[ISN] Microsoft's tax-for-hacks 'horrible' idea, say security experts

From: InfoSec News <alerts_at_private>
Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 00:42:48 -0600 (CST)
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9166458/Microsoft_s_tax_for_hacks_horrible_idea_say_security_experts?taxonomyId=17

By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld
March 5, 2010

Microsoft's idea that the fight against malware could be funded by an 
Internet tax is "horrible," an analyst said Thursday as other experts 
weighed in on a recent comment by the company's security chief.

Earlier this week, Scott Charney, Microsoft's vice president for its 
Trustworthy Computing group, said that while there are plenty of ways to 
combat malware, scrub infected PCs and take down botnets, no one wanted 
to foot the bill.

"Maybe markets will make it work," Charney said, but then added that an 
Internet usage tax might be the solution. "You could say it's a public 
safety issue and do it with general taxation," Charney said.

"The idea of a general Net tax is a horrible idea," said John Pescatore, 
Gartner's security analyst. "Why not a tax on all retail goods for a 
standard antishoplifting service all merchants would have to use?" A 
business, he said, can now select what it thinks is the best 
anti-malware solution, but that choice would presumably vanish if 
funding for battling the bad guys went national.

[...]


___________________________________________________________
Register now for HITBSecConf2010 - Dubai, the premier 
deep-knowledge network security event in the GCC, 
featuring keynote speakers John Viega and Matt Watchinski! 
http://conference.hitb.org/hitbsecconf2010dxb/
Received on Sun Mar 07 2010 - 22:42:48 PST

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.2.0 : Sun Mar 07 2010 - 22:52:18 PST