The day that Microsoft wore a tinfoil hat and shouted la, la, la

Imagine some hacker group exploiting a zero-day exploit in Windows. In this scenario all Windows machinews would be taken off the Internet one by one. Within a few days, all homeusers and all businesses would be expelled from the Internet, making it a playground for Macs, Linuces and Unices.

Unable to get an update, they would stay offline of days. The economy would take a hit, that's for sure, but Microsoft would be taken down. First by the bad publicity itself, second by all the lawsuits (even if the ELA and EULA wouldn't allow it), third by all the bad publicity that would come from the lawsuits and the bad ELA and EULA itself.

Wow, that's a cyber thriller scenario!

And people using their Droids and iPhones will wonder why they ever put up with MS in the first place. Then who knows, maybe they'll discover Ubuntu, I mean Linux

I know that the first time I saw the Scott Charney "quarantine the losers" article, it gave me pause for the same reasons that Davey Winder cites here.

That is, a "public health" model will lead to officialdom deciding that Windows itself is the culprit, and needs to be eliminated.

Since this is obviously contrary to MSFT's goals, I had to employ Advanced Kremlinology to Charney's weapons grade balonium. "Applying public health model" must mean (in reality) "Legal mandating of a Microsoft OS on everything, in the guise of 'certifying for internet safety'". I'm completely against this personally, as I believe that an expensive "certification" process is in this case, a way to legally raise the barrier to entry into the operating system market so high that no non-corporate system will ever make it. All innovation in corporate operating systems will cease, and MSFT will return to 110% market dominance. Without increasing our "security" one iota.

Secondarily, I'm against "certification" of stuff in general. For instance, "flight certification" of a piece of hardware (nut & bolt, pressure vessel, CPU, seal, tubing, turbine) leads to absolute stagnation in hardware design. Look at the US aviation industry: stuck in the late 50s, when stuff started to get "flight certified".

And you just know that the next part of the "public health certificate," to come down the pike would be that the OS on the machine ALSO doesn't violate anybody's (for the most part, B.S.) PATENTS either...