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Microsoft Files Suits Against "Malvertisers"
eldavojohn writes "Reuters is bringing us news of five civil lawsuits filed by Microsoft against 'Soft Solutions,' 'Direct Ad,' 'qiweroqw.com,' 'ITmeter Inc,' and 'ote2008.info' that allege they 'used malvertisements to distribute malicious software or present deceptive websites that peddled scareware to unsuspecting Internet users.' Microsoft's Tim Cranton outlined the suits and provided links to all the filings for download. 'Cranton added that names of specific individuals behind these activities were not known and the lawsuits were being filed to help uncover the people responsible.'"
What I see microsoft really doing is...
since microsoft can not (or will not) build secure operating systems and the operating systems they do produce has a long standing reputation of vulnerabilities they are going to sue the people that take advantage of the stupider customers of their products, so in the long run microsoft is just protecting the stupider customers proving microsoft likes stupid customers that do not tend to learn from their mistakes (whom are most likely the biggest part of their customer base)...
so it all boils down to the greedy protecting the stupid so the greedy can keep selling them poorly designed products...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I believe that is mostly, if not entirely correct. Obviously, there is a design flaw in security; a user account should never be capable of screwing up system files and system settings. Period.
Name a current Windows exploit that allows a user, with the default "User" permissions, to screw up system files and system settings. Name one.
The current version of Windows is Vista Service Pack 2.
That is speculation, opinion, and FUD. Unix like systems are simply not prone to the types of exploits that Windows has always been wide open to. (ActiveX for example)
Name an ActiveX exploit that works for the current version of Windows and IE with the default settings. (Obviously, if the user goes out of their way to disable security features, all bets are off.)
The current IE version is 8.
It's easy to imagine that malware writers would shift to Linux, but Linux' response would be to write patches after patches, and shut each exploit down as it was exposed.
As opposed to Microsoft's response, which is to... what? Hire belly dancers and throw a 1001 Arabian Nights theme party?
Seriously, WTF is going through your head when you write things like this. I simply can't imagine.
If that were entirely true, then the same exploits would work on Linux. I don't see that - can you provide any citations?
How about you prove your assertions first? You've made two big ones.
Unix like OS's have set the example. Establish trusted repositories for software. TRUSTED repositories, not a bazaar type place where just everyone can put software.
Yes, but you're breaking the rules of the original scenario: you can't turn Windows into an "iPhone App Store" for a half-dozen reasons, not least of which is it would be anti-competitive. Windows doesn't have the luxury of being able to completely shut-out commercial software development like Linux has.
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