My Own PR Assault against Microsoft

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

Forwarded from: security curmudgeon <jericho () attrition org>

http://www.attrition.org/security/rant/microsoft_pr_assault.html

My Own PR Assault against Microsoft
Thu Nov 13 04:04:21 EST 2003
Brian Martin

Infoworld broke a story on Microsoft's plans for waging a public
relations war against "linux" over taking too long to fix security
vulnerabilities. The article by Kieren McCarthy outlines Microsoft's
planned smear campaign against its biggest rival, Linux, currently
dubbed "Days of Risk".

With the decision to smear Linux in the media, Microsoft has once
again validated the open source operating system as competition,
despite repeated attempts in the past to boldly claim "Linux is not
competition". In the last few years, Microsoft has begun to lose high
dollar customers such as the Norwegian government and the city of
Munich, who are turning to alternate solutions such as Linux.

McCarthy's article along with Microsoft's recent behavior once again
prove that while they claim security is important, they are oblivious
to the steps required to achieve security. Misguided policy,
diversionary tactics and wasted money are leading the company down a
perilous road that the software giant is all too familiar with, a road
leading to insecure software and lack of customer trust. While touting
"trustworthy computing initiative", Microsoft's actions tell us of
their real agenda, and it has nothing to do with their customers
enjoying a secure operating system. Reading the Infoworld article,
many points and comments stand out and deserve more attention.

[...]



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