http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/06/28/1088274658575.html By Nathan Cochrane June 28, 2004 Years spent battling Washington have left an impression on Bill Gates. The Microsoft co-founder and one of the world's richest men is in Sydney today for a press appearance so tightly scripted and controlled it could have been orchestrated by US President George W. Bush's media office. A tactic the Bush camp uses - and which Mr Gates will adopt - is to stifle discussion by accepting just one question from each reporter. Also like a visiting head of state, Mr Gates will share a podium with Prime Minister John Howard for a stage managed pre-election publicity photo opportunity. The two will join charity groups to launch a scheme that puts computers running the company's software within reach of the disadvantaged. Similar schemes running free software and donated recycled PCs have operated for the last decade without such high-profile backing or funding. Mr Gates borrows another play out of the US President's Secret Service manual, requiring all journalists to submit their passports for verification prior to entry, and then locking them inside a hotel meeting room where the conference will be held. At least the assembled do not have to submit their retinas or fingerprints for scanning - possibly because Microsoft can't come to grips with good security. Despite launching its "Trustworthy Computing" campaign two-and-a-half years ago, secure IT systems still elude the world's biggest software maker. Roundly criticised by computer security experts as little more than a marketing ploy, Microsoft's plan to secure every PC in the world that runs its software never got on the rails. Following years of almost weekly security stuff-ups, last month the company back-flipped on a promise to release critical security updates to those it alleges have pirated its PC operating system, the ubiquitous Windows. Microsoft was roundly condemned by security experts for what will, in effect, remove a software "condom" from the internet, laying at risk all users. And then last Friday, websites running Microsoft's Internet Information Server - software that delivers usually corporate web pages to surfers - suffered what may be the company's most embarrassing glitch to date. A "trojan horse" program variously called "Download.Ject'', "Scob'' and "Toofer'' that, like the warriors of Homer's epic who hid inside an innocuous outer shell only to wreak havoc once brought inside, hopped from one site to the next exploiting security lapses in Microsoft software that could lead to theft of confidential information such as credit card details. Anyone visiting a compromised website had everything they typed copied to a computer in Russia, researchers said. The exploit, which Microsoft and independent researchers gave the highest threat-level of "critical", short-circuited most security precautions on both the infected corporate server and on the surfer's PC. The hacker's server was shut-down at the weekend by Russian law enforcement, but the perpetrators remain at large. Those running the market-leading open source Apache web server, who use desktop operating systems such as Mac OS X or GNU/Linux, or Windows web browsers other than Explorer (such as Opera or Mozilla) were inoculated from the virus. _________________________________________ ISN mailing list Sponsored by: OSVDB.org - For 15 cents a day, you could help feed an InfoSec junkie! (Broke? Spend 15 minutes a day on the project!)
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