Microsoft Reward Leads to Arrest of Sasser Suspect 287
tritone writes "According to this article on CNET, it was a reward from Microsoft that led to the arrest of the perpertrator of the Sasser Windows Worm. This is the first success for Microsoft's Antivirus Award Program, a $5 million fund to reward people for coming forward with information about those who release major worms and viruses."
Oh, guess what ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Priceless (Score:3, Funny)
Reward Money: $5,000,000.00
Perps Pay: $5,000,000.00
Psychological Effect: Priceless!
Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
How much money does Microsoft have to spend making their operating system, and how perfect and secure does it have to be?
Maybe if it was not for the virus write
Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Windows XP Home is $150 CAD right now. If I'm spending that much money on something, I'd like it to work at least SEMI-reliably. But, no, Microsoft isn't at fault for this horrible software.
How much money do they have to spend on making it? As much as it takes to make a good product. Would you want these kind of flaws and errors in any of the other products you purchase? I doubt it.
Yes, the kid is a criminal i
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
If the doors in your house are falty and won't lock at all, then someone breaks in, who is to blame? The intruder, or the company that sold you the defective doors?
I say both.
And because the "door company" is paying to find the intruders after they have broken in does not mean it solves the problem, maybe they should fix the locks first. That sounds like a reasonable idea.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is like saying that if I leave my back door unlocked at night, I am to blame if someone breaks in.
It's not like a door on your house. It's more like you're a tenant in a large apartment block in a bad neighborhood, and the landlord hasn't installed working locks on any of the apartments.
I say I have a gun, and if someone breaks in, they are getting shot.
But in this case you don't have a gun, nor can you get one. There's just about nothing that you can do as an individual to retaliate or even track down the perpetrators.
It's more like this: After years of complaints, the negligent landlord decided to hire a private investigator. After almost a year, this PI has managed to track down just one out of the hundreds of criminals harassing the neighborhood. BFD.
Maybe if it was not for the virus writers, the cost of Windows would be cheaper.
Maybe if it weren't for thieves, the cost of apartments would be cheaper. They wouldn't need security services or door locks. Unfortunately, that's a pipe dream. In the real world, you're not ever going to avoid paying for security. Deal with it.
Microsoft, the brilliant businessmen that they are, has actually managed to avoid or push off onto others the full costs of security for quite some time. However, even they are not be able to avoid the inevitable forever.
They are going now to pay to fix their mistakes with some fraction of their pile of cash, but more importantly, they are going to have to design security into their software up front. This is going to significantly slow down their pace of churning their software updates. This loss of some of their competetive edge is going to be the real price that they pay.
I think it is horrible for someone to defend a criminal because the criminal had oppertunity to commit a crime.
Likewise, it's bad to defend negligence on the part of those responsible for providing security measures by saying "Sure the security was badly flawed, but if there weren't any bad guys in this world, we wouldn't need security!"
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
You have a gun in the house and you still leave your back door unlocked? Think of the children!
-a
Re:Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
A good example I think is a problem a friend had last week. He had just installed XP Pro and within minutes of the installer finishing he had been infected with the Blaster virus. He couldn't download the fix or install a virus scanner because the machine would always reboot itself before he could complete the installation of either! An
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't have a problem with locking up those who distribute worms and viruses, but I do have a problem with locking up someone just because you can show that they wrote it. It's more like locking up someone just for *OWNING* lockpicks. What should be illegal is using the lockpicks to break into someone's house, not owning them in the first place. Many of the early DOS/Windows viruses contain examples of extremely clever programming with all sorts of alternate applications: crypto programs, AV programs, copyprotection/anti-reverse engineering schemes, etc.
Maybe if it was not for the virus writers, the cost of Windows would be cheaper. Maybe beacuse of the virus writers Microsoft has to spend more money?
