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Microsoft Eyes PC Isolation Ward To Thwart Botnets
CWmike writes "In a paper published Wednesday (PDF), Scott Charney, who heads Microsoft's trustworthy computing group, spelled out a concept of 'collective defense' that he said was modeled after public health measures like vaccinations and quarantines. The aim: To block botnet-infected computers from connecting to the Internet. Under the proposal, PCs would be issued a 'health certificate' that showed whether the system was fully patched, that it was running security software and a firewall, and that it was malware-free. Machines with deficiencies would require patching or an antivirus update, while bot-infected PCs might be barred from the Internet."
And who exactly is going to pay for this? If your system is not infected can you be exempted from a "monthly fee" or is it punishing everyone when Windows is the majority of infections? Maybe Microsoft should pay for it all?
Shh.
While your response was flip, I can see a number of ISPs - who already have policies of "sorry all we support is Windows" if you call in because of trouble on the line, and who have script-following Indian monkeys who will demand to know your OS before talking about anything else to replace ACTUAL customer service - using this at Microsoft's behest.
"Ohh, sorry. You're running OSX or Linux? We can't scan those for their patches so we're just going to block you off. Come back when you have a nice Win7 box. Oh, you signed a contract for a year of service? If you read the 4-point fonted small type on page 37 you'll see it clearly states in paragraph 18 line 3 that only systems with fully updated Windows 7 and an active virus scan package from an approved vendor such as Symantec or McAfee will be allowed access to the internet in order to keep the service trouble-free..."
Maybe Apple would be able to cry foul and get their systems allowed too, but home Linux users would pretty much be out of luck. And so much for anyone who responsibly has a home system with a hardware NAT and their ports properly firewalled too...
There is no cure for stupid.
M$ should be bared from the Internet.
Why do you make me think of naked Ballmer? What did I ever do to you?
If Microsoft or anyone else were capable of certifying a computer to be malware free, and being right about it, malware wouldn't be much of a problem, now would it?
File under "Dumb Ideas"
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
I tried to get the idea of "Network Access Protection" for the Internet on the agenda, at Microsoft, for 2 years. We already had the client mechanisms for evaluating health-status, and the signed messages for communicating that status.
I was working with big eCommerce and online finance companies. In my proposal, enforcement would be at site logon. Infected machines could not access account services or cart/profiles, etc. They'd get a re-direct to a clearing-house that would disassociate the online brand from the notice of infection. That protection site would have remediation resources.
In the end, we had some great discussions - but MS can't execute - and no one trusts 'em.
Now, Charney waves this thing around. AND WANTS ISPs TO BLACKHOLE clients! Way to go. I see this as another stealth control measure to create a defacto model for denying service. Today, it is a ZeuS infection - tomorrow an HDCP patched player or WikiLeaks cookie.
You get the idea. Stuff this genie back into the bottle.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Where is the USDOJ when you need them to remind Microsoft about their recent trip down anti-trust lane? Not to mention a nasty little thing called "collusion" - whichever AV and PKI vendors are selected naturally benefit, and I imagine all the ISPs will have to agree to enforce this as well or suffer some consequence.
A framework like this makes two assumptions that spell doom for future innovation by free thinkers: Microsoft Windows on every consumer device that connects to the Internet and every device using "Microsoft approved/recognized security software." Not a bad approach at first blush since that describes a large part of the marketplace and at least 100% of the problem, but honestly - there are better ways to solve this than trying to fit the future Internet ecosystem into Ballmer's limited imagination.
Read the paper. Please. And look for it soon as a key exhibit at the next anti-trust action against Microsoft.
Sigh. They don't want vaccinations. They want their client base spending money on half-baked security solutions. So in addition to the license, you have to pay for a certificate, pay for software certification (goodbye open source), pay for the software, pay for the bandwidth to keep your system online all the time, pay pay pay pay pay....
And nothing will change except you'll be paying more.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Being anti-virus protected and updated sounds like a great idea until you ask questions like "which vendors of antivirus are excluded?" and "which updates will Microsoft push as critical that are just another piece of crapware or something that would break compatibility with something important to the user?"
Microsoft should be responsible. They should push out adblockers and javascript blockers. It makes browsing a lot safer. Oh no... commercial interests would be pissed and we know those interests are of more importance/significance than the end users are... remember Vista and all that DRM encumbered crap? We all know they had the consumer in mind when they did that.
I double dog dare you to vet a wifi-connected smartphone. No bases covered *at all*. Your idea only works on flat networks, rather than multi-tiered, as well. It isn't as easy as it looks.
And when you get close, your help desk lines light up with people that can't get logged on because you set your criteria too tightly and they don't have remediation for their Ubuntu 10.10.... or even their freaking Macs. The whole rubric here is to sell more Microsoft stuff underneath the perceived goodwill proffered by trying to vet then shackle machines whose state is unknown.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
"Microsoft only clients" pretty much adequately describes the malware-bearing portion of the Internet!
You only need to block access to a protected resource - who's management ELECTS this level of defense.
The real play is NOT to protect the Online Bank or Payment Portal.
It is to create a "forcing function" by which the customer remedies his client - also to helpfully cooperate on making those remedies accessible.
Why? Because Internet business models rely heavily on trust and reputation. As occurrences like "account takeover" and fraudulent transactions become more common, consumer trust in online modes for business and commerce will erode.
Your AmEx's, Amazon's and Turbo Tax's (Names from a hat - not my customers) are vested in margins that are supportable through online delivery. Their CSOs are charged with not only safeguarding their own applications and infrastructure, but mitigating the negative effects of client vulnerability on the online business model. This is a big enough problem that it drives enterprises together, at the CSO and CTO levels. They want a solution that raises the general level of trust and confidence in Internet uses.
They all see this as a problem with Microsoft - if not at fault - at its hub.
Now, Corporate Microsoft wants to use this reasonable, cooperative approach to deny service in the broadest possible way. In light of this week's failure of the Internet blacklist bill (COICA) to be ratified, without vote, in committee? I smell an agenda.
Microsoft are just the stalking-horse for Congressional supporters of COICA to use: "See, if we don't act with responsible legislation, then Industry will take the matters into its own hands!"
Trust me. I have seen how these guys work.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
It seems like most everybody doesn't understand (or notice footnote 14 on page 5) that, in order for this to work, all the subject devices must have trusted processing capability. That means "TPM" chips, signed OS kernels / hypervisors, and the inability to run untrusted root-level code. Take a second to laugh at the idea that anyone will be able to introduce a bug-free hypervisor / TPM environment that can't run unsigned and untrusted code. After you're done laughing at that I'd recommend being angered at the notion of such a thing, since it will effectively eliminate control of the devices owned by consumers.. turning every device with a "clean bill of health" into a walled-garden appliance. As long as consumers own and control their general purpose devices there will never be a way to do what this paper describes. Frankly, I'm alright with that. We'd do a lot better to just assume that every device is untrusted and act accordingly.
The Attitude Adjuster, I hate me, you can too.