Open Letter to a Digital World

jg21 writes "Exasperated after spending 5 hours removing spyware and trojans from his wife's Windows PC, sysadmin Chris Spencer has written an impassioned Open Letter to a Digital World. In the letter he reviews the 'elephants in the closet' - i.e. unfixed bugs and glaring security vulnerabilities - that Microsoft in his view hopes ordinary users will ignore, including some discussed in previous Slashdot stories."

Transparent installers...pfft

[Anonymous Coward]

Must be saddening to have a wife that lies about the sites she visits.

All the spywared boxes we fix at work, NONE of the customers know how that porno dialer got on their system. etc etc

Oh, hey, Wow!

[Icarus1919]

All this time, with all the antitrust lawsuits, and it turns out all Microsoft needed was a stern talking to. Man, wish I could think outside the box like that...

Re:Dear Sir,

[rongten]

Dear Mac user,
this is an automatic message from your ISP.

Due to the last batch of Viruses/Worms/Trojans affecting the Microsoft users that you so despise,
the network is congested, and you cannot reach Itunes stores and cannot download the Steve Jobs Picture of the day.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Re:I don't get it.

[Master of Transhuman]

"You sir, are obviously not married."

Not married?

This is /. - he can't even get a date!

Date? He hasn't even been apprised of the fact that there are two sexes!

Oh, wait, yes he has - vi and emacs...

Re:I don't get it.

[Soko]

My wife has a mind of her own.

As does mine, thankfully.

Let me tell you this: if she runs IE, it's not my fault. It's her computer. If I don't realize what she's doing, it's my fault for not invading her privacy and that's where that ends.

Hunh? I discuss these things with my bride. Such a trivial thing should not ba a matter of privacy. My wife knows why Firefox is a better browser, why I removed WebShots and why the computer is mostly booted into Linux. She realises I'm the sysadmin, an expert in my field, and is willing to trust my judgement, seeing as we're married and all.

I respectfully submit that if you can't relate such a simple thing to your life partner, there's something of a communications issue there.

Thank $DEITY I have no such problems.

Soko

Everything was fine -- until....

[j0e_average]

she tried to help Mariam Abacha, the widow of the now deceased General Sanni Abacha, move $80 million from Nigeria to the U.S. (God willing).

Re:I don't get it.

[m50d]

I think it happened as more of us moved to linux and realised that EVERYWHERE on the web, it is completely against linux users. So we withdrew into our own fundamentalist community, shunning the outside, like those guys who recently emerged from the jungle and discovered the Korean war was over.

So why isn't there a plea

[Anonymous Coward]

to all the fucking hackers to quit doing what they're doing?

A lot of this blame of Microsoft is Bullshit.

Why aren't the asshole hackers being blamed?

Look, our community of asshole elitist MS haters is more to blame for the problem than MS is. It is this community that pulls this bullshit.

Do we go around blaming all the housing contractors in the world for putting in first story windows that allow criminals to break in? No.

Do we blame lock companies because some asshole with tools can break into a house through a lock and steal, rape or kill the people in it? No.

Do we blame garage door makers because someone might leave their garage door unsecured thus allowing someone to break into a house? No.

Then why do we fucking blame MS for every fucking thing that happens? This is bullshit. It's time for the community to wake up and take some fucking responsibility because ultimately, that's who the problem is. Not MS.

Yuck!

[SharpFang]

Call me crazy but I am having a hard time finding any truth in the "facts" as reported by Microsoft.

Damned karma whore!

Re:I get so tired by this kind of stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Despite all this - I have never (*knock on wood*) been virus-infected. I have never gotten any spyware.

You must be doing the following things right then:

1. Firewalling the machine (NAT or otherwise).
2. Keeping the patches up to date.
3. Using something other than IE as your web browser.

Or, it's also possible that you don't plug the machine into any network -- that would also keep it secure.

I'm responsible for over 200 Windows machines (over 250 machines total), and given the hostility of the Internet toward Windows machines, this is just the way it works.

Yeah, train your woman well.

[Flower]

It will take a distro out of the basket or it will get the hose again....

Re:I don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

"He should educate his woman"? For your information, it has been a number of years since ownership of women was legal, so you might want to work on your terminology. Mate.

Greetings from 2004

[ClosedSource]

"No Linux viruses in 2005"

Hey, when you return from 2005, can you tell me who wins the SuperBowl? I'd like to make some bets.

Re:I don't get it.

[killjoe]

My father switched from a Mac to a PC because some nutjob told him it would be easier.

Afterwards he called me several times a week with problems he was having. Eventually I told him that I would buy him a mac but I would not answer any more questions about the PC. He didn't let me buy him a mac but he did stop calling. Now he is hassling the nutjob who told him to buy a PC and that's the best outcome for everybody.

Re:I don't get it.

[Yorrike]

Or: "They only call it Red Hat, because Red Helmet was taken"

Re:Wrong strategy

[Anonymous Coward]

"Instead of writing "open letters," (also known as "pompous soliloquies")"

What's even worse. Is that. His "open letter" is. Replete with. Fragmented sentences. Making it. Difficult. To read.