Slashdot Mirror
McAfee Exaggerated Cost of Hacking, Perhaps For Profit
coolnumbr12 writes "A 2009 study (PDF) by the McAfee estimated that hacking costs the global economy $1 trillion. It turns out that number was a massive exaggeration by McAfee, a software security branch of Intel that works closely with the U.S. government at the local, state and federal level. A new estimate by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (and underwritten by McAfee) suggests the number is closer to closer to $300 billion (PDF), but even that much is uncertain. One of McAfee's clients, the Department of Defense, has used the $1 trillion estimate to argue for an expansion of cybersecurity, including 13 new teams dedicated to cyberwarfare. Despite the new data, Reuters said McAfee is still trying to exaggerate the numbers."
The $1 trillion study has seen other criticism as well, so the new data is a step in the right direction.
McAfee Exaggerated Cost of Hacking, Perhaps For Profit
... perhaps?
Department of Defense, has used the $1 trillion estimate to argue for an expansion of cybersecurity, including 13 new teams dedicated to cyberwarfare.
What exactly is this "cyberwarfare" that I keep hearing about?
Who are we fighting? What are the objectives? When will it end?
If I get this correct, this is the original study being challenged:
And here is the new evidence:
So this is two different McAfee-funded studies dueling it out?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Law enforcement's take on drugs which often (always?) values things based on the sale of minimal quantities. Busted a couple of tons of pot? Value it based on the highest value of selling joints on the street.
It's all lies, meant to justify their existence.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
But nobody can exaggerate how crappy their bloated, pile of dung, machine slowing, worst-possible-time pop-up, fear mongering, computer newb fooling, circle of garbage really is.
In the future when people are writing case studies about the PC industry they are going to point a huge finger at the bloated trialware business model that has ruined the experience of buying a new computer. Basically consumer PCs are sold profitless. Then the companies hope that a certain percentage of the fools buy one of these piles of snot software packages of which the manufacturer gets a significant cut. Profit.
But the end result is that non-tech people unwrap their shiny new machine only to find all kinds of confusing icons for music services, media services, a trial for MS Office, and the worst... some AV pile of vomit. The AV vomitus will then tell them that they need to subscribe to their service otherwise the machine will be more infested than a street-walking Bangkok lady-boy.
Some defenders will scream, "If they don't want it then they can uninstall it." But the simple reality is that your average computer buyer from Staples is 100% unable to uninstall it thus will have this software threatening them every time they look at the screen.
I don't know how many giant screens or kiosks that I have seen screaming about the subscription running out.
But then the next layer of pain is that nobody hardly trusts these popups. With people like myself saying, "For the love of all that is good don't buy that crap." So now how can they distinguish between some AV crap trying to scam them and just their OS telling them that they should install the update.
Then people like myself come along and see that they are about 3 years behind on their updates because they were to scared to ever OK the updates. Their Adobe Flash is 4 versions out of date and their browser is running a beta of this new Javascript thing. So the fear caused by the bloatware AV has now caused them to allow their machine to become woefully insecure.
The alternative is that they blindly trust everything that seems helpful resulting in so many toolbars that they are left with around 1 inch of working browser and their machine takes 5 minutes and 8 casino ads to boot up.
So to me these AV types are not just the scum they obviously are but an insidious destroyer of the PC industry.
The best part is how people have been leaping to smart-phones to get away from desktops that scare them only to find many of the Telcos have installed "Helpful" software that points to obscure music/ringtone services, custom search engines, and other things that no doubt send a kickback their way.