[ale] What's wrong with this picture

[Robert Reese]

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
On 1/28/2008 at 7:58 PM Scott Castaline wrote:

>Received an invite for a web seminar about Open Source Software and The 
>Department of Defense. This is the link: 
>http://cts.vresp.com/c/?TheDataandAnalysisCe/b7bd49b1c7/d8b1bf11cc/4f896c85a5
>
>I found the system requirements a little strange for an OSS centered 
>meeting. :=o


GoToMeeting and GoToMyPC both use "spyware" and it doesn't run on Linux.  Okay, 'spyware' might be a little harsh, so let's go with "malware".  Citrix out and out lies to the public about what their product does, which is to remain on the machine running in the background, communicating who-knows-what back to their server, opens holes in firewalls, and causes system instabilities.  As a matter of fact, if you find it and uninstall it you will have to restart your machine to complete the installation; that's how tight it gets tied to your machine.  Citrix will tell you that there's no danger.  In fact, they don't bother to let anyone know about their backdoor installs of their software.  Even if someone chooses to use Java instead of their insipid software, Citrix somehow tricks Java into installing their malware anyway, which I previously thought was a sandbox.  This is one company that is wholly deserving of a class-action lawsuit.

Personally I won't have anything to do with them, and I strongly warn other companies that do business with them to not trust Citrix and to warn their customers of the impending unauthorized installations (you wouldn't believe the number of  'security' software vendors that use them!)  As a matter of fact, if you look at the logo in the upper right, you will see that the DACS is a military (DoD) organization. <http://iac.dtic.mil/iac_dir/DACS.html>  and <http://www.thedacs.com/>  Sadly this is not surprising, as the security of many DoD websites is frightful.  But this is definitely a very scary proposition: take a look at what DACS does!  (And yes, they're the ones helping provide those insecure DoD websites.  sigh.)

Maybe a phone call to my Senators and representative is in order...

Cheers,
Robert~


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