Microsoft to indemnify most users from legal threats
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In a bid to further differentiate itself from open-source rivals, Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday said it will expand its indemnification program to cover the vast majority of its customers. The move, experts said, is great marketing but will have little impact on users.
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A new product from Microsoft Corp.&#39;s hardware group aims to eliminate the need for that not-so-secret list of user names and passwords hidden in the typical desk drawer.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft Corp. has initiated 97 lawsuits throughout Europe and the Middle East during its eight-month investigation into fraudulent Web pages, with another 32 criminal complaints filed in cooperation with local authorities, the company said Wednesday. All of the cases are against individuals who attempted to capture the log-in and password details of users by constructing fraudulent Hotmail and MSN.com sign-in pages, said Jean-Christophe Le Toquin, a Microsoft attorney. A total of 253 sites were investigated, he said. Microsoft'sÂ Global Phishing Enforcement program, started in March, aims to curtail fake Web sites built by criminals trying to obtain financial information or passwords by tricking users, so-called âphishing.â The company uses its technology to crawl the Internet to find Web pages that look suspicious, Le Toquin said. Once a phishing site has been identified, Microsoft either files a criminal complaint or forwards the information to prosecutors, depending on the countryâs legal requirements, Le Toquin said. By country, Turkey led the pack with 50 criminal complaints, followed by 28 in Germany and 11 in France. Legal actions were also filed in the United Arab Emirates, Italy, Morocco, the Netherlands and the U.K. Microsoft has settled with four phishers, all 16- to 20-year-old males, in France and Norway, Le Toquin said. Each of those pursued in France paid Microsoft â¬2,000 (US$2,564), a fine the company felt is in proportion to their actions, he said. Many of the fake sites were created by the phishers to trick their peers into divulging their log-in credentials, Le Toquin said. The phishers would try to lure their friends to the fake pages through links sent by instant messaging programs, he said. The purpose was to âtake control of the account of the victim,â Le Toquin said. Microsoft said it will continue its investigation, particularly focusing on phishing sites connected with more sophisticated hacking, Le Toquin said. Â
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Microsoft is starting a scheme to replace pirate versions of Windows XP with legal ones.
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Microsoft, which will on Monday learn whether a top European Union court has annulled the landmark 2004 antitrust ruling against the US software developer, is warning technology rivals they should be careful what they wish for.
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Fear has been mounting in the open-source community that Microsoft could start suing users at any time for alleged patent violations.
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LUXEMBOURG  - Microsoft Corp. told a European Union court Thursday that it would suffer irreparable harm if forced to reveal more of its software code to rivals, while the EU said such information was "indispensable" to keep competitors alive.
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Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday announced   20 lawsuits against resellers allegedly engaged in the   distribution of infringing software and software components.
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Brussels - Microsoft Corporation said on Monday it is ready to put a stripped down version of Windows on the market if ordered to do so by a European court.
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Microsoft Corp. plans to severely curtail the ways in which people running pirated copies of its dominant Windows operating system can receive software updates, including security fixes.
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The UK music industry is set to launch legal action against people who download music from the net.
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Almost everything that can be said has been said about the latest moves by Microsoft to create Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) about Linux. Countless pundits and analysts have pointed out that Microsoft threats are toothless. Some have noted that Microsoft has singled out Linux and OpenOffice, the biggest threats to its monopoly on operating systems and office suites. Surely Microsoft could claim that the *BSDs infringe on similar patents if not the same ones. But the *BSDs do not pose as great a threat to the company. Others have pointed out that Microsoft would be insane to pull an SCO and sue its own customers. Still others have noted that IBM and/or OIN could respond to a patent war with a massive retaliation in patent infringement claims. I have no doubt that Microsoft has lifted a lot of GPL code (more likely algorithms) for Windows, which would prevent Microsoft from following through with its threats. To do so would require that Microsoft open its own code to scrutiny. The list goes on, and others have covered the angles very well. There is one perspective I haven't yet seen, at least not the way I propose to deal with it. This perspective follows below.
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Competitors say they should be able replace a Windows feature that tells people about the security status of their PC.
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MICROSOFT wants to publish sensitive details about its software required by a court in a protected format that can only be viewed using Internet Explorer, the US government has complained.
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Microsoft is making a major push to get Windows users to embrace the security-focused overhaul to its XP computer operating system.
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Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O on Tuesday   announced 20 lawsuits against resellers allegedly engaged in   the distribution of infringing software and software   components.
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I can't urge you strongly enough to read the article entitled How Vista Lets Microsoft Lock Users In. It details how Microsoft has built into Vista the "trusted computing" ability to lock down Office files via DRM such that no unauthorized document reader will be able to decrypt and read them. This is perhaps one of the biggest hidden weapons Microsoft has in its arsenal that could sabotage Linux and OpenOffice.org if Microsoft succeeds in its attempt to plug SUSE and all Novell's "interoperability" bonuses.   Think of this, if you will, as the Tivoization of Office files, only with malicious intent.  Microsoft could, indeed, open up the document format completely and swear before God that it will never sue anyone for patent infringement.  However, this does not prevent Microsoft from locking Office files in such a way that only Vista users can read them.  No one else will be able to do so without the proper authorization, thus rendering the open format and Microsoft compatibility entirely meaningless.