What a bag of sh*te - aren't you so glad you run OS X?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4587434.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4587434.stm
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Windows so broken, M$ preempt own scheduled patch release date
- Thread starter Marky_Mark
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You've never gotten something before it was scheduled to arrive?
Give me a break. The development and testing went faster than they thought it would.
Give me a break. The development and testing went faster than they thought it would.
clayj said:
I think a more likely reason would be that they were getting so beat up in *all* of the press over this one, they had to release the patch.
clayj said:
No, read the article properly.
The security flaw is so significant that a privateer was concerned enough to write a patch of his own and then had his website inundated by others trying to download it.
Microsoft take it so seriously they've rushed through the release instead of waiting for Patch Tuesday and pushing it out along with the others. BUT - only after all the major security houses told them not to be so complacent.
'Give me a break' indeed. They've mucked up again. No so much an OS, more a sieve. How can they charge money for this product? It's a joke.
They haven't mucked up at all. A hole was found in their OS, which they planned to fix by a certain date. They've brought it out earlier instead because actual examples of this exploitation have been found "in the wild".
Apple too have had issues "fixed" by users before they released a patch in the recent history of OS X - the Paranoid Android plugged one such gap in summer 2004. Apple did nothing wrong then, they patched a bug after a short delay. Microsoft have done the same, except that their delay has been less than they initially said it would be.
Surely this is a good thing?
Apple too have had issues "fixed" by users before they released a patch in the recent history of OS X - the Paranoid Android plugged one such gap in summer 2004. Apple did nothing wrong then, they patched a bug after a short delay. Microsoft have done the same, except that their delay has been less than they initially said it would be.
Surely this is a good thing?
thequicksilver said:
Yeah, I think it was pretty good of them to patch it early. I don't see what Microsoft has done wrong. Come on, people don't admit it, but Microsoft are clearly catching up to Apple, even XP SP2 isn't that bad. Apple needs to stay one step ahead so Leopard has to be pretty spectacular.
Still, the situation in which security analysts recommended that corporate installations use the non-MS patch is pretty unusual, isn't it?
The basic argument however, is that the core of Windows is based on technology that allows applications to read, write modify and communicate with other applications in the background without passwords, or user control. Active X, Windows Messenger and all the other technology that Microsoft told us we needed (and didn't give us a choice about) makes a wonderful playground for malware writers.
So Microsoft is locked into a "break and fix" model because the OS inherently CANNOT be secure. The big vulnerability is the delta between an exploit hitting the wild, and the IMPLEMENTATION of the fix by the majority of the Windows population. (A day or three for Microsoft to release a patch is relatively insignificant compared to the millions of net-connected Windows machines out there that haven't had a hotfix for months or years)
So Microsoft is locked into a "break and fix" model because the OS inherently CANNOT be secure. The big vulnerability is the delta between an exploit hitting the wild, and the IMPLEMENTATION of the fix by the majority of the Windows population. (A day or three for Microsoft to release a patch is relatively insignificant compared to the millions of net-connected Windows machines out there that haven't had a hotfix for months or years)
CanadaRAM said:
The big problem with Windows technologies is the constant re-inventing of the wheel. Instead of fixing, they just throw away and start again. However, it is profitable for them. Perhaps not maximally profitable, but profitable none the less.
It seems MS is always looking for a "magic bullet" technology that will solve every problem. They end up making things too general to be useful.
I think the Windows problem is complacency due to marketshare and "We're the best, screw the rest" attitude that a lot of Windows developers seem to take.
Not that Macheads and Linuxheads don't do this either, but they can admit when (Mac OS X isn't so good for games) or (Linux requires a steep learning curve). The developers of alternate OSes are also more in touch with the computing world (David Hyatt on Surfin' Safari, the coders of Linux). Seems MS OS devs are locked in an ivory tower.
Not that Macheads and Linuxheads don't do this either, but they can admit when (Mac OS X isn't so good for games) or (Linux requires a steep learning curve). The developers of alternate OSes are also more in touch with the computing world (David Hyatt on Surfin' Safari, the coders of Linux). Seems MS OS devs are locked in an ivory tower.