PC Week: Analysis: Microsoft and the consequences of misplaced trust

"Had awareness of Internet risks been greater in, say, the fall of 1996, consumers and enterprise IT architects would have waited for a more robust framework to support the next generation of personal and commercial communications and transactions.

"But that's not how things happened..."

"Given this history, it's not surprising that active Web-page content was crafted as a fragile and trusting extension of single-user interapplication data exchange, that Microsoft's ActiveX technology gave unlabeled software, from unknown sources, the same privileges as anything else on a user's machine. Java has the potential to be far more secure, but every statement about Java's inherent security carries an implicit qualifier: "when implemented according to specifications."

"What's mildly surprising... is that consumers placed so much trust in vendors in an era when so many industries have failed to be trustworthy."

Complete story.