Not A Problem, An Opportunity
CBS has an article, Microsoft’s Other Security Problem, on Microsoft’s entry into the anti-virus market.
My favorite quote:
…John Schwarz, president and chief operating officer of Symantec Corp., would rather see Microsoft concentrate on fixing security flaws.
“We believe they’d be better off in focusing on making sure that their platform, the Windows operating system, is less subject to attack,” Schwarz said.
Microsoft is going to start offering software to protect its flawed software from people exploiting the flaws. They are going to use this opportunity to generate even more money from the people who suffer from having bought the flawed software in the first place.
While I don’t support “frivolous lawsuits”, how, exactly, is it not a tort for someone to sell you a defective product, and then charge you for the fix to the flaw. Wouldn’t it be suspected that you had intentionally left flaws, so that you could market the fix?
I know I’m automatically suspicious of Microsoft, but I’m having a hard time believing that a dedicated team of professional programmers is totally unable to write a software package that can’t be attacked by a lone wolf programmer operating out of a dorm room.
Microsoft has the cash to create the best operating system on the planet, but they are having a hard time competing on the basis of technical competence with creation of a lone Finnish student’s adaptation of a system used as a teaching aid which was conceptually based on a system written by a underemployed engineer who wanted a computer to play a game.
If Linus Torvalds, Andrew Tanenbaum, and Kenneth Thompson can do this, why can’t billionaire Bill Gates get it done? It’s not as if there aren’t a lot of experienced programmers looking for work.
