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When Digital fired most of its VMS team in a cost cutting frenzy, Mirosoft had the good sense to hire them up. David N. Cutler who was the VMS project leader became the NT project leader at MS. Cutler brought most of his team with him. The result was that NT was in many ways a clone of VMS with a Win32 API and Win16 API layer on top. The story is famous and is told here.

I remember working on OpenVMS on VAX and (later) Alpha systems. The OS was pretty cool for its time...it looks like Microsoft lifted a lot of its security features for NTFS in Windows NT.

the main architect for Windows NT, david cutler, worked for digital on vms before leaving for microsoft.

It really is too bad that Apple won't release an operating system for Intel hardware. I mean, I know that Steve Jobs was paid off to drop the project.

A pity, really. I would have paid lots for an Apple-on-Intel OS. I still think that they should still do it, though this would likely result in the assasination of most of Apple's management.

They could auction off the first few hundred thousand copies as "collectors editions". I'd probably pay a few hundred.

Now, I know it might seem contradictory to some, but is there a way to make those computers completely locked down?

I think you are refering to the 1998 anti-trust case where the courts tried to block win98 because it came with IE.

I love it. Just as they "CANNOT" remove IE from windows... But for some reason I can... I call Bullshit (WARNING:EXPERIMENTAL, Shameless self promotion..) Please comment if you see gaping failures in the procedure.

The whole thing stinks... Microsoft gets away with lying in court outright. Releasing a stripped down version of XP for the Xbox without IE, and implimenting a newly stripped down (non-english) version of XP that apparently works well enough to sell...

On top of which I'm nearly positive someone could write a registry import that would be able to remove any Windows feature entirely including the self healing. But Microsoft refuses to do any such thing in the markets it currently holds the monopoly in, claiming it would cause windows to no longer function.

WTF, like IE is going to mess with the win32 api... As if the fact that they can do it in taiwanese, or for the xbox should confuse the fact that they can't do it in english, or for a PC.

OK, I'm talking to a guy who will nitpick Google's 1% to death

Why do you feel the need to exaggerate to make a point? I didn't "nitpick" to death, I just noted that I don't feel that Google's Zeitgeist is an accurate representation of Market Share.

but then thinks it's perfectly OK throw out a number like "2.5%" with no source whatsoever and then claim it's "generally accepted"

Is IDC a good enough source for you? This , by Paul Thurrott no less, gives a 2.3% market share in 2002. Are you going to call IDC a dubious source, and Thurrott an irrational Linux zealot as well? Oh, and those are desktop figures, according to the article.

But wait a minute - it seems I was too conservative in my assessment: for 2003, IDC gives Linux on the desktop 2.8 percent, not 2.5!

You see, contrary to what your knee-jerk reaction has led you to believe, I didn't start by saying: "Google Zeitgeist puts Linux at 1%? That's way too low! I'm sure I can find reasons to justify my biased views!" What really happened is that I already knew that IDC and others put Linux at approximately 2.5% of the desktop market, so when I saw Google's figures I thought "Hmmm...there seems to be a discrepancy between Google's index, which does not profess to represent accurate market share figures, and the numbers of respected research firms. I wonder what could cause that difference..."

See the problem with your argument?? Maybe, just maybe, that's why people think you are an irrational zealot.

In light of this it seems you shouldn't be so quick in calling other people zealots. You'd look less like one yourself.

By the way, right now I'm a Windows user. So please, do suck on it.

Well Windows seems to have managed that pretty well. Windows3.1 programs run under wowexec, a 16bit compatiblity layer. It wraps up the cooperatively multitasked apps in a preemptively scheduled process. You can choose if you want all your 16bit apps to run in one wowexec process and share a memory space or run them in seperate wowexecs to prevent them interfering with one another.

Nt 's WOW Subsystem

Is there any particular reason why some Slashdot users (usually those with low UID's) don't make links clickable? Is it laziness? Or perhaps I'm the lazy one for moaning about having to copy a link and paste it into my address bar (then take out the extraneous space) to reach it?

