OIS

Week of July 23, 2004

The Organisation for Internet Security (OIS - http://oisafety.org) are running into trouble before most people have even heard about them - but maybe that's the problem: no one was supposed to.

The OIS domain is registered to Chris Wysopal of @stake Security. If the names sound familiar, that's because @stake's #1 client is Microsoft and their former #1 guru MIT PhD Dan Geer was fired a while back for co-authoring a paper with Bruce Schneier about the inherent vulnerabilities of Windows and an operating system monoculture based around it.

Registrant ID:19228007-NSI
Registrant Name:Chris Wysopal
Registrant Street1:196 Broadway
Registrant City:Cambridge
Registrant State/Province:MA
Registrant Postal Code:02138
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Email:cwysopal@atstake.com

The OIS might be registered to Wysopal, but client #1 is the motor of it all. In short, the OIS is nothing but yet another covert attempt by Bill Gates to stifle criticism and 'full disclosure' of vulnerabilities in Microsoft products, and although they vehemently deny it, the OIS are seen by outsiders as working their way slowly to Washington DC where they hope to have their policies ratified into US federal law.

The OIS demonstrates unequivocally the product and marketing strategy of William H Gates III. Even though he is famous for once proclaiming he'd love to be able to afford to employ ten good programmers, Gates has long ago proven that most of what he says is hot air and that his marketing tactics take precedence over quality control.

Equipped with more resources than almost any company on the planet, Microsoft continue to pour billions into fudging statistics, silencing critics, creating astro-turfed grass roots movements - anything but improve their software. It should be obvious to even the most casual bystander at this point that William H Gates III simply does not believe product quality is of any importance.

You can sell anything, even the worst imaginable software such as Windows and Internet Explorer, if you just figure out how to bully the market and regulatory authorities.

There is no reason to suspend judgement: Bill Gates will sell you shit if he wants to. You will never get a refund. You will never get a licence agreement that gives you any guarantee of quality or performance. And the world, thinks Bill Gates, will be a better one (as far as he is concerned) if no voices ever be heard. This is not only domination - it's cruelty: deliberate, evil cruelty.

The world will do well to keep watch on the OIS and to prevent any movement towards Washington DC.