You may have heard that Intel bought McAfee a few weeks ago. Well that decision had a lot of people scratching their heads. Personally, I thought the CEO said ‘I got a virus, we should buy a copy of McAfee’ and an intern misheard him and bought the entire company instead. Intel decided to have a big press conference and try to explain themselves. Their answer isn’t as funny and kind of leaves us scratching our heads more. I don’t have lice, I swear!
Here’s the explanation:
Traditionally, security companies such as McAfee would take a defensive stance on things. For example, a new virus is made (lets call it Britney’sBoobs6) and sent out to 100 computers, someone notices the virus and informs McAfee. McAfee then figures out a way to remove the virus and sends the solution to every computer that has McAfee installed. The problem with this method is that the first 100 (or in reality 100,000) computers will get infected and the user will not know a thing nore have a way of solving the issue.
Intel wants to be more proactive. Instead of being defensive they will make it so your computer can only use programs approved by them. This will stop all malware in it’s tracks, but it also means they will be able to charge every software maker on earth a fee to become a ‘trusted’ source.
This is similar to the way the Apple store is run. You have to pass a final review and pay to be listed and usable, but a lot of people are very nervous about a chip maker calling the shots in this arena.
Yeah I really don’t like the sound of this. This means that all the free and open-source stuff that we all use will… well… no longer be free and open-source!
I think if this goes ahead, this will charge how a lot of us work, and really not for the better. This basically gives them the control as to how fast technology should develop but they get to say what we can and can not have. Not cool!
D’oh really didn’t mean the play on words there with ‘charge’. Should be ‘change’ =D
I don’t think that it’s that clear cut. I suspect there will be means made available for there to be trusted open-source and free development groups. So if you have a project you can take your project and team to a trusted group like Google Code or Sourceforge and have a means of free open-source approval. What’s important is that open-source projects be open and public, so many and anyone can have their eyes on it.
hope this may function well and can help us fight against malwares…..
try to avoid the threats…..
This article gives me many ideas….
Don’t Intel have antivirus products?