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Nuclear Materials System Not Buggy, Says Microsoft
Darkmeat writes: "Saw this on ZDNet. Looks like SQL Server was causing some problems in nuclear databases in Russia." Another similar story at Yahoo. This is a followup to this story detailing the problems.
Of course, if the database were mySQL or PostGres , the story would have never made it on /. .
-k
Read the original e-mail piece. It's long, but it's well worth the read.
There a numerous issues in this article that are significantly "re-formulated" our left out - and that actually matters a lot in this case.
This article gives the impression (in my oppinion) that it is disputable wether the flaws were serious at all, and it seeks to give the impression that microsoft offered help which the russians refused.
If you read the longer original transcript, you will see that there were several other significant flaws found in 7.0 which made it unusable, and that the fix microsoft offered was "upgrade to 7.0".
The original transcripts ends with the russians expressing their deepest concern and surprise over microsoft actually suggesting them to fiddle with numeric formats etc. in order to work around real bugs that show up in SQL server.
#1 is WRONG. The bug they found was in SQL Server. The software they wrote just happened to trigger it.
From the article, it doesn't say exactly what the security problem was, you can't tell for sure that it was #2.
Engineering and the Ultimate
If it's not in the database, it doesn't exist, and will thus not need to be disposed of.
"MS announced today that the next version of SQL Server will have a tenfold increase in its lauded 'virtual disposal' capability as compared to previous versions. 'This is a huge step forward for our environmental policy', president Bush stated, and added 'It's another example of how business takes care of environmental concerns far more effectively than government regulations can do'."
Sorry.
/Janne
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
That's why medicine took the 'nuclear' out of Nuclear Magnetic Resonant Imaging - patients would freak out at the mere mention of 'nuclear' so they changed it to just MRI. It still involved the nuclei of atoms.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I'm all for M$ bashing - when they deserved to be bashed (and there are plenty of areas where they deserve this). But in this case, the article is nothing more than anti-M$ propoganda.
No. The article is either pro-Microsoft spin couched as innefectual criticism or profoundly incompetently written. If you check the referenced source material you'll find that, in fact, there were severe bugs related solely to Microsoft's SQL Server which have not only compromised the Russian nuclear tracking system, but even more severely compromised the American nuclear tracking system. What is worse, the Russians were wise enough to keep their manual system intact as a check, despite ridecule from their American colleagues. The United States, on the other hand, has had no manual system or check of any kind in place. Verifying the American stockpiles will cost on the order of a Billion US Dollars and will not detect any material which has already been diverted.
Los Alamos has verified the bugs, both in the version of SQL server the Russians were using and in the version Microsoft recommended they upgrade to.
Microsoft spin and apologist propoganda aside, this fiasco is real, has truly shocking and horrifying security implications for the entire planet, and is absolutely inexcusable. Of course, inexcusable lapses on the part of Microsoft and the quality of their proprietary products is hardly new or surprising, but it remains news so long as their shoddy products continue to dominate the market through marketing misrepresentation and public ignorance of the facts.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
A complete synopsis of the email exchange released by the Center for Defense Information reveals that the flaws in Microsoft's SQL server were serious, and seriously affected both the American and Russian systems for tracking nuclear materials.
Nuclear material may or may not have been misplaced or diverted. What is certain, however, is that currently neither country has complete track of its materials as a direct result of the aforementioned software bugs in Microsoft's SQL server, and the cost of reinventorying the materials will cost on the order of one billion US dollars for the United States alone. Furthermore, if materials have been diverted from within the US inventory, the diversion will not be identified by the reinventorying methods available. This situation is unambiguously a result of the problems both teams have had with Microsoft's SQL server, coupled with the fact that the bugs weren't identified until the project was well underway.
You may deny, deny, deny as much as you like, but the public record is clear and unambiguous, and, once again, the fault lies squarely on Microsoft's incompetent shoulders.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
And the way I've always read Bill's statement was:
Some customers complain, but neither those customers nor the bugs they complain about matter to us.
Of course no one complains... There's no point. MS has never been known to do anything about bug complaints but disavow and disregard them.
If this had been an open source database, it would have been fixed right the first time. Heck, if this had been an open source database, the DOE or the Russians could have audited the whole system from the ground up the instant they detected any problems.
This is only a story because a closed source vendor can't keep a handle on their bugs even when they are of literally world-changing importance.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
This was included in a list of some MS hazardous materials systems which I had in an earlier post:
http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/COMMISSION/SECYS/2000-0163s cy.html#ATTACHMENT 4.
Hey, lameness filter. This ain't that comment. Stop making me rephrase it.No it's.... while( upgrade.exists() == true )
{
upgrade.sell
}
See it's much easier this way.