No, this is kind of a basic econ 101 thing. When a company has a monopoly, they start charging the "monopoly price" [sc.edu] and opposed to the fair market price. While the fair market price is tied to supply and demand, cost of production, etc, the monopoly price is dictated strictly by DEMAND. The monopolist looks at the demand curve for their product and choose the point the maximizes their revenue. Since the windows is a software product as opposed to a car, there is little incremental cost between producing 100,000 copies as opposed to 50,000. These means that the production cost aspect of the monopoly price is pretty much fixed, and the price is dictated almost entirely by demand.
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
Same thing with fire axes, tow trucks, arc welders, and all sorts of other things.
Outlawing something becuase it has "little legitimate use unless one is in a very narrow band of professions" is bad law. For example, how am I going to enter that profession? What constitutes little? Does a coathangar count as a "lockpick"? What about a car antenna (I used my own to break into my c
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
They haven't done anything wrong, right? I mean, they didn't RELEASE the poison, and their aim is noble since they really only expose all the country's physical security holes.
FUCK virus writers. They cost people money and time. Money and time is LIFE, just because they take it from you 10 minutes at a time doesn't make it any easier to swallow.
If you want to make people more aware of security, try community outreach. Get involved locally and make a real difference in people's lives. Take charitable contributions to buy billboards and TV commercials. Get the big players involved.
But...wait, that would be POSITIVE. That isn't nearly underground enough for your typical virus writer. Their rhetoric is a fucking smokescreen, they're slimebag criminals and they deserve to be punished just like a CEO who jacks down stock prices. They're both doing MONETARY damage. Money is time and time is life, never forget that.
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
They haven't done anything wrong, right? I mean, they didn't RELEASE the poison, and their aim is noble since they really only expose all the country's physical security holes.
First off, your example is ridiculously extreme and doesn't really match the discussion at hand.
Second
Re:Oh, guess what ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh, guess what ... (Score:5, Insightful)
It has deterent value. It says if you become good at writing viruses you will get nailed. Maybe MS does not care about the young kid messing around who does not damage anything. Microsoft is showing good restraint.
Plus, I cant help but think that comment is typical of how people treat MS. They either complain they are not doing enough or too much.
Deterence vs. Prevention (Score:3, Insightful)
It may deter kids but certainly not pros. Rewards rely on enough individuals knowing who commited a crime so that at least one betrays the criminal. With kids that's easy since they're publishing their exploits as part of a game. With pros, no way. When terrorists and organized criminals write
Re:Deterence vs. Prevention (Score:2)
Say that MS managed to stop all the kids from writing viruses due to fear of being caught. The incentive for them to secure the system goes down a lot.
This could mean that when there is a new virus, it's going to be a lot more damaging due to more lax security.
Re:Oh, guess what ... (Score:3, Insightful)
$50 million is penny candy for Microsoft.
Re:Oh, guess what ... (Score:2)
As somebody else has pointed out, $5M is peanuts to a company that got fined $450M by the European Union for antitrust violations (they could have been fined much more) and agreed to pay SUN $1B to settle a lawsuit.
Re:Oh, guess what ... (Score:3, Insightful)
I know it's cool to hate Microsoft and all, but I seriously doubt anybody's gonna enjoy the idea of going to jail just to cost MS a few dollars. Microsoft isn't worth being made a martyr over.
Good (Score:3, Insightful)
That depends... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That depends... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Good (Score:4, Informative)
"Aware of this program, individuals in Germany approached Microsoft investigators," Smith said. "We did not hesitate and made a decision to offer a reward of $250,000."
Smith wouldn't say how many people came forward, except to indicate it was fewer than five. Moreover, while he would not comment on whether a relationship existed between the Sasser suspect and the informants, he did say that they both live in the same part of Germany.
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
Flawed Analogy (Score:3, Insightful)
Arresting a murderer doesn't bring dead victims back to life. Does this reduce the usefulness of the police initiative to arrest murderers?
(Your analogy is flawed in general. The same applies to "bank robbers or muggers" as you mentioned: Once a crime has been committed, the damage has been done; and if no damage is done, I'd have trouble calling it a "crime".)
