Slashdot Mirror
Inside Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit
jfruh writes "You may find it mildly creepy that Microsoft has a private police force, but the Digital Crimes Unit has helped real law enforcement do things like disrupt huge botnets. According to Richard Boscovich, assistant general counsel for the Digital Crimes Unit, Microsoft is only able to do all this by relying on the company's existing infrastructure, including its Azure cloud service. The DCU can provision compute time from the cloud as necessary to combat complex threats, he said, and also uses cloud services to share information with law enforcement agencies quickly."
AKA the Windows 8 development team.
And here I thought from the headline that TFA would be about a group at Microsoft in charge of *committing* digital crimes!
(That would have been funnier 15 years ago. At this point, I would say if Microsoft needed a full-time team to commit crimes, it would be only so they could catch up to the competition.)
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Does this sound corrupt or what? They created the problem and now they have a solution, but at a cost. Sounds like double dipping into the customer's wallet.
"Microsoft is only able to do all this by relying on the company's existing infrastructure, including its Azure cloud service"
Yea sure, the cloud enabled you to do this. Infomercial much?
In the digital justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important values. The ones who investigate crime and the zeros who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories. Dun Dun.
Not nearly quite as unsettling as the government having a public one.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Ugh, I got beat... :(
Can be done with any of the cloud providers. They just chose azure but doesnt mean it can "only" be done with it like they say in the slashvertisement.
Yes they could have had a proper security model in the early 90s, and yes they could have forced all users to run under limited accounts by default. But let's not let that get in the way of the #1 reason Windows has this many known vulnerabilities - when you're on 90%+ of the world's PCs, you make one hell of a juicy target.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
They may assist the police with some things, but what they mostly do is go around making sure that you have (the correct) licenses for your windows boxes. Anyone that's dealt with Microsoft's licenses knows that it's a huge mess that's difficult to understand as some licenses overlap in their design. Once you have the wrong license, even if the license that you have is much much more expensive than the one you need, these guys come at you bro, hard - as if you are a criminal.
It's this very business model that we all loathe so.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
That's troll's getting a little old, son. Better quit now before you lose all your karma... if you have any left.
Free Martian Whores!
(By the way, "their" should have been "there").
The number of aliterates who are visiting slashdot these days astounds me. People who don't read on a nerd site? It's sad how many people here in the last five years or so can't handle homophones, use grocers' apostrophes, and think "lose" and "loose" are synonyms (if the word "synonym is even in their vocabulary).
As to the aliterate's comment, he was right -- just look at this comment. A humorous jab at Microsoft's most hated OS ever and he gets modded "troll". Nobody but a shill would downmod that comment, it should be +3 funny and the shill who modded him down should never get mod points again.
Free Martian Whores!
I thought the title was about Microsoft's UI design team.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Okay mister, guess I had a good run with that one. I'll be more careful in future - gotta keep good karma.
**waits for McGrew to leave the room and go berate some other young'un, checks the coast is clear and starts looking for another first post to troll**
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Look, I'm not willing to read all these shenanigans about aliterates (although the lose/loose confusion really bugs me whenever I see it ;)
That comment is currently marked at +5 funny, but I'm confused: isn't Vista the most hated Microsoft "OS"?
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
you missed the trailing " on "synonym
not pedantic enough perhaps?
(By the way, "their" should have been "there").
The number of aliterates who are visiting slashdot these days astounds me. People who don't read on a nerd site? It's sad how many people here in the last five years or so can't handle homophones, use grocers' apostrophes, and think "lose" and "loose" are synonyms (if the word "synonym is even in their vocabulary).
Frownie face... Believe it or not, when I'm banging out a comment on my phone while on the crapper, I don't act like I'm composing a masterpiece. No need to hate, man.
Murphy...
That's why I never comment with the phone. That's what the laptop is four; oops, FOR.
Free Martian Whores!
Talk to my editor, it's his fault.
Free Martian Whores!
Had they known in '85 how important the (as yet nonexistent) Internet would be, would they have made the same mistakes?
What if Linux was dominant instead? Do you really believe there'd be no malware market?
It never ceases to amaze me how many people don't realise hindsight is always 20/20.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
Not any more, W8 surpassed it. Yet another triumph for Microsoft!
I'm surprised that nobody thought "aliterate" was a misspelling of "illiterate". I usually get chuckles from that one, although the last time I did it somebody actually looked it up.
Aliterates at a nerd site annoy me. You're a nerd, you read books. But these guys that don't know their from there from they're, well, to paraphrase Twain, an aliterate has no advantage over an illiterate."
I think I'll make that my sig after Christmas.
Free Martian Whores!
+5 funny
Free Martian Whores!
Actually I had to look it up as I thought it was a misspelling and I'd never seen that word before.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe