Microsoft has a change of heart about keeping the Internet safe

ISPS should those who maintain hacked PC anywhere? Security chief executive of Microsoft used to think so, but now had a change of heart.

Speaking at the RSA Conference Tuesday, Microsoft Corporate Vice President for Trustworthy Computing Scott Charney said that she thought it was a good idea to be service providers that those on the hook to keep infected PCS from the rest of the Internet.

"Last year at RSA, I said, ' you know we need to think about ISP, because the IOC for the public sector, and we need to think about their consumer scan machines and making sure they are clean and possibly quarantined them from the Internet, '" he said. "But over the last year as I thought much more about this I realized that there are many flaws with that model."

Consumers can see security scans as invasive and an invasion of privacy and with more and more people use the Internet as their telephone, quarantining a PC could amount to cutting off someone's 911 service, he said. "We see the scenery, right: a heart attack, I ran to my computer, it says, you must install four patches and reboot before you can access the Internet. That is not the experience that we strive for ".

Then there is the biggest problem of all. ISP would have to bear the costs. "Puts a lot of burden on ISPs, because they are the ones that are gating access to the Internet," said Charney.

ISPs have experimented with different ways to reduce the infected computers. Comcast, for example, has a service called constant guard that warn customers when they have a security problem.

But cut infected customer service is a costly proposition. "It takes only a phone call from a consumer to make you lose your profit margin for the year" on users, said Craig Labovitz, chief scientist with firm Arbor Networks, in a telephone interview network monitoring.

Labovitz said that technology companies are coming up with new ways to rid the world of infected machines for about two decades now, without success. "Even if we force end users to maintain their patch update there are still a huge number of zero days," he said, referring to defects in software patches that can be used to take a fully patched PCS. "It's an arms race that keeps going. There is certainly any single bullet. "

Still, Charney thinks that there are ways to improve things.

He thinks the company Internet could take a page from organizations like the World Health Organization and find new ways to keep infected PCs away from the rest of the network--to "enforce goodness," he said.

Perhaps the solution is for consumers to share trusted certificates on the health of their personal computers--including data if running anti-virus or is fully patched--Charney suggested. He called this "collective defence". An example? A bank may ask customers to sign up for a program that would scan the PC for signs of infection during online sessions. If there is a problem, the Bank could limit then what the customer might make--topping out at $ 2000 transactions, for example.

That may end up to be a more viable model for the Internet, said Charney. "The user remains in control. The user can say I don't want to pass a health certificate, "said" there can be consequences to that decision, but you can do it. "

Robert McMillan covers the security of your computer and General technology breaking news for the IDG News Service. Follow Robert on Twitter at @ bobmcmillan. E-mail address is robert_mcmillan@idg.com, Robert

About subscriptions, the App Store is the Achilles heel of Apple

I was once in this strange relationship: all we want to do was lie to each other. Thing is, I learned a lot about human behaviour and the tendency to over-complicated your explanation when you know that you're doing something indefensible and for some reason the memory came to mind when I tried to translate the new rules of prey on Apple App Store subscriptions. I'm starting to wonder if Apple [AAPL] has changed its supplier of Kool-Aid and started to transform into Microsoft ...

A quick recap if you missed. Yesterday Apple announced new rules that anyone selling subscription or in-App purchases through the App Store will have to hand over 30 percent of revenue to Apple. Sell anything outside of App Store for use within an application and you also sell it for the same price or less in the App. See: even when you try to make simple explanation is confused, that's because Apple knows it is ask too.

A step too far

Who is impacted? Publishers of newspapers and magazines running Apps, publications of small startups to explore the application as a new form of publishing, Pandora and all streaming services. NetFlix and Hulu are infected, and Amazon will deliver the loot if it wants to keep Kindle on the App Store.

[This story was from Computerworld Holic Apple blog. Follow me on Twitter or subscribe via RSS to make sure you don't miss a beat].

This is awesome. With a deeply flawed Apple is creating enmity with each organization of the main means of communication; not only this, but it could easily be accused of using its market power to force the services competitors out of the store. Incredibly popular music streaming service, Pandora, is threatening antitrust action. I don't blame them.

Here are a smattering from an article in the Wall Street Journal advertising pro-Android Apple: "my inclination is to be investigated" about the new service from Apple, says Shubha Ghosh, a Professor of antitrust at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

Ghosh is questions if dominant market position (as is Spotify we launch progressing--and why?) and if the company is putting "anti-competitive pressure on price."

I don't think that keeping Apple App Store is a monopoly--there are other platforms--but I'm quite certain that new subscription charge will stop stupid contestants. And that smells a little anti-competitive to me.

(Above: CEO Apple launches App Store)

Care and simplicity?

Here is the statement, Apple CEO Steve Jobs ' on the new rules:

"Our philosophy is simple — when Apple brings a new Subscriber to the App, Apple earns share of 30%; When the Publisher brings a new or existing Subscriber for the application, the Publisher retains 100% and Apple earns nothing.

"All we need is that, if a Publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the App, offering the same (or better) within the application, so that customers can easily subscribe with one click right in the App. We are convinced that this innovative subscription service will provide publishers with a brand new opportunity to expand access to their digital content on the iPad, iPhone, iPod touch and delight both new and existing subscribers.

Any statement that follows the expression "our philosophy is simple ..." with the declarations of the Baroque in this complexity is a lot of things, but certainly not easy.

When I read these words my mind flashed back to vent ' years in that bad relationship that I mentioned earlier. I mean, I know enough love to know when I was asked to consent to my abuse, and in this particular case, Apple asking all participants in its value chain of the App Store to pick it up as they really like it.

And I am seriously considering a future for the platform in the event that we decide that Mac software to be sold only through Mac App Store.

What is with the App Store?

