Microsoft teams up with Feds, Europol in ZeroAccess botnet zombie hunt Microsoft has teamed up with the FBI to launch a renewed attempt to disrupt the operations of the infamous ZeroAccess botnet. ZeroAccess is responsible for infecting over two million computers, specifically targeting search results as part of a click-fraud scam that Redmond estimates is costing online advertisers $2.7m a month …
There is always going to be a balnnce between the benefit for the many and the damage to the few in operations such as these. That those adversely affected may themselves be working on the same benefits only makes striking that balance more difficult.
It will always be those who have lost something in that balance who will shout the loudest; and it will always be the less-principled end of the media that finds that take on the story the most newsworthy.
Whether the balance was right this time I don't know, and I suspect never will. No-one will agree where it should be anyway. Only time will eventually provide any sort of perspective.
Whenever articles like this about 'worldwide' botnet attacks and very serious 'zero-day" security vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows software are reported in various national and international technology media, the hundreds or thousands of fervent Microsoft supporters on 'theregister.com' and forums of ZDNet go conspicuously deaf, blind and dumb (quiet ) from ranting incessantly that Windows is more secure and reliable than Apple Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and the BSD UNIX-like operating Systems (OS), which according to their logic is therefore “the” reason Microsoft's OS are more "popular".
The time has come for these minions to address the "reality" of quite dangerous and poor software quality from Microsoft that is very negatively affecting millions of individuals, organizations, academia and businesses around the world, but primarily here in USA that makes the country substantially less competitive on a global stage. It also costs the US economy trillions of $$$dollars in lost productivity, theft of sensitive data and a growing national frustration that gets worse with each new release of broken Windows.
One can only hope that most Americans wise up to better quality alternative software available that won't break the economic bank.
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