Re:Good (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A111 60-2004May8.html [washingtonpost.com]
Remember, kids, no more bragging about those worms to real-life acquaintances!
Re:Good (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, it maybe worked once. The people turning the guy in might have done it even if the reward wasn't available.
Microsoft announced the reward program almost a year ago and that this is the first worm actually resulting in a claim suggests, in fact, that the reward program is mostly a failure.
c.
Re:Good (Score:4, Informative)
Same reward was offered for the information about the authors of Sobig, msblaster etc.
Good like the lesser evil? (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder if MS can keep up this effort and if we'll eventually start to see sponsored virii [viruslist.com] added to the real TCO for windows OS'. Oh wait.
Re:Good like the lesser evil? (Score:3, Insightful)
You bring up an excellent point. Almost all the research methodologies for examining TCO do NOT include virii losses/downtime. However, they're starting to get far from non-trivial (like the Finnish bank that went offline for a day because of Sasser... imagine the cost) and are often the motivation for an organisation to start looking at alternatives to Windows - ie MacOS X and
Re:Good (Score:2, Insightful)
I wish... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I wish... (Score:2)
Re: I wish... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wonder what's the ROI for releasing a virus by framing an asshole and then ratting on said asshole.
Kjella
Re: I wish... (Score:2)
So many upsides for you. I say go do it.
It seems fitting... (Score:4, Insightful)
I suppose throwing money at the problem is proactive, but hardly clever.
In this complex and often terrifying world, it's nice to know that some things never change.
Note to self... (Score:5, Funny)
Don't go bragging about your next virus release.
Re:Note to self... (Score:2)
Re:Note to self... (Score:2)
That's the thing isn't it... (Score:2)
Which is also why they're catching nothing but auttention-seeking teens. Professional people that have a commercial interest like spammers, indentity thieves, fraudsters, agents for industrial espionage etc. hardly ever get caught.
That is also why so many people believe they don't exist, that they're some kind of mythic legend and that the most dangerous thing out there is a bored teen. The truth of the matter is that in 99,9% of the cases, such a person wo
Re:Note to self... (Score:3, Insightful)
- Write major virus or worm
- Get a trusted friend to report me and split the 5 milion $
Thats a hell of a year income for sitting in jail a bit..
Re:Note to self... (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft Rewards (Score:5, Interesting)
Suggestion, instead of suing security companies who find and point out vulnerabilities they should implement rewards there. For example, if xyz security found a vulnerability they could either
A: release it to the news/public and risk MS ire
or
B: Submit it confidentially to the MS bug track for a hefty reward
Yes, that lacks disclosure but it is a healthier system than now exists.
Re:Microsoft Rewards (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, the only problem is, if you told them and kept quiet, chances are someone else is going to find that same vulnerability who might not play as nice.
Actually . . . (Score:5, Funny)
or
B: Submit it confidentially to the MS bug track for a hefty reward"
That system already exists.It is called "Black Mail."
Re:Microsoft Rewards (Score:5, Insightful)
The patch for Sasser was available 3 weeks before the virus was released. I don't know about you, but I'd rather pay an admin to install a patch before the virus hits, than to pay him because he's busting his ass fixing a problem that he should have avoided.
Re:Microsoft Rewards (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't forget to also mention that when a manufacturer waffles back and forth about wether or not to continue support on a platform (NT) that platform should be dropped from production. All my Windows 2000 boxes are SMP I have partitions MUCH greater than 7.8 GB and the patch I installed 3 weeks ago works great.
Looking forward to the fallout... (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder what kind of deals are being offered right now for him to turn in friends and information? I wonder what is on his computer? All it takes is one informant for the police to get warrents to search all his friends and known acquaintances computers, so I am thinking there will be a bigger fallout than just one guy. I just hope they don't let the big fish off the hook to get 10 smaller fish.
