Microsoft proposes quarantine and tax to fight botnets
There’s been a big meeting on security going on in San Francisco. It’s the RSA Security Conference and Microsoft Vice-President Scott Charney gave a keynote address with some new proposals for increasing security on the Internet. CNET reports on a quarantine suggestion:
–In his keynote at the RSA security conference on Tuesday, Scott Charney, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Trustworthy Computing, suggested that the security industry should follow the health care model of quarantining infected PCs to prevent them from being used to send spam and conduct denial-of-service attacks.
In a follow-up interview afterward, Charney elaborated on his vision for reducing the damage from botnets and explains how infected computers should be kept off the Internet just like doctors quarantine sick people and smokers are restricted as to where they can light up in public.
Charney also proposed an Internet tax to pay for cleaning up infected computers. Personally, I think Microsoft itself bears a lot of the responsibility for the security mess. I agree with Sebastian Rupley, who posted at GigaOM:
Microsoft Vice President for Trustworthy Computing Scott Charney today at the RSA conference in San Francisco proposed an Internet usage tax to fight malware infections and the effects of botnets. But do users at large really need to pay for one of Microsoft’s own most costly problems?
Added later: Adrian Kingsley -Hughes also thinks that Microsoft’s suggestion that we all be taxed to pay for Windows problems deserves a Bronx cheer:
Where does this idea come from that we should all have to chip in to fight this war of botnets? It’s safe to say that the majority of these botnet systems are Windows-based systems (I’m pegging this number at close to 99% of the botnet PCs). Let’s also not forget that Microsoft has gone out of its way to create a monoculture where one OS dominates, through legal and illegal methods. So the idea that we should now all pay to solve a problem that Microsoft not only wanted to create, but made billions of dollars in the process is frankly a ridiculous idea.
Right on, Adrian.
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.