[ISN] My Own PR Assault against Microsoft

From: InfoSec News (isn@private)
Date: Wed Nov 19 2003 - 22:06:16 PST

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    Forwarded from: security curmudgeon <jericho@private>
    
    http://www.attrition.org/security/rant/microsoft_pr_assault.html
    
    My Own PR Assault against Microsoft
    Thu Nov 13 04:04:21 EST 2003
    Brian Martin
    
    Infoworld broke a story on Microsoft's plans for waging a public
    relations war against "linux" over taking too long to fix security
    vulnerabilities. The article by Kieren McCarthy outlines Microsoft's
    planned smear campaign against its biggest rival, Linux, currently
    dubbed "Days of Risk".
    
    With the decision to smear Linux in the media, Microsoft has once
    again validated the open source operating system as competition,
    despite repeated attempts in the past to boldly claim "Linux is not
    competition". In the last few years, Microsoft has begun to lose high
    dollar customers such as the Norwegian government and the city of
    Munich, who are turning to alternate solutions such as Linux.
    
    McCarthy's article along with Microsoft's recent behavior once again
    prove that while they claim security is important, they are oblivious
    to the steps required to achieve security. Misguided policy,
    diversionary tactics and wasted money are leading the company down a
    perilous road that the software giant is all too familiar with, a road
    leading to insecure software and lack of customer trust. While touting
    "trustworthy computing initiative", Microsoft's actions tell us of
    their real agenda, and it has nothing to do with their customers
    enjoying a secure operating system. Reading the Infoworld article,
    many points and comments stand out and deserve more attention.
    
    [...]
    
    
    
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