I wonder if this will be the start of the dominos falling. He turns in his friends, who in return turn in their friends. Then next thing you know the FBI is knocking on your door asking to look at your computer. In some ways, I welcome that. It gets to be exhausting fixing computers from all the viruses and spyware and crap.
I am just glad that with him in jail there will be more security. One less bad guy to worry about.
"with him in jail there will be more security" (Score:2)
With him in Jail, you just have one (more) guy in Jail.
Educating users, making them patch regularly, etc + having a clean system will do the trick for more security.
Also, using worms to auto patch the damadged and damadging machines would be ultimately the nice, if illegal, solution...
I know this has been debated before, and that having another can of worms spreading could do some damages, but it would be faster than waiting for all the people in the world to patch their systems...and keep the init
Re: (Score:2)
"tried not too long ago and failed MISERABLY" (Score:2)
secondly, just to give more clarity, maybe someone with the right skills (Microsoft itself ?) could use this and program a nice, non destructive auto-patching worm.
Don't discard the solution because it has failed before...just learn from the errors and do it better this time....
Re: (Score:2)
OK, here is the detailed howto : (Score:2)
2/ I build then host a worm with an IRC channel collator thingy, cauz it's leet
3/ the Worm has an automatic time-to-live that limits it's duration on any of the infected hosts, ie uninstalling itself after, say, the cleaning of the computer, a scan/cleaning of the local network and an additional limited scan of the open space IP adresses
4/ The worm @ Microsoft scan perpetually the net in search for new computers to heal for a certain lengh of time, then is removed because all the systems i
Re:Looking forward to the fallout... (Score:2)
Only if someone he turns in (turns in someone who turns in someone who turns in...) someone you know who's found to be one of those smaller fish, *and* he names you.
Re:Looking forward to the fallout... (Score:3, Interesting)
Mmmm, not so sure about that. Many of his friends are in his addressbook probably listed as "32ggy99", "bigbuster" or whatever. Given the use of mainly IRC for communication, chances are that this suspect is completely in the blue who his buddies are.
Positive thinking? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see, ingredients to a killer windows worm:
1. Anti-social teenager
2. windows computer
3. internet connection
4. some free time (see 1.)
Sorry, this is just not the way to resolve the problem. It is just too easy, not even worth celebrating. No wonder MS is ONLY investing 5M in this method (what is 5M to MS?).
More validation of Microsoft's central philosophy: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:More validation of Microsoft's central philosop (Score:3, Interesting)
Except secure code, apparently.
This whole reward thing is nothing more than a PR move. Microsoft comes out looking like the hero for offering the reward which led to the capture of some kid, masking the fact that their crappy code allowed this to happen.
Two questions arise from this:
- What will be the fallout in terms of orgs moving to non-MS platforms (MacOS, Linux, etc)?
- By most accounts, this particular virus/worm was very poorly written. My understanding is
Re:More validation of Microsoft's central philosop (Score:2, Insightful)
The organisations who were taken down should have taken more precautions [kenobi.it], then.
If worms and viruses actually did real damage, I would suspect that future attacks would be less successful because of the real shock value associated with it - people might start to be more proactive in securing their machines, or not letting potentially insecure machines on their network.
However, I suspect that viruses/worms are never going to be that destructive given that a nonfunctional computer cannot spread the infecti
I reakon it's a PR exercise. (Score:3, Interesting)
i think this is utter tosh. microsoft tried to make out the blaster worm was coded by some 17 year old last time.
they want us think 'oh all these viruses are caused by nieve kids with something to prove';
which is less scary than the truth that worms are coded to order by people with maths degrees for criminal gangs who want to use your pc as a conduit for illegal material.
...and the implication.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at virii history. (Score:2)
The answer is simple: A virii or worm which destroys what it infects or otherwise makes itself known will have a very short life as it will easily be detected.
Destroying system post-infection would be as easy as running a format on the system. But it isn't done because that would greatly reduce the value of an infected system.
What is better? 1 million infected systems which keep trying to infect poeple or 1 million systems which have simple stopped working?
