Slashdot Mirror
MS Cites National Security to Justify Closed Source
guacamolefoo writes: "It was recently reported in eWeek that "A senior Microsoft Corp. executive told a federal court last week that sharing information with competitors could damage national security and even threaten the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. He later acknowledged that some Microsoft code was so flawed it could not be safely disclosed."
(Emphasis added.) The follow up from Microsoft is even better: As a result of the flaws, Microsoft has asked the court to allow a "national security" carve-out from the requirement that any code or API's be made public. Microsoft has therefore taken the position that their code is so bad that it must kept secret to keep people from being killed by it. Windows - the Pinto of the 21st century."
From the story:
> The protocol, which is part of Message Queuing,
> contains a coding mistake that would threaten the
> security of enterprise systems using it if it were
> disclosed, Allchin said.
Then with all the billions and billions of dollars M$ has hanging out in the bank, why not hire someone and FIX THE PROBLEM. What's the problem with doing the things that make sense?!
Single best thing M$ could do to improve their product security is to adopt the 'patch often' mindset. Fix something, release a patch, everyone goes home happy.
The bi-annual (exaggeration) security patches they currently do ain't gonna do it.
(From a story posted here)
Peruvian Congressman David Villanueva Nuñez made exactly this argument:
To guarantee national security or the security of the State, it is indispensable to be able to rely on systems without elements which allow control from a distance or the undesired transmission of information to third parties. Systems with source code freely accessible to the public are required to allow their inspection by the State itself, by the citizens, and by a large number of independent experts throughout the world. Our proposal brings further security, since the knowledge of the source code will eliminate the growing number of programs with *spy code*.
In the same way, our proposal strengthens the security of the citizens, both in their role as legitimate owners of information managed by the state, and in their role as consumers. In this second case, by allowing the growth of a widespread availability of free software not containing *spy code* able to put at risk privacy and individual freedoms.
The flaw here is that for windows code to posess the powers they imply, it would need to be a state secret. Perhaps it should be illegal to distribute mission critical osc across us boundaries? Windows code a state secret? I think not, anyone can reverse compile machine code.
Micro$oft should realize that governments do not like security threats they are not able to evaluate themselves. The NSA, for example, cannot sit and tinker with windoze's security holes the way they can with OSC (open source code)...
-Sean
I think that "National Security" here means "the NSA asked us to put xyz into our code, and they'd be unhappy if it had to be removed or became public".
Remember: Cryptanalysis has, and will, always come in fourth place after burglary, blackmail, and bribery.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
If it happened in any other industry (auto, aviation, train, commerce, weaponry, etc) the Government would drop their product like a dead rat (and more probably force the manufacturer into a recall). Yet Microsoft is willing to use it as a defense?
At least that is the only explanation I can think of. Their systems are architecturally unsound and plagued by stupid design decisions, unstable interfaces and unsound implementation. It is quite obvious if you look at all the security, stability and usability (ever reinstalled Windoes?) problems they have. In addition they are still adding features like mad, thereby making the problem more serious all the time.
.NET and the motivations and real goals behind them.
My point is that they did not say anything new by admitting the problem. However by admiting it they also admit that they don't really care about security, as they certainly could have done significantly better! This casts a very bad light on other ventures like
So why are they admitting it anyway? In my opinion MS is scared to death that open APIs would also mean stable APIs (i.e. APIs that don't change all the time) and would enable others to make Windows compatible execution environments with relative ease. The sources are also important, because the API documentation MS would give (could?) away is not complete and correct enough. So while it takes a huge effort, competitiors would be able to really find out the complete API functionality and implement it in a way so that things that run on Windows would usually run on competing products without retesting or modifications.
As MS is not really having a good product, just an effective monopoly (by making cloning their API difficult), reasonable documentation of their APIs could kill them. At least that is what I think they believe.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted and ignored otherwise.
I'm a recall coordinator. My job is to apply the formula....
Take the number of vehicles in the field, (A), and multiply it by the probable rate of failure, (B), then multiply the result by the average out-of-court settlement, (C). A times B times C equals X...
If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
In other words, if it is cheaper to pay off everyone neccessary to prevent a recall than to actually do one, they don't do one.
'When pressed for further details, Allchin said he did not want to offer specifics because Microsoft is trying to work on its reputation regarding security. "The fact that I even mentioned the Message Queuing thing bothers me," he said.'
I love that! 'It pains me to admit that our software is dangerously broken, because we're trying really, really hard to convince people that the reputation we have for foisting dangerously broken software on them is totally unfounded.'
I guess if there were trying to work on their actual security, rather than just the reputation, they might act a bit differently (like, by publishing their API's and then working with the security community to get them safe).
-Dan
I have written a truly remarkable operating system which this sig is too small to contain.
Get a paper copy of this testimony. Make lots of photocopies. Highlight the "interesting" parts (such bad security that releasing it would be a national security risk, etc). Send to everybody in your local government you can find, demanding that they stop using MS products until their security problems are fixed. As alternatives, there is at least OSX, all the Linux distributions, and probably other things (the resurrection of BeOS?).
