Microsoft's Ballmer calls for war on cybercrime

DEMURE AND SOFTLY spoken Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, has called for companies to "join in" the war on cyber crime.

He told lunching federal employees that everyone must fight cybercrime.

Without any hint of irony Ballmer said: "Every individual, every business, every organisation, every government agency that uses a computer also has a responsibility to ensure that they're protected."

He added: "I was going to say that security was a priority for Microsoft, but I will say that it is the priority at Microsoft.”

Ballmer's proof of his company's commitment to this will be the Windows XP Service Pack 2, due out in late spring or early summer, or sometime sooner or later.

In Windows XP SP2 the firewall will be turned on by default, and Internet Explorer will automatically block pop-up ads and unsolicited downloads from Web sites - unless the consumer clicks on a download link. He didn't mention, although it's a fact, that SP2 also contains all the patches for all holes to date.

Ballmer added that the company is working with CPU makers Intel and AMD to develop applications that prevent viruses and worms from inserting program code into any memory location designated for data only.

The Vole is developing "active protection technologies," which will make computers more "resistant" to today's increasingly sophisticated viruses and worms.

At least computer companies aren't comparing machines to cars much, any more.

"One example of this is what's called 'behaviour blocking,' which are really technologies identifying and intercepting code that looks suspicious, before the computer is infected," Ballmer is reported as saying.

For example a voice activated computer might say in a casual almost human like tone: "This doesn't smell right to me. I won't execute this without asking the user for permission."

Hacks attending the event noted that Ballmer was wearing a diagonally striped blue tie that matched the fabric draped on the tables at the lunch. They did not agree what this meant, but must have been bored enough to notice, because journalists are not generally noted for their powers of observation, despite years of training. µ