You can't abuse or use someone else's computer i
Business model . . . (Score:5, Funny)
2. Find someone in severe financial trouble
3. Have that person release the worm from home computer
4. Turn that person in and collect the reward
5. Place 75% in a high interest foreign account and keep the rest
6. After the guy gets out of jail, send him a key to a safety deposit with all the information he needs to start a new life
7. Profit
Re:Business model . . . (Score:5, Funny)
1. Write worm
2. Find someone in severe financial trouble
3. Have that person release the worm from home computer
4. Turn that person in and collect the reward
5. Place 75% in a high interest foreign account and keep the rest
6. After the guy gets out of jail, send him a key to a safety deposit with all the information he needs to start a new life
7. Profit
Now THAT is funny! (Score:2)
Re:Business model . . . (Score:2)
This could lead to another attack on Linux... (Score:4, Interesting)
But FOSS doesn't pay me to turn in a virus writer.... so why should I...???
greed..... its been a constant in teh computer industry... no doubt about it.
Re:This could lead to another attack on Linux... (Score:4, Insightful)
Dear Microsoft (Score:3, Funny)
I wonder if microsoft will actually up the $$$ (Score:3, Interesting)
Embrace (Score:2)
Carving his niche? (Score:2, Interesting)
show me the money (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, and MS should pay to keep up their reputation...puh-leez. Their reputation is already lower than a snake's belly in a gully. How can they go farther? Before any knee-jerk MS apologists start replying, go check out what I've said about rewards being paid off...you'll find the situation is just as depressing as I've described.
RTFA! Microsoft did the *opposite* of that (Score:3, Informative)
Why should Micr
Bounty Hunter (Score:5, Insightful)
The article mentions that Microsoft used some technical means to confirm the informants' information but the informants did not use technical means to identify the guy. This leads to some questions:
Does Microsoft somehow bug your code if you use MS products to produce it? If I remember correctly some of the Word macro viruses had an ID number somewhere inside them that let MS identify the copy of Word that originally produced the virus.
Is such a serial number/product ID what MS used to confirm the informant's information?
It would not necessarily need to be a number. Deliberate variations in the code produced by a compiler from one machine to the next could be used as a fingerprint.
Barring that, was there some other technical means that could have been used to locate the author?
If I wanted to be a Anti-Virus Bounty hunter is my best bet learning to decompile code or to hang around on IRC chat channels and either encourage other users to write viruses so I can turn them in later, or make friends with real virus writers so I can turn them in?
Maybe a piece of reference code can be made available on a website and people can compile it on a range of machines and MS compilers. The resulting code can be compared and to see if the machine/compiler pair can be identified from the executable. If two machines with the same OS and developement tools create code with slight differences I would begin to worry if I were a virus writer.
Re:Bounty Hunter (Score:3, Funny)
In other news MS successfully argues in court that Borland should now be declared illegal because 'all those worms and viruses are written with this tool'.
Re:Bounty Hunter (Score:4, Informative)
All compilers have a "pattern" in the way they generate the machine code from your originating source code. This has been known for quite some time. I'd say since the early 8088 days, if not earlier. I would think in terms of the quality of the bits in the program like oil paint vs water paint. There is a percievable difference in quality/texture.
About a decade ago, someone created a polymorphic module to be compiled into virii and worms to mask the original code so that a simple string search could not be used to detect it. But the means by which the module worked allowed a new kind of virii detection tool: heuristics to detect the resulting blob of code.
If you compile on a MS system, GNU system, etc... your code will have system calls to partiular libraries and code offsets. This kind of patterning will be able to allow people to determine the following:
Try it. Compile a program and run a debugger agsint it. A good library debugger will be able to tell you what the code is accessing.
Note: If you have the same software setup on two different machines, then your code should be almost the same. What might differ would be various CPU bit size signatures. Say you developed with two systems exactly the same software-wise, but completely different hardware-wise, ie, you cross-compiled from say... a Linux system running VMware and WinXX to create windows code... then the code will be exactly the same.
