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"Our military is dependent upon commodity desktops whose software shares an enormous amount of DNA with systems that sit on every workplace in the planet"
A masterpiece of weasel-wording. Is Microsoft's grip on the news media that tight? Why isn't this a huge scandal? Weird-looking old ladies with thick shoes trying to catch their planes are not threats to this country's security, though they are treated as such, but Windows is a proven threat, and yet Microsoft gets a free pass.
Forbes magazine, in The Day The Web Went Dead, describes how a seriously silly-sounding dispute between Cogent and Sprint resulted in a several-day Internet outage for millions of customers. So where was the routing around the damage? Nowhere is where. The article treats this episode as an amusing duel between some good ole boys with a happy ending, rather than what it really is-- a childish tantrum that caused a lot of harm to a lot of people.
One of my favorite hobbies is scoffing at the worn-out claims of innovation by big business. Feh. The only thing they innovate is spiraling levels of baloney. How Comcast Controls Sony's Internet TV Plans relates the long sad tale of how Sony has been trying for five years to make a deal with Comcast to broadcast Sony programming over Comcast's networks:
"We've worked with the cable companies for five years to develop a system that would allow us and the rest of the television manufacturers to have alternative content on the TV," Mr. Glasgow said."
"All of these applications have to be tested by CableLabs and approved by your cable operator. That's the same crowd that took five years to agree to let Sony build its own electronic program guide."
Maybe they should requisition some adults to run these companies.
You think I'm being mean to poor old F-Secure? You might recall how they gave Sony a free pass on their CD rootkit--F-Secure knew about it for a month before Mark Russinovich broke the story. If it were some foreign kid instead of a big corporation, you can bet they would have been all over it. To this day they soft-pedal it, and so do the other security vendors:
- F-Secure: "Although the software isn't directly malicious, the used rootkit hiding techniques are exactly the same used by malicious software to hide themselves. The DRM software will cause many similar false alarms with all AV software that detect rootkits."
- Symantec: "This rootkit was designed to hide a legitimate application, but it can be used to hide other objects, including malicious software."
- TrendMicro: "This hacking tool is a valid Digital Rights Management (DRM) software package developed by First 4 Internet Ltd. This software package is included as a copy protection mechanism for certain audio compact discs distributed by Sony BMG."
"The software for the drive was written by Taiwanese company FineArt, and Sony is claiming that they had no knowledge of this particular rootkit and did not intend for it to be released."
That's innovation in quality control, I guess.
So the moral of the story is yes Virginia, it is a war.
Carla Schroder is the author of the Linux Cookbook and the Linux Networking Cookbook, and the managing editor of LinuxPlanet.
This article was first published on LinuxPlanet.com.
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