Anyway, thanks for the link to that article, Mr. Neutron ;)

To keep this post on topic, I believe the rabidly Informative Anonymous Coward missed the point that the previous poster was referring to services like DCOM.

he thing that I noticed is that MSN/Hotmail didn't make a big splash about it. Its actually a good thing for the users. Gmail started this trend by coming up with 1 GB (yes! gigabyte) worth of space. Then yahoo joined the party with their own 100 MB version and now the latest to join in bill gates & co (aka MSN Hotmail).

Although your post was obviously tongue-in-cheek, it is not far from the truth. Apparently in Germany, they are petrified of the Church of Scientology. So much so that they demanded Microsoft provide them with instructions to remove "Disk Defragmenter" , because it was developed by a company whose CEO was a scientologist.

They been saying this, what, 3 years now?

Three years? Really? Well what do you know? You're right!

Now if you want a better example of digital convergence gone bad than the N-GAGE, check here.

1. ISPs (and any other business that gives a workstation a "real" IP address) need to block egress port 25. Comcast is going to be doing this soon, others should soon follow suit. This plugs the zombies.
2. IP addresses that continue to send spam will be blacklisted. With the zombies effectively out of the loop this will become easier (albeit never quite perfect).
3. SPF and other authentication schemes need to be adopted to prevent "spoofing" and so called "Joe jobs".
4. E-mail providers (including small companies) need to deploy mature e-mail systems for their users. In 1995 it was fine to accept e-mail from anyone on port 25, with no authentication and no encryption. In 2004, remote clients need to have an SSL connection available (both for sending mail and accessing inboxes), and must require authentication before accepting initial mail submission (SMTP+TLS+AUTH). Not only is this more secure, but it also addresses the issues always raised by blocking egress port 25 and deploying SPF.

Appendix:
SMTP+TLS+AUTH is not that tough, no whining. All modern mail clients support it, on all platforms. There is a little bit of work to do on the server end, but that's what you pay your ISP (or IT department) for:

• postfix
• sendmail
• exchange
• qmail

Umm same email client? Outlook doesn't let you run executables period. It doesn't even let you recieve executables(.scr .bat .vbs .exe), this has been a secuiryt feature since outlookXP(2002). New viruses zip their content and user must open the zip file and fun the executable. This is not a flaw in outlook, outlook express, eudora on any other mail program. Its a flaw of the user.

Outlook XP Default Security
My doom email virus

And they have proved their morals will keep them from nothing! Making up Apple switchers, writing letters to congressmen from dead people, extorting money from public school systems, astroturfing educational meetings, bbs, weblogs, and google bombing, calling free software an "unAmerican" "cancer" that will doom the US economy, hiring others to say the same and, of course, the SCO extortion.

Commercial space flight comes to mind as one of the most important contributions Bill and friends could make to Planet Earth.

Ahhhhhh! I can only imagine M$ $pace $uits, rockets, power systems and life support. They already did a bang up job for the Navy.

Imagine playing Ender's game in space, with lasertag style suites that caused joints to lock.

The Microsoft space suit will need no lasers to lock up. Imagine Embrace, Extend and Extinguish applied to oxygen lines, HVAC and propulsion. "Where do you want to go today?" travelers will scream as they beat their did navigation computers. You just knew you should have paid extra for the "pro" version. In space, more than your screen will turn blue! What do you think the average spacer wrestling with a drill in hard vacuum would think of a little yellow light telling them their suit has "upgrades" that will be installed before they can finish their job?

Then think of science, and paying for lab time in space.

If it's anything like the Microsoft Bob, XBox, and other M$ Research efforts, I expect more from NASA. A company that publically proclaims it will not enter anything but "mature" markets is not really an innovator.

Still, your wish is noble. It would be nice if tomorrow Microsoft were struck by a wave of ethics and became a completely different company. It would be nice if they quit sucking money from government, utilities, public schools and other places where cluelessness is legally mandated. I'd love to see Bill Gates tear up his open letter and declare that he was wrong about free software and world domination.

There's still some minor issues, but unless you're protecting something that multiple, highly technical government spies with uber elite access are trying to get at, PPTP is good enough. Hell, if someone were that determined, I doubt they would choose PPTP as their point of attack. The odds that everything else is more secure are pretty freaking slim.

I disagree that Microsoft can't implement encryption techniques these days. I'm confident that since Microsoft first coded their implementation of PPTP, they've learned to pay more attention to security related features. Back then, vulnerabilities weren't nearly as big of an issue as they are today. Windows Server 2003 is proof that they're making a sincere effort now that the desire for "Secure out of the box" is high on the average customer's list of features. And what about L2TP (Another VPN protocol introduced with Windows 2000)? Know of any weaknesses in it? I can't find any articles with complaints about it and it's been around for several years.

How would you like it if you made a mistake 9 years ago, fixed it, and people still referenced it when arguing why you suck today?

-Lucas

pop3 problems it seems with no time to repair.

Looks like they use InterMail pop3 server (telnet pop.east.cox.net 110) and
smtp server
(telnet smtp.east.cox.net 25): 220 lakermmtao11.cox.net ESMTP server (InterMail vM.6.01.03.02 201-2131-111-104-
20040324) ready Mon, 24 May 2004 19:00:55 -0400
(was 4xx too busy a minute ago)

Intermail is/was produced/sold by Openwave
Intermail is no longer available and support has been discontinued. For Openwave email products please visit our Email Mx page.

So, no support.
Indications are that it runs on windows servers.

Draw your own conclusions

Sam

With the Eolas victory,
This Eolas victory? Looks like it is still very much a live issue.

Microsoft has tried to revolutionize the gaming world through radical software redesign once before, in the mid-to-late 90's, with a project called Talisman. Microsoft had assembled a team of CG scientists that ripped the heart out of the industry, and they put them to work on this project.

The idea of Talisman was that each frame of a game is very much like the next one. In fact, rather than render the next frame from scratch, it might be possible to do projection of the previous frames image to get the next frame. Even if this couldn't be done for the whole image, it could certainly be done for part of it. For example, in a flight simulator, even if the ground is not flat, it is piecewise flat, and those pieces could be 2D-transformed from one frame to the next without the expense of full 3D rendering.

Microsoft hired the best people in the field of DVE (digital video effects) including Steve Gabriel and Alvy Ray Smith, almost certainly to work on this project. Steve Gabriel built the Ampex ADO, the first high-quality digital video effects machine, in the early 80's. Alvy Ray Smith wrote the Siggraph paper on 2-pass transforms, the foundation upon which the ADO is built.

Well. It turns out that rendering texture-mapped polygons can be done very very quickly indeed, and the analysis necessary to "save" time using the Talisman ideas was exceedingly complex and expensive. In the best case, Talisman might have sped things up by a factor of 2 -- about six months time given the fervid pace of graphics board development.

I don't think of this as particularly reassuring, though -- Microsoft usually fails a couple of times before achieving domination. Perhaps Talisman was Rev 1, and XBOX is Rev 2...

Thad Beier

I think this is evil. But if this gives Microsoft a sour face (thinking of the proud new features of longhorn), I'm all for it. I'd be just as happy if Ashcroft went after Microsoft to help fund the war in Iraq. Totally wrong, but oh so sweet.

Not exactly damning but many people have made the conclusions this guy has... other's point to Dave Cutler's history with VMS. Whatever the case, MS's "NT (New Technology) Technology" initiative always gave me a laugh, no such thing as a redundant monopoly I always say... always.

Turns out Slashdot was wrong--XP SP2 will not install on pirated copies of Windows.

So much for all that "dominance through piracy" conspiracy crap. This is completely off-topic.

From his weekly takes:

"Microsoft's April Super Patch Has Problems
This is what happens when you patch a gajillion problems at once. Microsoft, if you want to see how your credibility goes down the drain when you screw up, pay attention now. WinInfo Daily UPDATE readers might recall that in early April Microsoft released a massive security patch that addressed 20 security vulnerabilities in various Windows versions. The release caused a bit of controversy because it clearly showed that Microsoft had been sitting on some of those fixes for several months, leading security researchers to wonder why the company hadn't released separate patches earlier. Now we have another reason to wonder: The massive security patch is now causing problems with some Windows 2000 systems, and they're the lovely kind of problems that prevent you from logging on to the system, booting the system, or actually using the system because the CPU meter is pegged at 100 percent. But at least you're secure, right?

