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.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
No Subject Given
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Educate themselves?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Educate themselves?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Educate themselves?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Educate themselves?
[ link to this | view in thread ]