It's Friday again, and you know what that means-- and the first person who yells "Miss Match!" gets a smack upside the head, even if Cordy is guest-starring. No, it's time once again to check in on Microsoft's progress with that whole "Trustworthy Computing" thing! As you're no doubt aware, way back in January of last year, Bill Gates had an epiphany and declared that security would be his company's number one priority-- even at the expense of rampant featuritis, unchecked greed, blatant antitrust violations, and other Redmond trademarks. Bill even announced that he was "stopping development of new operating system software for the entire month of February and sending the company's 7,000 systems programmers to special security training," so obviously he meant business, right?

Well, let's see how far they've come. The Wall Street Journal has an article titled "Microsoft CEO Vows Better Security," which reports that Steve "100% Human And I Have The DNA Tests To Prove It" Ballmer recently informed his company's resellers and partners that, in light of all that ickiness with SoBig and Blaster causing billions of dollars in lost productivity and disabling safety monitoring systems in nuclear power plants ("whoops!"), Microsoft is full-on "dealing with the security challenge"-- by making it its "No. 1 priority."

Oooooo, progress.

And here's the plan, Stan: Microsoft is now offering partners and customers "more security training" and buddying up to law enforcement agencies "to track down writers of computer viruses and other so-called malicious computer programs." Microsoft also plans to release patches on a "regular monthly schedule," so that customers can make the process of patching up their systems part of their regular routine, e.g. on the third Sunday of every month, you pay your bills, de-tick the cat, and spend the rest of the night trying to make your Wintel act less like a sieve that's taken two or three close-range shotgun blasts through the mesh. Best yet, Microsoft aims to "make it easier for customers to install patches" by setting goals to "reduce the number, complexity, and size of patches by May 2004."

Maybe we're missing the obvious, here, but, um... where's the bit about "not shipping software with holes so big you can pilot most commercial aircraft through them in the first place"? Eh, give 'em another 21 months and maybe they'll clue in to that one, too.