Virulent Windows Exploit Code
And speaking of Windows security fun, hackers have turned recently released exploit code for two of the security flaws Microsoft detailed in the April security patch into real-world worms--virulent computer code that can spread across the Internet and look for infected systems. So here's an interesting little catch-22 for you Win2K users: Which would you prefer--a nonbooting, nonworking system or a worm-laden disaster? Pick your poison, thanks to the world's largest software company, which, by the way, can't ship XP SP2 any time soon. We love Microsoft to death, don't we?"

How can Linux weenies continue to lie about this man's bias when he clearly is not? Slashdot is biased.

I wrote the following recently in my blog:

I've been thinking lately about the iPod phenomenon. In many ways, it seems to repeating past patterns similar to the competition of Microsoft versus Apple.

Steve Jobs is loath to share Apple technology and partnerships with anyone else. Despite embracing Open Source in the form of the BSD kernel for OS X and adopting other GPL projects such as KDE for the Safari browser, Apple does not seem interested in reciprocating.

Currently, the iPod and the Mini iPod are the darlings of digital cognoscenti. With good reason, it is a slick product with good fundamental design. I would wager even its elevated price even makes it appealing in some perverse way as well. However, lifting the lid, just a little bit, may reveal some trouble down the road.

The recent news about Real making an overture to Apple to open up its proprietary cloaked DRM AAC format has revealed some of Apple's thinking. While Real's overture was in some ways rather pathetic, it did point out a growing problem that will be interesting to see Apple navigate.

The problem as I see it is that Apple by retaining sole control and manufacture of the iPod and the DRM AAC format it is ultimately in danger or winning the battle but losing the war in almost exactly the same way they lost the OS war with Microsoft.

Of course, I am referring to the difference in how Microsoft is pursuing the same market. In contrast to Apple, Microsoft has licenced the WMA/WMV codec far and wide to third party hardware and software manufacturers. The current WMA codec has fared very well in codec shootouts and has several unique capabilities. For example, while Apple has just in the past few days introduced a lossless compression option to their codec, WMA has had this option for nearly two years. In addition, WMA also supports multi-channel which as had limited application in such releases as Peter Gabriel's recent UP release. More obscurely, Microsoft gobbled up Pacific Microsonics and their HDCD technology in an acquisition several years ago.

What really has momentum is the rapidly expanding universe of diverse hardware products supporting WMA. From DVD players to hundreds of portable players there is support for WMA. This includes such applications as the PhatNoise car audio system that uses a removable hard drive for audio storage. The recent adoption by the DVD Forum of the WMV format in the next DVD standard is a real watershed event. This guarantees that WMA/WMV files will be supported in all future DVD players! On top of this, I have heard that future direct to digital movie theaters will employ WMV technology. Finally, I recently read that the new VOOM HD Satellite service will be using WMV for broadcasting their standard definition channels. See announcements. A recent editorial by Paul Thurrott at Wininfo.com talks about the upcoming new version of the Windows Media Players will incorporate the ability for leasing music rather than outright ownership. This would allow an individual to access as much music as he wants for a fixed fee and be able to play it on portable players, etc. Paul has taken heat for some of his pronouncements but I think he may be right in describing this as a paradigm shift.

So, Microsoft, by widely disseminating the WMA/WMV technology and setting licensing costs very cheaply it has once again positioned itself to possibly own the standard of audio/video distribution just as it currently owns the desktop computing standard.

Apple, by contrast, could find that while it owned the early lead in music distribution ultimately is relegated to single digit market share once again. It is fascinating to observe that this is inherently a Steve Jobs blind spot which repeats itself over and over again.

The future will indeed be televised.

