[Am-info] Microsoft reaction to security problems - close out competitors

[Erick Andrews]

On Mon, 1 Sep 2003 11:27:19 -0500, Roy Bixler wrote:

<snip>

>What's especially ironic about this is that Microsoft was calling out
>for AOL to open up their instant message service and allow MSN users
>to use it freely.  AOL kept tweaking their servers to lock out MSN
>messages and made it clear that it considered such accesses to be
>trespass on their private network.  At that time, Microsoft was
>proprosing an "open messaging standard" to allow the different
>messaging services to interoperate.  Now we find that their their
>commitment to open messaging standards was not so strong after all.
>
>> The Microsoft lurkers on this list ... love to hear from you why
>> this interpretation is wrong.
>
>Don't count on me to give a charitable interpretation.  I believe this
>is part of Microsoft's overall plan to decommoditise Internet
>protocols and replace them with ones that they control.  An open
>Internet messaging protocol would be the last thing they would want to
>encourage.
>
>> It is time to abandon the MSN ship?
>
>It would surprise me greatly to find that you were ever on it.  Oh,
>you meant the 'softie lurkers out there ... whether they stay on the
>ship, they should have no illusions about its intended destination.
>

I guess I missed some of the depth here.  Because I'm on my own
'good ship lollipop OS', and I never use any Windows OSes, I must
admit I am somewhat blindsided about these issues. ;-)  I like to keep
aware of them, though.

MS have been trying to usurp the RFC's of the Internet for several years.
They have made inroads against the W3C for some time with their browser-
of-the-month club.

What I can say is that I don't need their 'innovative' HTTP stuff:  and I  don't
need their streaming video, audio, or games.  I also don't (and am so far 
immune to) such e-mail culpabilities of .exe, .com., .bat, .scr, .pif, .vbf, etc., 
files whether it's social engineering, ping storms, buffer overflows, or their
gaping network holes.

The devil is in the details.  If you can realize, and understand the implications
of how 'Windows' keeps their TCP/IP ports open all the time, you'd dump their 
software in a heartbeat.  It's like leaving the keys in your car or never locking the
doors to your home.

With so much money that they have, why won't they fix their systems?
I say it's because they're now so far down the monopoly road of schlock, 
they can't, and won't, don't think they have to, make more money on repair,
and no one has yet made them seriously accountable.

-- 
Erick

Pennsylvania 6-5-oh-oh-oh!