Given that MS is admitting in court that they are selling defective products, demand that your local government sue MS for fraud. Politicians don't keep up to date on every legal battle going on everywhere, but if you send them the relevant portions they at least can't claim they didn't know.
While you're at it, forward this onto the local newspaper and tv stations. "poor security" is a big boogyman these days.
Another thing; Send this onto the people at your company who make buying decisions, if MS is going to admit their products have the security of swiss cheese, does your company really want to expose itself to that kind of danger?
Karma: Food Fight (Mostly affected by Date Plate).
The question that has to be asked here is this: do we really want to have our country so heavily dependent on an OS that is so apparently at risk of vunerabilities? Let's analyze the threat for a moment.
Let's say that this message queueing vulnerability that was spoken of in the article is a pretty substantial hole that could be a true threat to national security. What makes anybody think that because Microsoft refuses to talk about it hasn't already slipped out to all the wrong people. If some high level executive at Microsoft knows about it, you can guarantee that probably hundreds if not thousands of people within the orgnization know about the problem already. The more people that know about it, the better the odds that somebody nefarious will get a hold of that information.
If I were the intelligence service of some devious foreign power you can bet I'd have a few operatives working in Microsoft. I mean if you want to fight a war with the US, what would be better than an opening shot that can harm >90% of the computers in the country. So you have a few operatives finding what holes they can and slowly relay them back. Then you just sit and wait for the day when you need a real threat in your arsenal.
Imagine how nice it would be if you are some nefarious foreign power in tense negotiations with the US and you can walk in, and them a floppy disk and tell them to give in or else. I mean even if they find out what the vulnerability is, can they deploy a response to it fast enough that it matters? Nothing like the threat of having the electronic economy slagged to make you amicable to a bad deal.
I think that if Microsoft's the threat they seem to imply, the judge should order them to turn over the source code to the FBI to begin dissecting these problems. Do we really want to trust a private corporation with our national security? I don't think so...
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Seems to me that either Allchin suffered some stroke or brain damage while in court, or this is all a big red herring.
...
You just don't get to Allchin's level and "accidentally" let slip something like a fundamental vulnerability in a protocol. M$ officials may make mistakes, but not like this. Not in a public forum. Not in front of a judge. Not where every news medium in the world will be covering the story.
My feeling is that this is all a distraction from something else. Every black hat on the planet is now probably checking out the Messaging protocol. My guess is that there's no smoking gun there. But maybe another protocol has problems.
Furthermore, it just doesn't make sense. An API exposes only what you want it to. It doesn't show you the vulnerabilities that exist "under the covers" unless they're titanically, apocalyptically stupid.
I'd like to know what it was that he's distracting us from
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
have you thought this through? What about interoperability? Modularity? If you worked like this, pretty much all NON software companys would end up doing everything in house, which is of course, not what they are in the business of doing. There is a reason microsoft exists. There is a reason someone is on top.
I ate my sig.
He later acknowledged that some Microsoft code was so flawed it could not be safely disclosed.
Somehow, I think that if the US government forbade the use of any Microsoft applications within federal facilities, pending a code review by a neutral 3rd party to identify and fix potential security holes, you'd see Microsoft scramble to get their shyte in gear pretty damn quickly.
As somebody already stated in this thread, Peru has the right idea: open source allows people to public review code for potential security flaws, which is how most bugs are caught anyway -- a fresh pair of eyes takes a peek. Ultimately, there's no way that Microsoft can compete with this code development paradigm -- since there's so much Open Source code "out there", it might spread people's attention out a bit too thinly in places, but over time one would hope that Linux apps will only more secure / stable.
I work for a defense contractor and have had to put up with this for years. I suppose MS can go this route if they really want to. They're already bloated enough; add government security procedures to the mix and they'll become every bit as agile and responsive as any other constituent of the Military-Industrial Complex.
Boy, that'd be a hoot.
And the brethren went away edified.
For example, if any inconvenient fact looks like it might support Creationism, there are those who immediately impugn it as being `War on Science'. (-:
Of course the other side uses the same tactic as well. It's opportunism at its best. It takes a lot of integrity to resist using such tactics, especially when your opposition isn't reluctant to use them. I wish we could see more integrity in the world.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Look, I don't care WHAT the problem was. A military vessel is explicitly designed to keep working even if parts of it get destroyed. I would expect the vessel to continue functioning, albeit at a decreased efficiency, if I shot the computer with my sidearm.
I don't care whose code broke...the fact that a software problem could cripple a ship is unconscionable.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Actually, Microsoft has ALOT of talented engineers that are quite capable of writing excellent code.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, the emphasis is on getting to market first (when you can't crush them otherwise with FUD or other methods). This accellerates the coding process and puts demands on quality, leading to shortcuts and an emphasis on new features over bug fixes.
It's all finally coming to roost at Microsoft. You can't put out crap all the time. More and more people I talk to are getting frustrated. Ask anyone who understands the software environment , the only reason anyone uses Microsoft is because of the availability of apps, not because it's stable or of high quality.
This is what's letting Linux and OSX in the door.
What's my Karma Mr. Burns? "Excellent"
Can you please post the URLs?
Thank you in advance.