From the article:
Murchie said the bug was a minor problem in Microsoft's instructions for using the software and has been resolved. "It was not a product flaw."
From Neal Stephenson's essay, "In the Beginning was the Command Line":
Commercial OSes have to adopt the same official stance towards errors as Communist countries had towards poverty. For doctrinal reasons it was not possible to admit that poverty was a serious problem in Communist countries, because the whole point of Communism was to eradicate poverty. Likewise, commercial OS companies like Apple and Microsoft can't go around admitting that their software has bugs and that it crashes all the time, any more than Disney can issue press releases stating that Mickey Mouse is an actor in a suit.
Hmm. Perhaps our Russian friends are excercising a bit of well earned scepticism.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Not true. Data stored on a secure server is only as secure as the clients it trusts to access/modify that data.
If I compromised the client; created and account; and transferred money into it via that client how is the data in the server secure?
It doesn't have to be a newbie or random client off of the street. This is BANK ROBBERY. All it takes is one.
--
Charles E. Hill
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
True. However, I was making the logical assumption that if I could compromise the client machine it wouldn't be anything to compromise the username/password of the teller from either packet sniffing; shoulder surfing or the little post-it note taped to the monitor. :-)
--
Charles E. Hill
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Sorry, you're wrong.
I was in a bank the other day asking about opening an account.
The terminal that was being used to look everything up; open new accounts; etc. was a WINDOWS 95 machine accessing the database via a WEB BROWSER interface with JAVA.
It also had an IP address taped to the monitor and they had limited INTERNET access (so they can show their lovely Internet Banking).
--
Charles E. Hill
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Drops one transaction in a thousand? What if instead this was installed at a major bank -- like a Federal Reserve or a National Bank?
A year or so of "dropping" 1 in 1,000 transactions could be quite a sum.
Hmmm...if any banks out there are looking for SysAdmins to implement an MS SQL Server solution -- I'm available!
--
Charles E. Hill
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Yes but it does present another opportunity to point out that MS executives are habitual liars.
War is necrophilia.
Some time ago a friend of mine, 'mike*' who supported enough people that he had an MS rep assigned to him, was beating his head against the wall trying to solve a bug that was causing excel files to be corrupted just by opening them.
His MS support rep kept on telling him, "nope it's a unique problem" you seem to be the only one suffering from this. What are you doing wrong. One day he found out that 'bob', a counterpart at another large company, had been dealing with the same problem for a number of months. He decided to mention this to his MS Rep.
*(names have been changed to protect the innocent)--
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
The RIAA used them to nuke Napster.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Lately it's been one stale anti-MS joke after another with a +5 "Funny" moderation.
Surely you MS-haters must have a better sense of humor.
Maybe the GPL is a cancer, maybe it's not. But at least it's never misplaced plutonium.
... there. That one's even recycled.
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Microsoft confirmed it, reproduced it, and assigned it a bug number. So... who's full of bullshit here?
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
It's not that every 1,000 transactions are dropped. It's that, with odds of 1 in 1000, a select statement with an order by clause will not return all of the data.
A little less dramatic, but a problem nonetheless.
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Why so hostile? The original report has the bug number. Other people said they have independently confirmed it. Do you own a lot of MSFT stock or something?
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Hey- I just need to speak up, I have no idea about the missing data thing, but as far as "a new security flaw that could give unauthorized people easy access"... that's bunk!
The system password by default on install is blank, Oracle has a default password too, I think it is "CHANGE_ON_INSTALL". So if you happen to install SQL Server and not have the brains to change the default password, then you deserve everything you are about to get. Now I hate M$ just as much as the next guy, but it's a shame that these dorks have to go blaming their incompetence on other people.
Troy
Christmas Jones
God, Denise Richards is a terrible actress....
---
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
I agree with the Russians: this *is* a big security hole!!
[
And change jobs, if your current one don't let you use the OS of your choice. Despite the dot-bomb crash, the labor market for software engineers is still splendid.
Say no to software patents.
moderators - please mod the parent accordingly
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
"Blue Screen of Death"
If you have time, read the paper. It explains exactly what the bug is. Any summary is necessarily imprecise; however here's an attempt: the following code works: And the following code does not work: (I'm skipping a lot). If @X is declared decimal instead of int, the bug goes away. This was Microsoft's proposed fix.
Personally, I don't like stored procedures much, particularly Transact SQL which is what this appears to be. In general, a heavy reliance on stored procedures frequently shows a lack of understanding of SQL and data modelling.
I'll grant that they have a legitimate role. However, I've seen them overused. I've seen them used to replace foreign key, unique, and check constraints, even to enforce typing which could have been done by declaring the column correctly. Oracle's documentation warns against the performance penalties of such misuse. I've also seen them used as substitute for JOINs, again by programmers who don't have much grasp of SQL.
