Dan et al: You are missing the point here. While it matters little *who* is in the A/V market, it matters very much when one player is Microsoft, because the M$ business model (according to them and to the US DOJ) is to enter a market, undercut the market, co-opt the market, drive out the competition, and move on to the next market (not unlike a virus, as told by Agent Smith). So if M$ enters the A/V market and "bundles" their solution with Windows whatever, they likely will drive Symantec and McAfee out of the market over time by co-opting the A/V subscription market.
The security ramifications of a M$ only A/V marketplace relate to Dan Geer's monoculture argument (already well discussed here) and also a conflict of interest (since M$ products account for a majority of the A/V infections). Can we "trust" an A/V solution from M$ that addresses virus infections of M$ products? And is M$ controls both the virus host and the A/V inoculation, does that not create a potential area of abuse - no license/upgrade/whatever, no A/V subscription/update/whatever? As Reagan told Gorbachev, "Let me tell you why we do not trust you..." G On or about 2004.06.17 15:51:19 +0000, DAN MORRILL ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) said: > You make anti virus software sound like a gun lock on a 9MM. > > Does it really matter who is in the anti-virus market? If Microsoft goes > that way, and they have the best knowledge of what they created, what we > can reasonably expect to see in the words of Bill Gates "Innovation, with > rich user features, deeply embeded in our software". > > So, we can have an AV product that does great things, but maybe only 2% of > it will be used, and because it is a microsoft product, we can expect > patches every month, with known and unknown vulnerabilites from day one. -- Gregory A. Gilliss, CISSP E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Computer Security WWW: http://www.gilliss.com/greg/ PGP Key fingerprint 2F 0B 70 AE 5F 8E 71 7A 2D 86 52 BA B7 83 D9 B4 14 0E 8C A3 _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html