It got C2 certification, which basically means it has accounts, passwords, auditing and so on. The certification process doesn't include a code audit; only a design audit is required.

"I knew a jackass who used to run a Windows NT4 Server as his desktop... For some horribly retarded reason, he was under the delusion that it ran better than NT Workstation."

Insightful, thank you.

In truth, it is fairly well known that the core NT4 WKS/SRV operating system executables (ntosknrl.exe, hal.dll, xxxdriver.sys, etc) are identical. Given that NT Server typically is tuned to provide longer thread execution quantums, page out memory less frequently, etc., it is not surprising that performance differences would be perceived between the two systems under certain loads.

From a 1996 Mark Russinovich article in Windows NT Magazine, "Inside the Difference Between Windows NT Workstation and Windows NT Server" ,

"...a binary comparison of the installation CDs reveals that the code base is the same."

"Workstation and Server are tuned in a variety of ways to suit their distinct roles...only a Registry key or two determines which type of runtime tuning the kernel and user-level applications will perform."

"Although NT Workstation and NT Server share the same bits, the few tweaks that the system makes according to the product type can significantly affect the performance of the systems, so that given the same workloads, one or the other will perform better."

Andrew Schulman's article on the subject is still also still available on O'Reilly's website.

Are we believing the Microsoft Marketing Machine when they say that their security was not breached? I mean, they've never had security issues before have they?

There's actually been quite a bit of detail released about the potential source of the leak.
For example, check out this article. Seems like an awful lot of detail for just the Microsoft Marketing Machine.

e.g. see this article or search for your own...

A new email virus called MyDoom is spreading rapidly across the Internet through UNIX mail servers, bringing with it a dangerous attachment that, when opened, can give attackers access to users' computers through an electronic backdoor.

Apparently in their zeal to deflect criticism, they are ignoring, or don't read /. where a more plausible explanation as to the origin of the virus has been posted, and as to the motives behind it.

Too bad (for the site) their own readers don't fall for it

The above links are relevent to the BBC post as well.

Wrath of the geeks

If anyones anger has no measure, it is the wrath of internet zealots who believe that code should be free to all (open source).
So, it seems likely that the perpetrators of the MyDoom virus and its variants are internet vandals with a specific grudge.
SCO is the big, bad company that violates one of their sacred principles, as they would see it.
There's no proof, of course, but it must be one of the theories at the top of any investigator's list.

Interesting to see the BBC publishing this "reporting" on the heels of this

They argued that Mr Dyke, the BBC's editor-in-chief, was blameless for the "defective" system of checks which failed to expose the mistakes made by reporter Andrew Gilligan.

Mr Dyke, they argued, had a long list of extra responsibilities, from " motivating staff " to handling budgets and could not have been expected to check Mr Gilligan's story which alleged that the Government inserted bogus material into the Iraq dossier.

Although editors traditionally accepted responsibility for their journalists' shortcomings, that did not mean Mr Dyke "could or should" have had any clue about the inaccuracies in the story.

The BBC submission said its governors did not have "direct management responsibility" although they did take "ultimate responsibility for the BBC in everything it does".

And it argued, astonishingly, that the governors were never asked to treat the deluge of demands for an apology made by Alastair Campbell or the Government as "a formal complaint".

Meanwhile, in a separate legal submission, Gilligan attempted to claim that reporters should be allowed "a margin of error" to make mistakes.

And more:

On the BBC

BBC editorial system was 'defective'

BBC management failed to appreciate that Gilligan's notes did not support the most serious of his allegations

The BBC governors should have recognised the desire to protect its independence was not incompatible with investigating Mr Campbell's complaints, no matter what their tone

The BBC governors should have investigated further the differences between Gilligan's notes and his report, and that should have led them to question w

A new email virus called MyDoom is spreading rapidly across the Internet through UNIX mail servers, bringing with it a dangerous attachment that, when opened, can give attackers access to users' computers through an electronic backdoor.

Apparently in their zeal to deflect criticism, they are ignoring, or don't read /. where a more plausible explanation as to the origin of the virus has been posted, and as to the motives behind it.

