Forum Moderators: phranque
Microsoft has to find some reasonable excuse to access your machine. And antivirus updates are that excuse. The company believes that if it can get people used to constant updating, it can then use the connections for other purposes as well. The other purposes, of course, are mercantile.
On the other hand, since most viruses attack Windows operating systems anyway, it makes sense for them to cut out the middle man. This would be the perfect opportunity for them to cover up the problems with their software.
Microsoft could stop 99% of the viruses in the world by just making it so you could turn off HTML rendering in Outlook and Outlook Express.
Dvorak tries to be controversial.
Soon or even in today, it is ok for MS to have bugs and holes it gets people to goto their sites and to update and to see the name MS and to buy new software.
Bad press would be Master Lock, Inc. constructing locks as secure as $m operating systems. They would go bankrupt in a month. The truth is, Microsoft doesn't get bad press. Most people aren't aware that $m doesn't take security issues seriously. They've been able to slide by on the misguided public belief that 12 years old computer hackers are smarter than $m engineers. People just don't understand how vulnerable $m products really are.
I'm thinking it's time John Stossel [abcnews.go.com] (sorry, popup warning) to do one of his "Gimme a break!" stories.
