On Wed, Jun 09, 2010 at 16:44:38PM -0400, Barry Shein wrote:
MAYBE IF [please read thru before replying because I probably cover most knee-jerk responses eventually]:
d) Microsoft hadn't ignored all these basic security practices in operating systems which were completely well understood and implemented in OS after OS back to at least 1970 if not before because they saw more profit in, to use a metaphor, selling cars without safety glass in the windshields etc, consequences be damned.
That's a thesis argued in Clarke's book (already mentioned here on NANOG, and slashdot and ...): "Microsoft has vast resources, literally billions of dollars in cash, or liquid assets reserves. Microsoft is an incredibly successful empire built on the premise of market dominance with low-quality goods." Who wrote those lines? Steve Jobs? Linux inventor Linus Torvalds? Ralph Nader? No, the author is former White House adviser Richard A. Clarke in his new book, Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It. Clarke tries to be fair. He notes that Microsoft didn't originally intend its software for critical networks. But even his efforts at fairness are unflattering. Microsoft's original goal "was to get the product out the door and at a low cost of production," he explains. <http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2010/06/cyber-war-microsof t-a-weak-link-in-national-security.ars> -- Henry Yen Aegis Information Systems, Inc. Senior Systems Programmer Hicksville, New York