6 ms·

Journalists to Other Journalists: Call Out Windows

21 points by bensummers 17y ago

adrianwaj 17y ago
The publications may be worried MS will pull advertising. Sort of like political campaign funding: fund only those who can and will support you. Sun Microsystems got quite a bit of bad PR during dotgone because it wasn't advertising as much, and when it did, the press improved. So it works both ways, need to spend $$ to get good pr, or to just to avoid bad pr.
barrkel 17y ago
I don't see a reason for news journalists to act as proxies for Apple etc.'s PR departments. News is news because it's new; there's nothing much new about the dominant platform being targeted by malware, and it's not because Windows is intrinsically flawed, but because it's the big target. Also, the article's site is an amazingly shrill opponent of anything relating to MS or Bill Gates. "Author Calls for Action to Stop Bill Gates' Abduction of US Education", "Microsoft Exploits the Poor", "Gates Foundation (and Microsoft) Take the Libraries Takeover Global", etc. It reads like the author(s) puppies got squished by MS early in life, or something. Definitely personal, not rational.
- itg 17y ago
  Since when does calling out Microsoft equal being PR for Apple? Reporters should be attacking bad policies, no matter what the company. And wether the arguments are rational or personal, they make some good points. Some of the articles seem as if the guy is wearing a tin foil hat but then again, it is well documented what Microsoft has done against Linux/Open Source movement.
smallblacksun 17y ago
The entire premise is flawed. Microsoft gets called out all the time in the press for bugs and security flaws.
- bediger 17y ago
  Not very explicitly. When have you heard some journalist write an article about a "Windows Worm"? They're always always always "PC Worms" or "PC Viruses". Microsoft gets big credit for releasing a patch for many "PC Worms" or "PC vulnerabilities", but the vulnerability in never ever a "Windows" problem.
  - Semiapies 17y ago
    Because the standard reporter's assumption is that a "PC" is a computer running Windows. Otherwise, it's a Mac.
    - smallblacksun 17y ago
      Not just reporters, everybody except a small group of techies. Just look at the Mac vs. PC ads, which were really Mac vs. Windows.
  - arebop 17y ago
    I have the same impression and I do think that if only Toyotas had frequent and widespread problems with breaking systems, you'd hear stories about "Toyota break failures" rather than "Car break failures." I tested my impression with data: Google news searches: frequency term --- --- 0 pc worm 5 windows worm 12 computer worm 0 computer vulnerability 2 pc vulnerability 7 windows vulnerability 6 pc virus 35 windows virus 161 computer virus
- tzs 17y ago
  According to that site, Microsoft and/or Bill Gates personally have editorial control over the New York Times, the Huffington Post, and most other major news outlets (both print and broadcast). They also claim Microsoft has successfully bribed (to the point of being able to dictate government policy) the Obama administration, the French government, the British government, the US DOJ, the EU competition commission, and various others. (I'm not even going to get into their claims that the real purpose of the Gates Foundation is a eugenics program to eliminate minorities and to colonize Africa). Flawed premises are par for the course there. (For those who don't recognize the site, it's the old boycottnovell site, with a new name to try to dodge their old reputation).
tptacek 17y ago
No company in the industry has spent more to address security than Microsoft, in absolute terms or in figures relative to their size or market penetration. I say this as an inveterate Apple customer who came up using Linux by way of 386bsd. You see a journalist "calling out" Microsoft for insecurity, and you've got a coin-flip's chance that that reporter has absolutely no idea what he's talking about when it comes to security.
- JoachimSchipper 17y ago
  Yes, Microsoft spent a lot of money on security, and this has paid off to some extent (Win7 is much better than, say, 98); but don't you think they still, well, suck? In at least an absolute sense, if not a relative sense?
  - tptacek 17y ago
    Do I enjoy using Win7? No. Would I trust Win7 code more than... other code? Very yes. This is basically like asking me, "which would you trust more: code that you're reasonably sure Mike Eddington fuzzed, or code that you're pretty confident he hasn't."
    - JoachimSchipper 17y ago
      It's not that Microsoft has crappy coders: their programmers are good and motivated. It's not that Microsoft doesn't care about security: they got burnt badly enough that they learned their lesson. It's just that there is so much code. A good OpenBSD install, even one with lots of functionality, just has much less trusted code (i.e. code which absolutely has to be correct). And while I do like OpenBSD, it's not unique: the other BSDs are also solid, and Solaris - despite a somewhat bad reputation in some circles - is also pretty good. I'm sure that there are some very smart people working on Windows security; it's just that engineering everything for security beats "features first". [EDIT: thank you for your reply! I'm happy to learn, even if we're unlikely to convince each other...]
  - thaumaturgy 17y ago
aidenn0 17y ago
"What would it be like if Linux, or any real multi-user networking operating system with a sane design, were the standard operating system? I bet money we would not have tens of millions of Linux PCs in botnets, even with a large population of unsophisticated users. No botnets pumping out phishes, spam, and malware, no drive-by infections from merely visiting infected Web sites" I call BS on this quote. I have no reason to believe that, e.g. firefox on linux is any more secure than firefox on windows. There is no reason a botnet needs root access on a linux hosts. The only reason we don't have huge swarms of linux botnets is that hackers get more bang for the buck by targeting windows.
- blasdel 17y ago
  Firefox is just ridiculously insecure all around as a platform for extensions. Instead of developing a new least-privilege extension API like Chrome did, Mozilla put in an App Store style review process on A.M.O. for real extensions and developed a new API just for lame themes. They have code signing baked in but don't even use it for their own code, so an annoying 'unsigned' warning is the expected default. Even with all that, the extensions themselves have highly-exploitable vulnerabilities: http://lwn.net/Articles/348769/ http://lwn.net/Articles/348769/ It's probably the best means to get remote code execution on Linux, especially since extensions can bundle native NPAPI plugins.

