(Mis)Uses of Technology

(Mis)Uses of Technology

by Mike Masnick




Microsoft: DRM Loophole Your Problem, Not Ours

from the educate-yourselves... dept

How nice. Following the news that someone is, indeed, exploiting the loophole in Microsoft's DRM offering to sneak trojan horses onto computers, Microsoft has basically said "it's not our problem." Their response is that there's really just no way to fix it, so people should educate themselves about the problem, and maybe use Microsoft's own antispyware solution to fix it. Maybe it's just a poor choice of words by the Microsoft guy in question, but this comes off looking really bad. It's clearly a security hole by Microsoft. There's no way a DRM product should be installing applications on your computer when it's just supposed to be looking for a license. Most people assume, when they click on a media file, that there's no executable included. Telling people to "educate" themselves is pretty obnoxious. To follow that up by pointing to a beta offering that was only bought to put a temporary fix on Microsoft security problems just seems to highlight Microsoft's cavalier response to security issues. Microsoft keeps saying that they're taking security more seriously, but telling people to educate themselves and pointing them to a different product (still in beta) to protect themselves from a problem that comes from Microsoft's poor design, makes it seem like they don't really care at all.

5 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

Reader Comments

(Flattened / Threaded)

    Jan 14th, 2005 @ 11:57am
  • No Subject Given

    by eskayp

    'Irresponsible', 'arrogant', 'predatory', or just 'sad'.
    Take your choice(s).
    But even sadder, the bulk of clueless PC users,
    don't know, don't want to know, and will damn
    anyone who tries to inform them.
    Even with the impressive growth of the open source
    and Linux communities, we diehard true believers
    are but a pimple on the beast's behind.
    Hope the annoyance becomes terminal.
    Then at least the rest of the general population
    will be free of the parasite.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Jan 14th, 2005 @ 2:27pm
  • Educate themselves?

    by todd

    If users are going to have to educate themselves, why not educate themselves on how to use Linux or Mac instead of the swiss-cheese crap they put out.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

    • Jan 14th, 2005 @ 2:32pm
    • Re: Educate themselves?

      by Anonymous Coward

      todd, fortunately they are! there are more and more ibook's showing up in my local coffee haunt, and the word is 'you don't need help if you get a mac' .. people like that.

      (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

      • Jan 17th, 2005 @ 11:15am
      • Re: Educate themselves?

        by Anonymous Coward

        I can't wait for enough people to get macs so that macs become the main focus of all the attacks. Then I'll be able to use windows in peace.

        (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

      Jun 9th, 2007 @ 7:34am
    • Re: Educate themselves?

      by Mike

      And what about those of us that have a few grand sunk into machines for gaming? We have no choice but windows, as none of the games run on linux or mac? I am far from computer illiterate and I run XP because I none of my games run anywhere else. It seems these geek sites lump all windows users into this group of ignorant clueless morons that don't know anything about computers because we don't run linux... personally I don't see it an option at all. Until games are multi platform, windows is the only option. (oh and this is where people will tell me about the vast array of suckage that is linux gaming, sorry but those games are pretty much all crap)

      (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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