It would be fair to say that if you wanted to make code which was not possible to track, you would want to do so in a virtual environment where you can make the virtual system seem like any machine except your's, then write the code with the most standard libraries out there. Once written and tested, the development environment, since it is an "instance", can be encrypted and hidden as a large DV encoded stream(dvbackup) or any nnumber of mechanisms.
It would be like having a complete dev environment on your system which can potentially pass technical inspections.
As for being a bounty-hunter, I think your best bet would be having a high degree of luck and a low level of ethics or morals so you can turn in friends you know. In many cases, virii writers who have been caught were caught because they couldn't help bragging or talking about it. Or they do something stupid.
But I suppose if you ask along those lines, your level of ethics and morals is already low.
Thanks to MS, we can all rush towards a world where we snitch on each other for a few bucks and fawn over the KGB..er.. I mean, software police. Is this the new flavour of "democracy"?
access (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's get this over with! (Score:5, Insightful)
Firstly, it sets the stage for blackmail. If one isolated hacker is worth $5m, how much is an unreleased worm worth? Probably much, much more. I'd not be surprised if MS regularly get asked for money upfront before worms are released. Paying out will only make this worse.
Secondly, it is a Darwinian filter. Yes, you can pay to get hold of an isolated criminal. No, you cannot use this tactic against criminal gangs. $5m is not a lot when compared to the value of a large botnet. Setting bounties will eliminate the free-lancers and leave the stage open for more organized criminals who will probably be more agressive in using zombied PCs for criminal acts (child porn, DDoS, etc.)
Thirdly, it is prejudicial and likely to lead to the arrest of innocent people. Given that any zombied PC can be used to launch a worm attack, how can any evidence be trusted? Confessions, too, are unreliable. Bounties are rapidly turned into lynchings.
Lastly, it is a distraction from the real issue: Windows' fundamental security weaknesses. Microsoft must release a secure Windows within the next 12 months or risk permanent damage to their brand. Paying bounties for worm writers fools no-one: Windows remains insecure and there remain an unlimited supply of smart criminals happy to take advantage of that.
Re:Let's get this over with! (Score:2)
If Microsoft doesn't pay, then that blackmail value is zero. Regularly report would be blackmailers to the police. Then you've set the right incentives in place.
Secondly, it is a Darwinian filter. Yes, you can pay to get hold of an is
Re:Let's get this over with! (Score:2)
You need to RTFA again. The payment was $250k. The fund is $5m.
Payload next time? (Score:3, Insightful)
(1) Do they have the right guy? I doubt it!
(2) What of a payload. Perhaps next time there will be a real payload. IMHO dumping a worm onto the net is about the same as a prank. I somehow doubt the "authorties" will see the humour. In which case perhaps the next worm will contain a payload worthy of the punishment that this young man will suffer.
This could be the beginning of a serious escalation.
What people need to realise is that with a billion plus people on the net, if there is a vulnerability then it will be found. It does not matter who does it - because SOMEONE will. Punshing the pranster is not a deterant. Fixing the broken software is the only solution and fat cat Mr. Moneybags Bill Gates should be able to accomplish the later... either that or withdraw the clearly faulty software from the market.
If we chose to attack and punish the pransters then it is we who escalate this and I would expect the reaction will be in the form of an escalation of the damages.
Re:Payload next time? (Score:2)
I've had a windows computer connected directly to the internet with no NAT or firewall for several years, and the only times that any viruses ever make it onto the computer are when one of my kids runs a trojan that they got from somewhere on the ne
Re:Payload next time? (Score:2)
I also have a windows computer. It is behind an OpenBSD firewall. My son was unsuccessful with his windows 2000 system and after the 7th reload he has abandoned it. I gave him his own zone... the OpenBSD firewall blocks him and his computers from anything in my zone.
