Microsoft Must be held accountable.

JoeHill joehill-rieW9WUcm8FFJ04o6PK0Fg at public.gmane.org
Sat Oct 11 02:28:31 UTC 2003


On Fri, 10 Oct 2003 12:38:36 -0400 (EDT)
"Keith Mastin" <kmastin-PzQIwG9Jn9VAFePFGvp55w at public.gmane.org> uttered:

> > But shouldn't MS be held responsible for the ridiculous ease with
> > which these people can compromise Windows software?
> 
> Why? Read the EULA. You are not forced to purchase, or to use the
> software. There is no guarantee that it will work. M$ had played a
> significant role in getting the world to use computers. It's just time
> to upgrade :)

If you follow the current trend, MS is working on making it impossible
*not* to use their software, witness Palladium and their efforts to make
MoBo manufacturers tie the BIOS to MS software. And the idea that MS
gave the world computers is bunk, there would be a whole lot more
plugged in people in this world if it were not for MS's *criminal
behaviour* with respect to suppressing innovation and development. If
anything, there are *fewer* useable computers in the world thanks to MS,
since they've continually upped the hardware ante when it wasn't
necessary, pushing perfectly useable machines into the junk heap.

> > And the only way to get their attention is to make Windows more
> > difficult to use on the 'net, ie. find a way to identify the
> > machines and shut them out.
> 
> No. People have a tendency to work on a pain/pleasure routine. Pain is
> most effective in the wallet. When the pain reaches a certain point,
> they look for relief. We're here.

We won't be for long with that kind of complacent attitude. MS is intent
on making Linux, OSS, and the GPL for all intents and purposes illegal.
Witness their latest proxy attack using SCO, calling OSS "communist",
getting into bed with Bush and Ashcroft to make sure all us "hackers"
are kept in line.

> > I already block all mail from Outlook unless it is from a known
> > person or list, and there are ways to make websites inaccessible to
> > IE (there must be, if there are ways to do the reverse), which I am
> > going to look into.
> 
> You are moving up your leg from shooting yourself in the foot. Don't
> aim too high. :)

Why is that? 99% of the spam I get is from Outhouse. IE is a known
propagator of malicious code, in fact it's so easy to do that all you
have to do is load a properly mined web page to infect your system, and
the latest MS patch for this vulnerability doesn't even work, MS says
"they're working on it...". Why would I want to encourage people to use
such a thing? Have you checked your Apache logs lately? Do you ever run
snort or ethereal? Infected Windows crap is eating up bandwidth like
there's no tomorrow, and I'm supposed to put up with this? It takes me 3
minutes to send an e-mail sometimes because my ISP is so overloaded with
pondscum emanating from compromised XP boxes.

This is not just going to work itself out, it's about time some people
started messing up MS's bed.

-- 
JoeHill
Registered Linux user #282046
Homepage: www.orderinchaos.org
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
We can embody the truth, but we cannot know it.
		-- Yates
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml





More information about the Legacy mailing list