Is the end near for Microsoft?

[new2linux55]

Seems Microsoft has just landed them a massive fine!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/30620.html

[Faust]

2.2 TRILLION!

Holy shit, If the judge actually orders that the full amount be paid then they are screwed, not even they can afford that.  

But I doubt they will ask for the full amount.  

[TheKnifeThrower]

I hope that judge imposes the full fine. Otherwise we might have to kill him.

[baggab]

M$ always seems to weasle out of these things!

I am happy to hear they are in trouble -- somebody throw them a boat anchor!

[Win]

we only jus beg un

[lazygamer]

/cheers loudly

Never imagined this could happen(powerful lawsuit that is).

Even if the full amount is not payed, it could still be a very damaging amount they "plea bargain" for.

Question is, will MS suddenly start making Wind0ze far more secure?

What would be extra useful though, is a big media circus about this. Get people doubting MS, than get moronic "security experts" creating hysteria about hackers being able to hack your Windows box and steal your credit card info etc(which is hardly farfetched, but in principle it's still media BS).

 

quote:The Federal Trade Commission last year demanded that Microsoft improve its Passport security or face stiff fines of up to $11,000 per violation. Redmond promised to work harder to protect consumer information and launched it's Trustworthy Computing initiative to put regulators' minds at ease.

Well, the FTC is looking into the Passport breach and could slap Microsoft with a fine of $2.2 trillion to cover all 200 million violated users.

"If we were to find that they didn't take reasonable safeguards to protect the information, that could be an order violation," Jessica Rich, assistant director for financial practices at the FTC, told the AP.

So not only have they been warned, but they are being charged with screwing over 200 million users!!! Ok even if they weasel out, MS is up against some big odds here, something's gotta happen.

Ok but I'm worried about this "reasonable safeguards" thing. This could be their weasel area.

[jtpenrod]

quote:Question is, will MS suddenly start making Wind0ze far more secure?

There's so much kludgy code in there already that "suddenly" making it secure will not be possible. They have made some progress in this area lately, however, this hasn't been the first security breech of the Passport system. They still have one helluva long road ahead of them to make Winderz as secure as Linux.

quote:So not only have they been warned, but they are being charged with screwing over 200 million users!!! Ok even if they weasel out, MS is up against some big odds here, something's gotta happen.

Ok but I'm worried about this "reasonable safeguards" thing. This could be their weasel area.

You can be sure that His Gatesness' legal eagles will play up the "reasonable safeguards" thing for all it's worth. There will for sure be bad publicity over this. And it could very well take considerable luster off the whole .NET (or whatever the hell they're calling it this week) scam... er... scheme. OTOH, I could see this as being a springboard into Palladium (or whatever the hell they're calling it this week). They may very well use this as an excuse to get laws passed that mandate "Fritz chips" and the rest of it that locks out all non-M$ apps.  :mad:   Let's hope to hell that doesn't happen.

Of course, judging from their performance in court during the anti-trust trial, there's an even better possibility that they'll pull some more bone-headed stunts in court and really piss off the judge. As an extra bonus, we may get to see Steve "Monkey-Boy" Ballmer saying more foolish things.    
______________________________________
Live Free or Die: Linux

"There: now you'll never have to look at those dirty Windows anymore"
      --Daffy Duck

[Calum]

quote:So not only have they been warned, but they are being charged with screwing over 200 million users!!! Ok even if they weasel out, MS is up against some big odds here, something's gotta happen.

bollocks!
you just watch the sheep, it'll be "oh woe, save us mr gates! we must use windows but now the mean nasty judge has told us it is not safe! you must make it safe for us so we need never fear that our computers might be compromised by those filthy long haired hackers ever again!"

how likely do you think it is that the sheep will accept an OS made from the ground up by these filthy long haired hackers their culture has brought them up to despise?

remember it is a minority who think for themselves.

[Zombie9920]

This is completely false. The Register has a habit of reporting stuff like a tabloid would. They took the $11,000 per incident fine and took the number of accounts(200 million) and multiplied the numbers together. There is no basis to this story other than some fool making assumptions and stories up.

[Faust]

Actually there is a fairly large basis for that story.  Mainly that an inanely stupid fuck up from Microsoft was discovered in less that half an hour by a single computer security advisor.  And that this flaw compromised the security details of an extremely large number of people.  I do agree that the numbers are exagerated though.  

[Calum]

that sounds more likely, of course technically this should still add up to the same amount, but in all likelihood it won't. Just like life imprisonment means a few years, while the person you murdered is still dead when you are finishing up your sentence.

Do you have a link to a better article about this situation, zombie? i am all in favour of seeing things from a few perspectives.

[baggab]

I may be that the fines are inflated or that they will never be enforced.

But here's a new one from the Wall Street Journal.  Electronic Arts, #1 game designer, is going with Sony exclusively.  I'm sure Bill's pissed about that loss, in a 27 billion dollar market.

Follow the money!

[ May 13, 2003: Message edited by: baggab ]

[mc0282]

i am going to cry, is my dream coming true ? is microsoft could be out of business ?  if these judge fine microsoft i am going to send him  lovely letter to him for his good ass work...

Question thou make me wonder if these virus being poping out , couldn't microsoft had something to do with it ? they lunch virus and blame on hackers so the way make easy for them to unleashed the Trust Computing whatever they call it shit ?

[ May 13, 2003: Message edited by: mc0282 ]

[LordWiccara]

hahahhaha sucks to be microsoft.  thats what they get for supplying us with SHIT

[NM]

You are aware that politicans can be bought and sold?
Group that would have to prosecute here would be the AG's office, Mr. Ashcroft, I presume. . . .