Too bad (for the site) their own readers don't fall for it

The above links are relevent to the BBC post as well.

Wrath of the geeks

If anyones anger has no measure, it is the wrath of internet zealots who believe that code should be free to all (open source).
So, it seems likely that the perpetrators of the MyDoom virus and its variants are internet vandals with a specific grudge.
SCO is the big, bad company that violates one of their sacred principles, as they would see it.
There's no proof, of course, but it must be one of the theories at the top of any investigator's list.

Interesting to see the BBC publishing this "reporting" on the heels of this

They argued that Mr Dyke, the BBC's editor-in-chief, was blameless for the "defective" system of checks which failed to expose the mistakes made by reporter Andrew Gilligan.

Mr Dyke, they argued, had a long list of extra responsibilities, from " motivating staff " to handling budgets and could not have been expected to check Mr Gilligan's story which alleged that the Government inserted bogus material into the Iraq dossier.

Although editors traditionally accepted responsibility for their journalists' shortcomings, that did not mean Mr Dyke "could or should" have had any clue about the inaccuracies in the story.

The BBC submission said its governors did not have "direct management responsibility" although they did take "ultimate responsibility for the BBC in everything it does".

And it argued, astonishingly, that the governors were never asked to treat the deluge of demands for an apology made by Alastair Campbell or the Government as "a formal complaint".

Meanwhile, in a separate legal submission, Gilligan attempted to claim that reporters should be allowed "a margin of error" to make mistakes.

And more:

On the BBC

BBC editorial system was 'defective'

BBC management failed to appreciate that Gilligan's notes did not support the most serious of his allegations

The BBC governors should have recognised the desire to protect its independence was not incompatible with investigating Mr Campbell's complaints, no matter what their tone

The BBC governors should have investigated further the differences between Gilligan's notes and his report, and that should have led them to question w

A new email virus called MyDoom is spreading rapidly across the Internet through UNIX mail servers, bringing with it a dangerous attachment that, when opened, can give attackers access to users' computers through an electronic backdoor.

Apparently in their zeal to deflect criticism, they are ignoring, or don't read /. where a more plausible explanation as to the origin of the virus has been posted, and as to the motives behind it.

Too bad (for the site) their own readers don't fall for it

The above links are relevent to the BBC post as well.

Wrath of the geeks

If anyones anger has no measure, it is the wrath of internet zealots who believe that code should be free to all (open source).
So, it seems likely that the perpetrators of the MyDoom virus and its variants are internet vandals with a specific grudge.
SCO is the big, bad company that violates one of their sacred principles, as they would see it.
There's no proof, of course, but it must be one of the theories at the top of any investigator's list.

Interesting to see the BBC publishing this "reporting" on the heels of this

They argued that Mr Dyke, the BBC's editor-in-chief, was blameless for the "defective" system of checks which failed to expose the mistakes made by reporter Andrew Gilligan.

Mr Dyke, they argued, had a long list of extra responsibilities, from " motivating staff " to handling budgets and could not have been expected to check Mr Gilligan's story which alleged that the Government inserted bogus material into the Iraq dossier.

Although editors traditionally accepted responsibility for their journalists' shortcomings, that did not mean Mr Dyke "could or should" have had any clue about the inaccuracies in the story.

The BBC submission said its governors did not have "direct management responsibility" although they did take "ultimate responsibility for the BBC in everything it does".

And it argued, astonishingly, that the governors were never asked to treat the deluge of demands for an apology made by Alastair Campbell or the Government as "a formal complaint".

Meanwhile, in a separate legal submission, Gilligan attempted to claim that reporters should be allowed "a margin of error" to make mistakes.

And more:

On the BBC

BBC editorial system was 'defective'

BBC management failed to appreciate that Gilligan's notes did not support the most serious of his allegations

The BBC governors should have recognised the desire to protect its independence was not incompatible with investigating Mr Campbell's complaints, no matter what their tone

The BBC governors should have investigated further the differences between Gilligan's notes and his report, and that should have led them to question w

Some guy on winnetmag obviously thinks they should be offline, they must have brought it upon themselves, as he seems to think the virus is the fault of UNIX. he says that "A new email virus called MyDoom is spreading rapidly across the Internet through UNIX mail servers, bringing with it a dangerous attachment that, when opened, can give attackers access to users' computers through an electronic backdoor."

sheesh where do they get these people

A refreshingly different Point of view.