Stored procedures are dangerous because they offer a procedural cop-out to programmers from a procedural background. If you're using them correctly, great.
I love how the knee-jerk scariness of these things jumps exponentially when the word "nuclear" is present. I realize it's justified, ate least in this case, but I still find it amusing.
-jKarma: T-rexcellent.
Since when did the matrix become a philosophy text, and Keanu Reeves a Philosopher? As bill and ted would say: EXCELLENT! ::air guitar::
Not quite. It was Christmas Jones who was de-arming the bomb and she was using her HP Jornada to interface with the bomb.
The headline could have been "M$'s Munchie insults Rusian governement and scientific community by Blaming the User (TM)." Sounds like news to me.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
True! and a good scientist would never trust MS.
I can't imagine using closed source programs for nuclear materials and I have not seen it either except for the most mundane additons and plotting. Some fool might be trying something more elaborate somewhere, but all software used in the US for this kind of thing has elaborate trails, proving and QC. This should serve as a wake up call to people trusting closed source junk on PC's for less critical, punn intended, applications.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
This is just so typical. Certanly noone else run complex code in a database environment.
No wonder there are fireballs hitting the U.S. East coast.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Both of them?
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
And, FYI, I do own my own company. That means instead of pointy-haired bosses, I have pointy-haired clients. It's not really any different - they still sign the checks, and if I want to get paid, I have to do what they want me to do. In many ways, you have less freedom when you own your own company than you do when you work for somebody else. You don't own the company, it owns you.
In case you've never owned your own company, let me teach you an important saying: "The customer is always right". Even when he wants you to use Microslop software. If you want big corporations to do business with you, you have to play the game by their rules. If you start copping that holier-than-thou attitude with your customers, you are going to find yourself down at the courthouse filing for bankruptcy in very short order.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Probably a standard response.
IF
problem
THEN
Upgrade to a newer version
ENDIF
Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
"Information wants to be paid"
The nature of bugs (especially MS bugs) is that not everyone experiences the same bugs. Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean others haven't. I've seen documents that crash Word on some computers and not on others, even with the same version of Word. And if it wasn't an SQL Server bug, why would changing from one version of SQL Server to another affect it? Microsoft acknowledged the bug existed but said it didn't appear at "other customer sites" (all other sites? the majority of them?), downplaying its significance. As Bill Gates said, "There are no significant bugs in our released software that any significant number of users want fixed."
How the hell could a Fiero with a small inline 4 be a threat to a world class sportscar. I rebuilt one of those with my friend and his brother and there was absolutely no room to icorporate a larger engine. And the price difference was about 2x.
Chevy may have hated it, but it was not because the Fiero threatened the Corvette. They are in two different market segments. That's like the PT Cruiser threatening a Viper.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
That's a good way to share technology and sabotage your enemy at the same time.
Make them use Microsoft.
disclaimer: no offense intented
It is a feature.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
I thought free software threatened national security and the american way of life.
I would search my quote database for the name of the person who said "Don't throw stones in glass houses," but given that it's the 1000th transaction of the day, I'm experiencing technical difficulties...
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
Clearly, you weren't using either:
MacOS, Windows, BeOS, GNOME, KDE: they're all just Xerox copies
Is that why the reactors are all CE-ME-NT? Har har.
In the quest to post as many articles bashing M$, the quality of the posted articles is approaching the level of the World Weekly News.
The Headline "Nuclear Materials System Not Buggy" is misleading. When you read the article, the main two arguments for saying that M$ has buggy code are:
1). Users of SQL Server are able to code software that can screw up the database.
2). When you don't put a password on admin accounts, it causes a security vulnerability.
These two assertions are true for EVERY database server, not just M$. Anyone who has write/commit privileges to database tables has the ability to screw up the database - this is not a SQL Server issue. And if you don't put passwords on your accounts, it is your own damn fault for introducing a security vulnerability.
I'm all for M$ bashing - when they deserved to be bashed (and there are plenty of areas where they deserve this). But in this case, the article is nothing more than anti-M$ propoganda.
"Microsoft has made computing accessible to a population who would otherwise not be able to use computers" - B. Kernigha
And I've written code that didn't work correctly. Then I fixed it when I audited my results. Almost all complicated software has quirks in it. Should it be fixed? Yes. Do people handling nuclear material records have a responsibility to audit their code regardless of whether bugs might exist? Also yes. A good programmer checks the results of their code as well as the code itself.
--- Don't be a player hater: I meta-mod ALL negative mods as Unfair.
I ran a SQL Server 6.5 database that handled 7GB of data a month and processed around 21 billion transactions on that data, then countless more on the "rolled up" summaries. We had a general ledger to reconcile with and I think we would have noticed missing records if they occured every 1000 transactions. SQL 6.5 was a pain in the ass and 7.0 is a lot better. It still has some problems, but I think these reported "bugs" are more bad programmers than bad server software.