I have Never had a virus or
Re:Payload next time? (Score:2)
Oh... and that computer has never, ever, been infected by
what's to stop.... (Score:3, Insightful)
sucks. It could be done JUST to get the reward for that matter, although that would be risky, but still possible.
microsoft got a mega buhzillion dollars in the bank from not hiring coders and not insisting on great code since forever and a day. I think what is more appropriate when money is being talked about is a class action lawsuit from thousands of joe MS users, not the government, joe users large and small who have been victimised by insecure OS that they got *suckered and conned* into running, and I mean suckered by their abusive monopoly tactics and vendor lockins for OS that happened over the past decade especially. Most people didn't "choose" to run microsoft, they got faked into it by it being installed on their boxes when they bought them. Then all of microsofts profits from not doing their job, combined with the ridiculous no warranty deal that profitable software gets, turned into the victimized end user's problems, where you get borken computers, anger, frustration, and in the case of businesses, millions of dollars in actual-for real damages, probably billions, I don't know. A big ole pile of cash, call it that. I bet in a lot of cases the constant and recurring damages exceed the cost of the software installed by many factors.
That sucks too. viruses and worms are BOTH the fault of evil hackers AND filthy rich monopolists who did NOT give a care about security until the past coupla of years, and even then it was half assed. MS as a total company gets it's corporate mindshare from william gates, always has, and he just don't and never has given a crap as long as he can rake in the dough, he's an extreme predator, and I don't care how "compassionate" and"giving" with his "foundation" some mafia don is with ill gotten gains, he's still a mafia chieftain, and made his loot by being a crook. Easy to give away free money you stole and conned people for.
Same with MS and gates, he needs to go to JAIL as far as I am concerned,he's a chronic serial crook, a repeat offender to boot, hidng behind the corporate wall of almost near immunity, and he shows no sign of stopping being a crook, although I will grant he's apparently trying to fix security in longhorn, but that's a long ways offf and doesn't address past crimes, and I think he's only doing it because he is being forced to by market pressures.
just like ESR said (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, this is just the known "cost of doing business" mentality again. If it's cheaper to pay a reward than to develop a secure product in the first place, that's what MS will do.
This is the exact same way they treat regulation - if it's cheapter to break the law and pay some puny court-ordered fine here and there, so be it.
shape up (Score:2)
Exactly... (Score:3, Interesting)
Both are at fault (Score:2)
Personally i dont feel they are making a reasonable attempt as of yet. They are mostly making an attempt to calm bad press, and twart potential legal/govermental issues.
However, that doesnt mean its ok to take advantage of any security issues the software may have...
I.e. the lock should be secure and work as advertised, but if it doesnt, someone shoudlnt fell they are allowed to break into your house...
Love (Score:2, Funny)
(sic the Beatles)
Must have been a very close friend (Score:3, Interesting)
I wouldn't be surprised if one of his friends from this peer group is the one who reported him. After all, the whistleblower also sent source code as proof to Microsoft Germany before the authorities stepped in - he must have been in direct contact with the author and may even be a co-author.
I still don't know what to make of this. I don't like bad hackers writing worms, but I don't like the reward program, either.
Re:Proof ? (Score:5, Insightful)
1) They can show he had the ability to write it.
2) They might have people who he told he wrote it.
3) There might be evidance on his computer.
4) They can look at how it spread, and what he had access to.
5) They might have been tracking his internet activities, seeing where he was and what he was doing (they had probably cause).
I think there are many things the police can do to find out if it is him.
Re:Proof ? (Score:2)
6) He does this all remotely on a technically competent associate's computer.
7) He turns in his associate.
8) Profit.
Re:Proof ? (Score:2)
1) They can show he had the ability to write it.
WTF!?
Are you seriously suggesting that suspicion should be cast upon someone just because they have the ability to do something?
You people scare me.
Re:He confessed - why don't you know? (Score:2)
The point I was trying to make is: if he didn't, how could they have got him ? All of the "evidence" listed a couple of posts above is just circumstantial.