More articles of same author (Paul Thurrott):
here

And here is thurrott@winnetmag.com his addy, in case u wanna say "hello" ;-)

More articles of same author (Paul Thurrott):
here

And here is thurrott@winnetmag.com his addy, in case u wanna say "hello" ;-)

Unfortunately for every good article there's another full of FUD about *ix systems. take this one

"A new email virus called MyDoom is spreading rapidly across the Internet through UNIX mail servers, bringing with it a dangerous attachment that, when opened, can give attackers access to users' computers through an electronic backdoor."

Amazing what they'll print these days? unix systems, one of the systems so amazingly resistant to worms like mydoom, and still we have the press implying they're to blame for the spread of windows viruses.

A new email virus called MyDoom is spreading rapidly across the Internet through UNIX mail servers, bringing with it a dangerous attachment that, when opened, can give attackers access to users' computers through an electronic backdoor.

A new email virus called MyDoom is spreading rapidly across the Internet through UNIX mail servers, bringing with it a dangerous attachment that, when opened, can give attackers access to users' computers through an electronic backdoor.

A new email virus called MyDoom is spreading rapidly across the Internet through UNIX mail servers, bringing with it a dangerous attachment that, when opened, can give attackers access to users' computers through an electronic backdoor.

Heh, well, normally I would say go Google for it, but in your case, you may feel more comfortable with an MSN Search :P

p.s. Perhaps here?

For a journalist who writes almost exclusively about Windows and Microsoft, I'd always found that Paul Thurrott was remarkably a lot less biased than you would think. His news articles seemed to be generally fair and his reviews and previews, while generally pro-MS, were some of the most in-depth and technically accurate you could find.

Anti-Apple and anti-Linux postings have always made up a sizable proportion of posts on his weblog but they also reveal that he owns several Macs, has used Linux since 1994 and has Mozilla as his default browser. Most striking of all, he believed that Microsoft was guilty of antitrust violations and thought, like the rest of us, that the final settlement was hopelessly ineffective.

Recently, however, his personal views have started appearing more and more in his news and features. There's mentions of Linux "zealots", jabs at Apple's supposed lack of innovation (he now believes Microsoft leads) and the words 'Windows Media Audio' are never present without being prefixed with the adjective 'superior'. His weblog became tiresome months ago and now his news is going the same way. Even some of his normally excellent in-depth previews are suffering: his look at task-based inductive user-interfaces in Longhorn is an almost farcical anti-Apple rant.

If you're interested in the comings and goings of Microsoft, Paul Thurrott is a good source of reliable and accurate information (I really can 't recommend his previews enough). However, his tiresome rants and raves are starting to make it his articles less and less enjoyable.

In Thurrott's latest article (referenced above) he claims the iPod mini "won't be available for months". I just checked the Apple online store and the estimated shipping date is Feb. 16. Months? Not quite.

In Thurrott's latest article(mentioned above) he claims that WMA is "a feature that's natively enabled in the iPod's firmware but that Apple disables before the units ship to customers". I've never heard of this before. Is there any truth to this claim?

Exclusive: HP Working to Get WMA on iPod
HP's blockbuster deal with Apple will have one exciting side effect, I discovered today. The company will be working with Apple to add support for Microsoft's superior Windows Media Audio (WMA) format to the iPod by mid-year. You heard it here first.

The author can be reached pretty easily.

I'm not just talking about files. NT has fine-grained ACLs throughout the entire OS.

The flaw is that you cannot have services running as any other user. You just can't you seem unwilling to accept this is so but it is.

That's because there's no technical reason why it isn't possible and more than one web site suggests it is possible. Excerpts:

"An NT service will run with "system impersonation" by default. Any service, however, can be configured to log on as a different user via the services control panel by providing a specific user name password to be used by the service."