--- Don't be a player hater: I meta-mod ALL negative mods as Unfair.
I've used SQL Server for years... not because I want to, but because the company I work for prefers it. I've never seen such a problem of dropping every 1000 transactions. But there is one particular thing about this story that bugs me (no punn intended)... if the bug isn't in Microsoft's software, as they contend, then why did they tell the Russians to upgrade to a newer version to solve the problem???
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Developers: We can use your help.
Read the e-mail exchange between Blair and the Russians here. Plenty of details on the problems with MS SQL server, and apparently both sides agree that this is pretty low quality software.
I just hope their engineers are 100% sure that it was just isolated to that one lab in Russia. If other labs in the US encounter a similar issue AND the public finds out about it - Microsoft will be in a err, difficult position.
I find it interesting that the Russian lab rejected Microsofts offered fix - whats that all about? I'd love to know why they did that.
Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
What I really would like to see is a Nuclear Reactor on Redmond, controled by M$ products. If the product fails, it just meltsdown. I think that is the only way to make M$ products suck a little less. Considering, of course, that they could fix them in less then 24h, that is the aproximate time it would take the reactor do meltdown with the first rWin crash.
No, really. What scares the sh1t out of me is that someone would seriously consider AND use M$ products in a nuclear facility.
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morcego
No, bugs are exactly what he said.
The computer does *exactly* what the programmer told it to do.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
The flaw is available in http://www.cdi.org/nuclear/nukesoftware.txt
;)... I'd be interested in what someone with a SQL6.5 box generated.
Basically, random errors appear in this structure:
DECLARE @X int, @T varchar (255), @R int
select @X = 0
SELECT @X = id FROM sysobjects
WHERE id > @X AND type = 'P'
ORDER BY id DESC
select @R = @@ROWCOUNT
/*** COMMENT: Printing our resulting value of @X and @R ***/
select @T = 'Resulting value of @X = ' + convert(varchar, @X)
PRINT @T
select @T = 'Number of records in data set @R = ' + convert(varchar, @R)
PRINT @T
GO
The values of @X come out randomly wrong. The give a few examples of stored procedures which use that structure, and suggested workarounds.
They all work fine on my SQL2k box (damn well hope so since they recommended an upgrade to fix it
--
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
- Nietzsche
"At any rate, they were afraid," Blair said. "The Russians were very concerned that this posed a grave problem on the U.S. side."
You think so? Why would the Russians be worried about United States operations? After all, we have the Microsoft database server to protect our data and nuclear weapon reserves, and the DMCA to protect our free speech.
Lawrence Lessig is my personal hero.
"No nuclear materials were ever at risk..."
"IE was not illegally 'tied' to Windows..."
"MS is not a monopoly..."
"Ok, if MS is a monopoly, we are a good monopoly..."
"Consumers will benefit from Windows being able to do everything ..."
"Consumers want us to control the world..."
"I've been made King? Awww, shucks! You really shouldn't have..."
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
...The Green, Glowing, Radioactive Cloud Of Death
Oh wait, that's the meaning it already had...
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324006
This doesn't really seem to shed any light on the previous articles about this. Is this just another excuse to slap Microsoft around a little bit?
--
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball(TM)
It appears (we had no access to the source, so I can't do better than that) that if you have a complex select statement, with several nested sub-selects, you can get SQL Server into a state where it caches the query plan (roughly, the "compiled version") of some of the sub-queries from one execution to the next. This query plan sometimes acts as if it (incorrectly) includes information derived from other sub-queries as if it was constant. If in a subsequent use the value of these stored "constants" has changed, the where-clauses can fail, causeing the loss of rows in the result set.
We went several rounds of reporting it to MS, bogged down on the "can you produce a simple case that exihibits the problem" phase, and wound you instituting coding guidlines to break such queries into multiple peices using temporary tables.
Consequently I know that there are at least some bugs that are not seen by most users, and am more willing to credit this report than I was before I heard the keywords "SQL server" "complex queries" and "missing data".
-- MarkusQ
M$ just wants to acquire the resources to take on AOL-Time-Warner-Amazon...
Be part of the world's largest collaborative work of art: http://www.paintthemoon.org
I'm astonished that Russians trust software made by a US company to look after state secrets of this nature...
http://www.themeparks.ie
I wonder how stable Windows CE for Nuclear Warheads(R) is. Of course we should expect a Mushroom Cloud of Death(TM) instead of a BSOD, though...
http://www.themeparks.ie
"It's operating as intended", Bill Gates chuckles to himself as he closes the view port on his ever growing stockpile of weapons-grade nuclear material.