Overhype

Overhype

by Mike Masnick





Microsoft Creates Anti-Virus Bounty To Help Track Down Virus Writers

from the Bill-Gates-has-a-posse dept

What do you if you're in an unchartered area with no reasonable law enforcement, and criminals are running rampant? You convince everyone to become the "enforcement" arm and find someone rich enough to pay them to help fight crime. Microsoft can't be bothered to fix a few of the holes in their programs that make it incredibly easy to pass on viruses, so instead, they're setting aside $5 million for anti-virus bounty hunters who can track down anyone responsible for worms, trojan horses or viruses. The rewards will be given out in $250,000 wads of cash from Bill Gates wallet increments. So, now, who's going to round up an anti-virus posse?

3 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 

Reader Comments (rss)

(Flattened / Threaded)

  1. re: bounty for virus writers

    by Anonymous Coward - Nov 5th, 2003 @ 8:47am

    Will they still pay the bounty to hunters that find virus writers who turn out to be high school kids from Malaysia or some other country without any laws under which they could be prosecuted either in their own country or extradited?

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  2. Hurrah!

    by Tony Preston - Nov 5th, 2003 @ 11:34am

    I think this is the first time I have applauded an action by Microsoft.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  3. Bah!!!

    by nil-ram - Nov 5th, 2003 @ 6:18pm

    How about they give the $250,000 to those who write viruses, but don't release them -- paying them for QA in effect.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

Add Your Comment

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie
  • Plain Text: A CRLF will be replaced by break <br> tag, all other allowable HTML is intact
  • HTML: No formatting of any kind is done without explicitly being written in
  • Allowed HTML Tags: <b> <i> <p> <a> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <hr> <tt>
Close
Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie
Search Techdirt
And now, a word from our Sponsors..
Subscribe to Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Related Stories
Close
E-mail It