Re: Good cop, bad cop?
>>"I'm questioning how Google can get to reverse engineer Microsoft code without the DoJ coming down hard on Google employees for doing so..."
It's legitimate security research to examine code and see if you can find flaws in it. That's how many flaws are found. Now if Google were doing that for purposes of copying their code for their own products then in certain circumstances that would be illegal (but not all). However, that wont be happening. The code bases of their products are very different and outside some very specific cases, examining someone else's code wont benefit you. It's mainly done for purposes of cracking software or finding vulnerabilities.
We don't need to invoke conspiracy theories for this, tbh. This is basically Google running a PR exercise to set themselves up as the IT police and make their competitor look bad. Google have no interest in helping their competitors produce a better product and it plainly isn't about protecting their own users because (a) it's not like their users are going to stop using the Internet because of these flaws and (b) publicizing unpatched vulnerabilities increases active exploitation. If it doesn't appear to be PR, that's because it's good PR.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