21 points by bensummers 17y ago

The publications may be worried MS will pull advertising. Sort of like political campaign funding: fund only those who can and will support you. Sun Microsystems got quite a bit of bad PR during dotgone because it wasn't advertising as much, and when it did, the press improved. So it works both ways, need to spend $$ to get good pr, or to just to avoid bad pr.

barrkel 17y ago

I don't see a reason for news journalists to act as proxies for Apple etc.'s PR departments. News is news because it's new; there's nothing much new about the dominant platform being targeted by malware, and it's not because Windows is intrinsically flawed, but because it's the big target. Also, the article's site is an amazingly shrill opponent of anything relating to MS or Bill Gates. "Author Calls for Action to Stop Bill Gates' Abduction of US Education", "Microsoft Exploits the Poor", "Gates Foundation (and Microsoft) Take the Libraries Takeover Global", etc. It reads like the author(s) puppies got squished by MS early in life, or something. Definitely personal, not rational.

itg 17y ago
Since when does calling out Microsoft equal being PR for Apple? Reporters should be attacking bad policies, no matter what the company. And wether the arguments are rational or personal, they make some good points. Some of the articles seem as if the guy is wearing a tin foil hat but then again, it is well documented what Microsoft has done against Linux/Open Source movement.

smallblacksun 17y ago

The entire premise is flawed. Microsoft gets called out all the time in the press for bugs and security flaws.

