Bennett Haselton

US taxpayers to fund fix for Microsoft Windows?

Get It Try It

From Slashdot.

Frequent Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton writes with his idea for mass adoption of antivirus software.

If the US government did more to encourage people to keep their computers secure - by buying TV ads to publicise free private sector antivirus programs or subsidising the purchase of antivirus software - we'd all be better off on average. That's not just idealistic nanny-statism but something you can argue mathematically to the point where even some libertarians would agree.

You can read the whole ridiculous thing or you can stop now. What's being proposed is that one subsidise and support and encourage the use of ancillary software to protect a world-class crappy operating system that can't protect itself. The level of self-induced Kool-Aid™ drinking debauchery is staggering. People are working very hard to be stupid. Here's hoping they wake up some day soon and realise what destructive idiots they've been.

As for Bennett Haselton: this is the Hall of Monkeys. You'll be staying here a while. There haven't been many applicants who've shown such gross ineptitude. What you are suggesting - in your gross stupidity - is that the US government pay for something your friends at Microsoft should take care of.

And in typical 'american' fashion, if you don't mind us saying. you seem to assume that everyone on the Internet lives in the US. All the while more progressive nations (that are not part of the US empire) are moving towards comprehensive nationwide computer science programmes that expressly exclude Microsoft software in all its forms.

And now you - self-proclaimed champion of the fight against spam, Digg gaming, and who knows what else - want the US government to spend even more money in these financially tight times? To help out one of the richest people in the world?

How noble of you.

Why the bloody hell don't you tell your friend Bill Gates to fix his stupid operating system? Drive right on over - you're in Bellevue, he's in Redmond, you guys must be on nickname terms already, right? If you have any integrity you'll do that right now.

All Haselton is doing is scheming for Bill - finding a new way to get Bill off the hook - but now at the US taxpayers' expense. And that's despicable.

Whatever: consider yourself lucky you're only in the Hall of Monkeys and not worse, Haselton. One of the girl judges thinks you're cute. As far as monkeys go that is. She has no taste but she does have a vote.

Wow, somebody's buddy just got hooked up. Posting cretinous articles is one thing, posting a contributor's own cretinous musings is quite another.

Here's an idea. Let's assume for a second that the majority of business and government use a specific family of operating systems from $MONOLITHIC_CORPORATION. Since that corporation is pocketing billions upon billions of dollars then why not have them subsidise the ads?

The burden should fall upon the corporations that support operating systems that have been demonstrated to be gaping security holes that would make even the great Goatse prolapse with envy.
 - Anonymous Coward