" -User and -Password allow you to specify the account in which the service will run. This setting overrides that provided in the Service Configuration file, and is ideal for cases where the account must vary from system to system."

"Running a service as LocalSystem is perhaps the most dangerous option from the standpoint of executing arbitrary code. [...] If the service does not require network access, you can run some services under a local account. Selecting a local account with limited rights is the safest approach. That way, if an attacker executes arbitrary code, the attack will be limited to only those resources that the local user controls. Also, if an attacker gains control of the local system, a service running under a local account gives the attacker no additional privileges."

That took me about a minute on google.

They were mostly the boot sector sort but when I was in college the lab macs were terribly infested all the time.

Highly unusual. Try an tell any Mac user that Macs are "virus infested" and you'll get laughed out of the room - even by the non-zealous ones.

But even then there are ways to limit the damage a user can do to his own computer. Take my Windows box - there's not much limit because a number of programs need me to have administrator access to run! Again, poor design.

This is not poor design of the OS, but poor design of the program. It's like calling unix badly designed because some code needs to execute as root. Even so, you should be able to run arbitrary applications as an Administrator just by using "Run As" (NT equivalent of sudo).

Design is when you say "Services can't run as other users, user accounts are only for users and not for services".

Except that isn't true.

Look up any porgram taht runs programs in the background as services. They ALWAYS run as an administrator. That is by design.

No, it's by default. Not to mention they usually run as LocalSystem, an account that usually has higher privileges than Administrator. There's no design feature that *requires* services to be run as LocalSystem.

Besides, you're just being nitpicky.

No, I'm being accurate. You, OTOH, are being either dishonest or ignorant.

Concerning the C2 level certification, the only microsoft products that have this certification are Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Win NT 4.0 and Win NT 3.5 according to microsoft itself

But anyway, these certifications are bogus, since the products are evaluated "against the Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria (TCSEC) and its interpretations" also called the Orange Book. However, the Orange Book applies to standalone machines and operating systems! Wow. great.

This standard clearly has no meaning anymore in modern computer security (if it ever had one).

Skilf

Naw. Its XP now, at least according to this assessment based on web stats.

Now, I wish I had some hard data to back any of this up, but the closest I can come up with is part of a Microsoft announcement where they brag XP is the best selling version of Windows ever. From this article, they state, "NPDTechworld noted that XP sold 400,000 copies at retail in October 2001 and 250,000 copies in November 2001. These numbers compare with the 580,000 and 350,000 copies that Win98 sold in its first and second months, respectively." Now, Microsoft's claims in this were taken with a grain of salt because Microsoft used the fact these licenses were sold to OEMs and corporate clients, rather than that the OEMs had sold these licenses to customers. Personally, I feel that the retail numbers are a more accurate representation than the number of licenses commited by OEMs.

I'm willing to concede that Windows XP is more popular than Windows 98+95, however, but I bet the numbers are pretty close.

Here's an article that gives an overview of doing this with smart cards.

http://www.winnetmag.com/windowspaulthurrott/Artic le/ArticleID/41035/windowspaulthurrott_41035.html

During an oddly-underpublicized security Webcast Monday, Microsoft revealed that hackers subject the company to 2500 to 3000 electronic attacks every day, or over 100,000 a month. Yet despite this massive number of attacks, the last successful intrusion occurred over three years ago, during the infamous October 2000 security breach. But the software giant says the biggest security risk to the company isn't external electronic attack of its Web properties, but rather its huge fleet of mobile workers and partners--some 60,000 strong--that access the company's 175 remote access points on a regular basis.

We've taken a deep look inside Microsoft to see how we can improve security at every level," sad Mike Nash, the vice president of the Security Business Unit at Microsoft, during the Webcast. "A lot of the technology we use Microsoft applies directly to [customers'] work."

Microsoft revealed some other interesting statistics during the Webcast. The company uses Computer Associates' eTrust security management suite to secure its networks. It uses two-factor authentication (user name/password and smart card) to better secure its intellectual property.