bediger 17y ago
Not very explicitly. When have you heard some journalist write an article about a "Windows Worm"? They're always always always "PC Worms" or "PC Viruses". Microsoft gets big credit for releasing a patch for many "PC Worms" or "PC vulnerabilities", but the vulnerability in never ever a "Windows" problem.
- Semiapies 17y ago
  Because the standard reporter's assumption is that a "PC" is a computer running Windows. Otherwise, it's a Mac.
  - smallblacksun 17y ago
    Not just reporters, everybody except a small group of techies. Just look at the Mac vs. PC ads, which were really Mac vs. Windows.
- arebop 17y ago
  I have the same impression and I do think that if only Toyotas had frequent and widespread problems with breaking systems, you'd hear stories about "Toyota break failures" rather than "Car break failures." I tested my impression with data: Google news searches: frequency term --- --- 0 pc worm 5 windows worm 12 computer worm 0 computer vulnerability 2 pc vulnerability 7 windows vulnerability 6 pc virus 35 windows virus 161 computer virus
tzs 17y ago
According to that site, Microsoft and/or Bill Gates personally have editorial control over the New York Times, the Huffington Post, and most other major news outlets (both print and broadcast). They also claim Microsoft has successfully bribed (to the point of being able to dictate government policy) the Obama administration, the French government, the British government, the US DOJ, the EU competition commission, and various others. (I'm not even going to get into their claims that the real purpose of the Gates Foundation is a eugenics program to eliminate minorities and to colonize Africa). Flawed premises are par for the course there. (For those who don't recognize the site, it's the old boycottnovell site, with a new name to try to dodge their old reputation).

tptacek 17y ago

No company in the industry has spent more to address security than Microsoft, in absolute terms or in figures relative to their size or market penetration. I say this as an inveterate Apple customer who came up using Linux by way of 386bsd. You see a journalist "calling out" Microsoft for insecurity, and you've got a coin-flip's chance that that reporter has absolutely no idea what he's talking about when it comes to security.

JoachimSchipper 17y ago
Yes, Microsoft spent a lot of money on security, and this has paid off to some extent (Win7 is much better than, say, 98); but don't you think they still, well, suck? In at least an absolute sense, if not a relative sense?
- tptacek 17y ago
  Do I enjoy using Win7? No. Would I trust Win7 code more than... other code? Very yes. This is basically like asking me, "which would you trust more: code that you're reasonably sure Mike Eddington fuzzed, or code that you're pretty confident he hasn't."
  - JoachimSchipper 17y ago
    It's not that Microsoft has crappy coders: their programmers are good and motivated. It's not that Microsoft doesn't care about security: they got burnt badly enough that they learned their lesson. It's just that there is so much code. A good OpenBSD install, even one with lots of functionality, just has much less trusted code (i.e. code which absolutely has to be correct). And while I do like OpenBSD, it's not unique: the other BSDs are also solid, and Solaris - despite a somewhat bad reputation in some circles - is also pretty good. I'm sure that there are some very smart people working on Windows security; it's just that engineering everything for security beats "features first". [EDIT: thank you for your reply! I'm happy to learn, even if we're unlikely to convince each other...]
- thaumaturgy 17y ago

aidenn0 17y ago

"What would it be like if Linux, or any real multi-user networking operating system with a sane design, were the standard operating system? I bet money we would not have tens of millions of Linux PCs in botnets, even with a large population of unsophisticated users. No botnets pumping out phishes, spam, and malware, no drive-by infections from merely visiting infected Web sites" I call BS on this quote. I have no reason to believe that, e.g. firefox on linux is any more secure than firefox on windows. There is no reason a botnet needs root access on a linux hosts. The only reason we don't have huge swarms of linux botnets is that hackers get more bang for the buck by targeting windows.

blasdel 17y ago
Firefox is just ridiculously insecure all around as a platform for extensions. Instead of developing a new least-privilege extension API like Chrome did, Mozilla put in an App Store style review process on A.M.O. for real extensions and developed a new API just for lame themes. They have code signing baked in but don't even use it for their own code, so an annoying 'unsigned' warning is the expected default. Even with all that, the extensions themselves have highly-exploitable vulnerabilities: http://lwn.net/Articles/348769/ http://lwn.net/Articles/348769/ It's probably the best means to get remote code execution on Linux, especially since extensions can bundle native NPAPI plugins.