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Posted on 10/02/2003 3:26:48 PM PDT by stainlessbanner
Microsoft faces a proposed class-action lawsuit in California based on the claim that market dominance and vulnerability to viruses in its software could lead to "massive, cascading failures" in global computer networks.
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The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, also claims that Microsoft's security warnings are too complex to be understood by the general public and serve instead to tip off "fast-moving" hackers on how to exploit flaws in its operating system.
The suit claims unfair competition and the violation of two California consumer rights laws, one of which is intended to protect the privacy of personal information in computer databases. It asks for unspecified damages and legal costs, as well as an injunction against Microsoft barring it from unfair business practices.
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Many of the arguments in the lawsuit and some of its language echoed a report issued by computer security experts in late September, which warned that the all-but-total reach of Microsoft's software on desktops worldwide had made computer networks a national security risk.
That report, presented to the Computer and Communications Industry Association, a trade group representing Microsoft's rivals, said the complexity of Microsoft's software made it particularly vulnerable.
Microsoft said it had received a copy of the lawsuit and that its lawyers were reviewing it.
Dana Taschner, a Newport Beach, Calif., lawyer who filed the lawsuit on behalf of a single plaintiff and a potential class of millions of Microsoft customers, could not be immediately reached for comment.
"Microsoft's eclipsing dominance in desktop software has created a global security risk," the lawsuit said. "As a result of Microsoft's concerted effort to strengthen and expand its monopolies by tightly integrating applications with its operating system...the world's computer networks are now susceptible to massive, cascading failure."
With some $49 billion in cash and more than 90 percent of the market in PC operating systems, Microsoft has long been seen as a potential target for massive liability lawsuits.
But some say the company, which has been moving to settle antitrust claims that it abused its monopoly on PC software, is shielded from liability actions by disclaimers contained in the licenses to which users must agree when installing software.
The lawsuit comes in the wake of two major viruses that have taken advantage of flaws in Microsoft software.
The MSBlast worm recently burrowed through hundreds of thousands of computers, destroying data and launching attacks on other computers.
Slammer, meanwhile, which targeted computers running Microsoft's server-based software for databases, slowed down Internet traffic across the globe and shut down flight reservation systems and cash machines in the United States.
Since early 2002 Microsoft has made computer security a top priority under a "Trustworthy Computing" initiative spearheaded by company Chairman Bill Gates.
Story Copyright © 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
Copyright ©1995-2003 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.
That license agreement won't protect Microsoft from lawsuits by Linux and Mac users.
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IOW, they're being sued for having sold a lot of product.
I'm about as far from a Microsoft fan as you'll find but this is unreasonable.
What basis would non-MS-customers have to sue? It's not our data and machines at risk from their software.
I could see where the backbones and ISPs might have a case.
Systems knocked out by thousands of emails sent out by infected MS boxes.
I run Linux. Someone I know (or someone who knows me) who runs Windows is infected. I have to clean up the crap they send me every day. Still haven't been able to figure out who it is.
Forged headers. Static blocking doesn't work.
I've been using procmail/spamassassin for a little while now and it does a nice job. But I'm paranoid and don't let it dump bad messages for a few days, so they take up space.
On my home system, this is only a minor nuisance. At work, where Spamassassin is blocking thousands of spams a day, and Procmail is also weeding out hundreds of virus-related garbage messages, the impact is greater.
Bummer. If you're using sendmail, you can look in /var/log/maillog for the real IP addys.
Assuming there's no firewall in between (there is) and no relay (there might be).
What works for some things, doesn't work for others. And when you're dealing with 10,000+ emails a day, you don't have time to hunt down the origins of every offending message.
For instance, when a Microsoft SQL server starts spewing out several hundred Slammer worms per second, it can kill the Internet connection for everyone on the router's subnet.
Here is an actual example - I asked my ISP to shutdown someone's connection recently. My understanding is that he is a clueless Microsoft Certified "Engineer" and his MSSQL server was saturating the subnet with Slammer UDP virus packets. He was completely ignorant about how to patch MSSQL to avoid it, so the worm always returned soon after he restarted his computer.
Since the MSCE's computer was killing the Internet connection for everyone in town, if it caused someone to miss a deadline or prevent them from attending to a critical task, they would have a good case to sue the MSCE and Microsoft and the Slammer author.
But if you want to pay the bucks to retain a lawyer and file suit, feel free.
My comprehension was entirely adequate. I was responding to a post that went off on a hypothetical tangent.
Try reading all the words before criticizing other people.
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