Microsoft Wants to Tax You to Pay for Cybersecurity!

Microsoft Vice President is asking for the Web usage fee.

[artek]

PC World:

Speaking at the RSA security conference in San Francisco, Microsoft Corporate Vice President for Trustworthy Computing Scott Charney said that the technology industry needs to think about more "social solutions."
...
So who would foot the bill? "Maybe markets will make it work," Charney said. But an Internet usage tax might be the way to go. "You could say it's a public safety issue and do it with general taxation," he said.

No we, the public do not have a problem; the Microsoft has a problem and should pay for fixing it. Most of the IT uninformed public bought your product in good faith and were not aware that they will be exposed to the internet security risks with your Windows software.

I have easy solutions to Microsoft Trustworthy Computing cost problem. Send all your operating bills to The Gates Foundation or recall your Windows Operating System and return our money so we can switch to other operating systems.

Today most hacked PCs run Microsoft's Windows operating system, and the company has invested millions in trying to fight the problem.

Maybe Microsoft should invest a billion that would help.

PC World article: here [pcworld.com]

[edited by: phranque at 12:28 am (utc) on Mar 5, 2010]
[edit reason] URLs [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]

[incrediBILL]

Forget the 'net tax.

Replace the infected windows machine with Ubuntu, Firefox or Chrome, and Open Office.

I've already done everything except switch to Ubuntu at this point.

[artek]

Replace the infected windows machine with Ubuntu, Firefox or Chrome, and Open Office.

Most of people I know they do not even know that they have problem or they have deeper understanding of it.

We already pay tax by buying updates to anti-virus and anti-spyware programs every year that supposed to fix the most of Windows problems. Now they want more of our money to fix problems that they were aware of and neglected for years.

In addition, you are right: I am using Firefox on PC and Safari on Apple; and if I have to use IE, I disable java 90% of the time.

[incrediBILL]

I disable java 90% of the time

I hope you mean you disable javaSCRIPT as Java is a totally different beast.

Most people, particularly the elderly, have little use for what's in Windows nor care they're even using it.

My father-in-law calls his browser Google. One day he called ViewSonic tech support asking why his clock on the screen was running too slow. To him and many others it's just a web appliance to get online, surf and play games, they don't know or care about the details until it stops working.

My mom in her 70s is so paranoid of all the hackers she installed a hardware firewall *and* a software firewall plus A/V. How much does she use the computer? Browser and email, that's about it.

How much security do you (should you) need to browse the web and check email?

These are simple tasks, how hard can they be to secure?

Internet tax?

Put some of those vaccine billions into Windows and start by vaccinating your own baby Mr. Gates.

If Linux can be hardened, Windows can be hardened.

If Chrome can be hardened, MSIE can be hardened.

I'm a programmer, get better engineers and stuff your 'net tax.

[phranque]

These are simple tasks, how hard can they be to secure?

the more common the task and the deeper the market penetration of the product the greater the vulnerability.

[piatkow]

My mom in her 70s is so paranoid of all the hackers she installed a hardware firewall

The number of people that I have come across who think that putting a cheque with all their bank account details plus a copy of their signature in the post with a covering letter giving their home address is somehow safer than paying on-line through a secure server ......!

[JS_Harris]

I want to tax my mechanic to pay for my auto repairs!

oi

[Demaestro]

Would you get a tax refund if you don't run windows?

[willybfriendly]

Hacking is hardly a problem isolated to M$ products. How many of those infections begin on Linux variant machines running insecure PHP/Ruby/Python/C/etc. scripts?

That they target mainly M$ is simply a reflection of market penetration.

FreeBSD, for example, has hardly been free of security updates [freebsd.org].

[incrediBILL]

FreeBSD, for example, has hardly been free of security updates

The difference is the level of transparency.

I can download and patch Linux or FreeBSD on my own.

I can't review the source of Windows and patch it if needed, therefore there's no transparency and no trust.

[Demaestro]

FreeBSD, for example, has hardly been free of security updates

Yes but how many free BSD machines out there are part of a botnet? I would wager less than 0.001%

Almost every linux vulnerability has do with accessing files being made available to the public, so really it is only when you host files to the outside world that you open yourself up to attacks. Simply surfing the web with a linux box and going to websites will not make you vulnerable nor will they result in an "infection"

[willybfriendly]

But this thread isn't about open vs proprietary software and/or issues of transparency. I am not a M$ defender, and I think chalking up net security to a problem with Windows/M$ is inaccurate. Give Mac/Safari the same market share and I would predict a significant increase in exploits for that platform.

[Demaestro]

willy you are spot on there, the main reason for targeting M$ users is due to the volume of users online who use M$.

I have no doubt that if OSX enjoyed the same market share they would endure the same amount of attacks.

Most virus authors are 'nix geeks may also contribute to the reason they don't try to exploit Ubuntu, kind of like an honor to their platform of choice.

That being said, Microsoft operating systems suffer from an underlining problem that would require an entire rewrite to address them all and M$ won't do that. That coupled with the sad reaction time for closing holes once discovered, and even sometimes outright refusal to close holes are reasons to me that M$ should bear the brunt of the costs of cleaning this mess up.

Except for the recent EU ruling that required M$ to remove dependency on IE and WMP windows has been insistent that certain pieces of software been packaged with the OS, things like a web browser and a media player, but why is it that they never coupled their own AV software, they should know the underlying issues better than any 3rd party developer. The fact that they pre-install a web-browser and not an anti-virus to me equates to negligence. How can they in good conscience sell a computer with a web browser installed without installing some type of AV software as well when they know how open their software is to attacks?

It is almost like selling a car with an accelerator and no brake.

[mack]

No tax, just make sure the hackers/exploiters who get caught are fined so hard they are paying it off for the rest of their life.

Mack.