An online auction of a “brand new vulnerability” in Microsoft Excel had reached about $60 when eBay pulled the item late Thursday.
A seller using the name “fearwall” started the auction Wednesday evening at 1 cent. It was up to $56 on Thursday afternoon with 21 bids placed, and eBay quashed the auction soon after that.
The online auctioneer removed the item because it contravened its guidelines, eBay spokeswoman Catherine England said Friday. “The listing was pulled for violating our policy against encouraging illegal activity,” she said in an e-mailed statement.
Microsoft is “aware of the vulnerability” and “will continue to investigate the issue and may provide a fix”, blah, blah.”
One of the articles stated that possible criminal action was being considerd by eBay/Microsoft. Does this not seem ridiculous? Firstly, although perhaps ethically controversial, should knowledge of and the potential profit from a bug in someone else’s software be criminal? Isn’t that a large part of your average ‘security consultant’s’ job? Secondly, I have heard rumors that Microsoft is going to start selling Security subscriptions in the near future to deal with virus’s and adware that take advantage of bugs in their software. Perhaps the legal pushiness is to address the competition. If their are creminal charges levied, I hope the EFF or some other similar orginization will step up to bat…
I run about seven PCs in my house at any given moment. Apache servers, Linux/Unix/Mac operating systems. Windows 2000 pro and XP are kept on hard drives in case of some strange hardware compatability issue or for playing games. In fact the switch to unix based operating systems has radically increased my productivity. Been six monthes since I had a computer crash that wasn’t the result of me doing something silly (like opening a hundred browser windows on a slow old Compac armada.) A Microsoft free household is a joy to behold.
Have to agree, Jason. After 22 years of Windows and before, I switched to OS X, this year. Now, when friends call me asking how to sort something absurd on their XP systems, the reply is, “I don’t remember how to fix that crap.”
I kept my XP machine and turn it on for the insecurity updates, monthly. I’ve needed it once — to print out some silly images from a CT scan which used an esoteric file format.
My brothers have XP (big-time gamers) which provides all the access I need (usually none). It also saves the the hassle of having to keep up with the security patches.
I have to agree on the stability bit. I get more reliability out of alpha-level Linux software (especially Firefox 1.1 alpha) than I do out of release-quality Windows stuff.
First Bleach, now Excel Saga. Anime freaks!
collectable items can demand a premium price
but in the case of Microsoft vulnerabilities
it’s a commodity