both counts)

Microsoft is under a major crisis.

[Marcos Eliziario]

Microsoft no longer has a coherent vision or a clear strategy. They waste their time trying to attack on several fronts, and in the meantime, their core is abandoned. Vista could have been a technological brakthrough, but they let this opportunity slip. Instead of trying to innovate, they try to emulate others and have been failing miserably. In the past, if only rumor about Microsoft developing a MsPod emerged, this would have a clear effect on Apple stocks. Nowadays, they can formally anounce they are working in it and people will only nod their heads, because they are increasingly losing credibility. They spent millions with IE, had sucessive legal problems because of it, not to mention the security problems, and still they can't face the fact that they could profit from internet making their OS better. Cisco makes money selling routers, why microsoft can't see that they can profit from the internet by having a rock solid, fast and easy-to-use OS? Why do they think that they need to "kill" google, or "kill" iPOd on their own arenas to survive? Instead they should have invested all this money making their core businness stronger, by making their OS the best OS for developers and user alike, by making people "wanting" to use Windows instead of people "Having" to run windows. After that they could even afford the luxury of competing with the iPod or with Google, but not the way they are doing now.

Re:Microsoft is under a major crisis.

[Decaff]

Microsoft no longer has a coherent vision or a clear strategy. They waste their time trying to attack on several fronts, and in the meantime, their core is abandoned

I have been using Microsoft products since the 70s. Have they ever had a core or coherent IT strategy?

As far as I can tell, their strategy is purely business-based. It is to make popular products with as little effort on secondary issues (such as security) as possible. They have been focussing on security in recent years not because of any core belief, but because lack of it was starting to seriously threaten sales. All of their products have involved operating system tie-ins since the start. It is a perfectly reasonably sales model (except for when it is used illegally, as with the monopoly issue).

Microsoft has a clear strategy, but if you are looking for it in terms of IT you are looking in the wrong place.

Re:Microsoft is under a major crisis.

[Marcos Eliziario]

No. I mean in terms of businness itself. Business is about generating money from the resources you have in the best way you can, and also, this has to be sustainable over time and has to generate more value for the money than other options, or at least give your stakeholders that impression. Do you know the kind of guy/girl that is intelligent, creative, but never finishes what he/starts? Microsoft looks just like that guy. They start a lot of initiatives, make up grandious strategies (do you remember when everything has .NET in his name, now it's time for "Windows Live";-) but they clearly lack the details and soon reality forces them to step back, and all the money they spent is lost forever. They are in it for the money, of course, and that's right, but looks like they don't really now how to invest their money, they look like a Third World dictatorship that after the discovery of vast reserves of Oil in their subsoil, start building giant stadiums, try to build nuclear bombs and waste all the newly gained money with useless things for their people, just because they never had a coherent and intelligent vision of how to work with all that money. Microsoft has been spoiled by market analysts that dumbly appraised every stupid move of them, just because that analysts thought that Microsoft could never get wrong. This has diminished their ability to think strategically, and all the money they had just made it worse for the dissident voices to be heard. They got intoxicated with their success, and what we see now is just the result of it.

Re:Microsoft is under a major crisis.

[Decaff]

I think you have written a very good summary, but I think you have missed something. The reason why this seems to be starting to fail is because the computing industry (at least the area where they are trying to make money) has stopped growing and changing as rapidly as it used to. These are not the early days of the PC or Windows when users are impressed by each new product. People are used to Windows, and no amount of publicity for Vista will change the fact that it is yet another version of the same old product. I would also imagine that Microsoft expected 5 or 6GHz processors around now to back up their new releases. Microsoft has previously had new markets to expand into, but now they are penned in. Their server sales market share has been stagnant for years, and a large number of Microsoft servers run... Java! Same with the mobile phone OS market. Attempts to use their desktop presence to expand into other markets have proved illegal. All around them, smaller companies are innovating. Microsoft have riden on the coat-tails of an exponentally growing hardware market with ever-increasing processor speeds. Now that those markets are slowing, Microsoft seems to be finding it hard to adapt.

Re:MS Security?

[bcat24]

Or worse, "insightful Slashdot post". *ducks*

Now just sit back and watch...

[Rodness]

... as Amazon gets pwned for being completely insecure.

Honestly, I don't understand why people we've never heard of defecting from Microsoft is newsworthy anymore.

Resume

[jmurano]

If I had been a 'senior security strategist' at Microsoft for the last five years... I'd leave that off of my resume!

Great

[/dev/trash]

Free crap from Amazon this Christmas!