I love Apple products, over the years I've had a lot of pleasure from them, but it seems to me that the App Store is the focal point of pride for this company. The serpent of Apple that eventually will cast the company in the autumn.

App Store errors have included censorship the wrong political debate, over-pruriginous attitudes toward grown-up games and the long-held public contretemps with Google about Google Voice. These subscription rules join the catalogue of errors.

What I don't understand is why Apple needs to chase the money like this. It is moving towards becoming the world's richest company--even while their labour relations are forced and child labour to some of its production partners. Has billions in the Bank, and while I agree the expenses must be met and the company has the right to strike and to agree on a revenue stream, this share of 30 percent for deploying virtual harkens back to the cost of retail &-bricks. The business plan looks great on paper but the analogy is all wrong.

History repeating

Opinion on what happens to music now as consumer tastes are moved by this property to access. Shawn Fanning of Napster Back in 1999 he filmed labels asking for distribution licenses based on the fact that millions of downloads to 10 cents each would generate huge piles of cash for labels and artists. Labels refused, lost million for file sharing, killed Napster and iTunes generated. Now, with streaming services, labels are taking the Napster affair--you're taking a low income to replay the trace.

Definitely Apple could not have missed this evolution? The company is requesting cash &-bricks in a digital world. Of course, Google friend-turned-enemy immediately responded to the craziness of Apple with the introduction of Google One Pass:

"A system for user authentication, payment processing and administration, Google One Pass lets you focus of publishers about creating high quality content for their readers. Publishers have flexible payment models and control digital content, for which they charge and the content that is free for consumers.

Google isn't taking 30 percent--is resolved to a 10 percent more palatable. Just like Apple should. New Apple subscription rules are flawed.

This is great news for power of Android. Google now may support for so-called "transparency of Android" remembering App Store Apple's greed Services subscription.

We hope that this isn't the start of a series of diktat flawed as the company consolidates its position after a period of extremely rapid growth.

What do you think? Apple is right or wrong? Let me know your thoughts on this in the comments below and if you'd like to please follow me on Twitter so I can drop you a short message whenever you post new articles here first on Computerworld.

Microsoft needs to learn how to talk about Apple and Android

Five years ago, Microsoft may have been justified in assuming that every visitor to your web site is running Windows. In 2011, in such circumstances are not realistic. Yes, Windows still commands an overwhelming market share for desktop PCs and laptops, but these days people get information from other places, like Android Smartphone and iPad and MacBook Pro. None of these devices are running Microsoft operating systems.

Microsoft is aware that these other markets exist, of course. They got Office for Mac 2011, and have just released Microsoft OneNote to iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad, you can get Windows Live Mesh for Mac. There are applications Bing for iOS and Android (on all U.S. carriers as last November. Most of the Microsoft online services these days work incredibly well in non-Microsoft browsers on non-Microsoft devices. So why isn't Microsoft talk directly to people who use those other operating systems and devices?

I thought earlier this morning, when I had an odd interaction with Microsoft.com. As you might recall, I am using a Mac and a PC side by side for the past few months, moving between environments throughout the day and, sometimes, as part of the task.

This morning, someone on Twitter pointed me to a bookmark manager add-on for Internet Explorer. That tweet includes a link that took me to the IE Add-ons page at Microsoft.com. Clicked on a link in TweetDeck, which opened the page in Google Chrome. On a Mac.

Now, Microsoft should know that I am using a Mac and no Windows. It's right there in the user agent string that went along with my request:

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_6_6; Chrome/9.0.597.94 for EN-US) AppleWebKit/526.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/533.13

So, here is a close-up of what I have served in reply:

"We recommend that you install Internet Explorer 8 for free". Really? How very careful.

Except I can't. As you and I and everyone on the planet knows, Microsoft does not make a version of Internet Explorer for OS X, or indeed for any operating system besides Windows. So this is a bit empty. But there is.

And what happens when you click Download now? Get this:

As user experience goes, this is pretty awesome. It is almost a bait-and-switch.

Microsoft: "You want Internet Explorer for free?

Me: "sure, why not?"

[click]

Microsoft: "Sorry, that you may have. Can we sell is Windows 7 instead? "

The first page was perfectly able to detect my operating system. When you see that I am running OS X and Windows, knows that for a dead certainty that I cannot install Internet Explorer. It should not force me to go to another web page to learn this truism.

Get a result equally useless if you visit the Microsoft Fix It Solution Center on the Mac. Imagine this scenario: I have a PC and a Mac at home. For some reason, my PC cannot reach the Internet. You cannot use it to find help online. So I am going to Mac, where my connection is alive and well, and I make my way to the Microsoft support site. Here's what I found:

Those top two audio solutions as they're worth trying. But now button a run? Really? Maybe they can run on a Mac.

But there is, and not saying anything like "Windows only". So I click and Chrome downloads a Windows executable file and saves it in the downloads folder on my Mac. At that point, I am my own.

They may provide some instructions on how to copy this file to a USB flash drive and then run it on your PC. But that is not the case, and I left to figure things out for me.

A lot of devices these days is running non-Microsoft operating systems, including phones and tablets. Smartphones are outselling PCs in many markets. In the scenario above, where I need help to understand why my Windows PC can connect to the Internet, I could use a Android powered phone or an iPad to seek help through a connection 3 G.

Every visitor who comes to microsoft.com using a Mac or an iPhone or a droid has slightly different information needs and challenges of interoperability of new and interesting. It would be smart to anticipate these needs? In the process, instead of trying to sell me a copy of Windows 7, why can't I point to services like Bing and Windows Live SkyDrive which will help me to connect my PC Windows and my device not Windows?

Microsoft is missing an opportunity here. Really.

Ed Bott is an award-winning technology writer with more than two decades experience writing for mainstream media and publications online.