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Latest IE Hole Lets Gopher Root You
rvaniwaa writes "Another hole in internet explorer has been discovered. This hole allows a hacker to root a user's computer whenever the user clicks on a gopher link. All versions of IE are affected and a Microsoft spokesman stated that the company is "moving forward on the investigation with all due speed""
Let the "gopher hole" jokes begin.
Humm, it's early this week.
I do security
"hostile Gopher site"? Ouch ... I think shall wear kevlar underpants while using IE in future.
From the article:
In January, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates instructed employees to make software security a top priority.
Yeah, looks like everythings moving full steam ahead on that front.
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One of us needs to stick ones' head in a bucket of ice water.
- Hobbes
"Where do you want to gopher today?"
"I smell varmint poontang, and the only good varmint poontang is dead varmint poontang, I think."
How damn common those gopher links are, I click on hundreds per day, whatever am I going to do?
Use Archie!
Well you can't expect Microsoft to keep up with all these new technologies and formats!
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Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things.
I don't have a root user...this must mean my M$ machine is perfectly safe!?
Keep the burglars out of your house with the new Microsoft Door. Complete with not dead-bolts, but tape, yes TAPE to keep it locked. Also, we've reached an all new level of user friendliness with the omission of door-knobs!!!
"The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley..." - ROBERT BURNS
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Obligitory reference to story posted earlier today...
'Think Tank' Issues Microsoft-Funded Troll
According to this ZDNet article, a Washington think tank known as the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution is soon to release a study stating that Open Source Software allows terrorists an easy time hacking into our systems. It's little suprise that this group takes money from Microsoft." The Register's story is good too. All the whoring reports in the world won't make open source any less secure.
Everybody knows terrorists love to target Mozilla users by sending them links which causes there system to email Star Office attachments to everybody with payloads that will delete all your OGGs and PNGs by exploiting security holes in Sendmail.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
certainly more applicable to the concept of fixing security holes in Microsoft software.
FYI: Whack-a-Mole is an old arcade game where you hold a padded mallet facing a slightly inclined surface with a half-dozen or so holes. Periodically a little mole pops up from a hole, and you try to whack him before he goes back down on his own. A little bit like playing XBill, only in the Real World.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
A Microsoft spokesman who refused to be identified said Tuesday that the company is "moving forward on the investigation with all due speed" and will take the action that best serves its customers.
Since when did M$ start offering downloads of Mozilla?
I stole this Sig
As you can imagine, "the gopher hole" was a project microshaft envisioned early-on. They couldn't let this go public until they had something to catch the little beasts with. Fortunately now they can catch the gophers with microshaft's giant .net.
"UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things."
The possibility of this being a Mosaic hole reminds me of one of life's fun little ironies:
Marc Andreessen wrote Mosaic while at the University of Illinois. After he went on to found Netscape, Microsoft came to an agreement with the University of Illinois to license the Mosaic source code to use it as the core of the Internet Explorer browser. The fact that they still license it is referenced in IE's "About Box". Now the UofI's intellectual property policy is that the creators of the property get ~40% of the licensing money. So, the odds are pretty good that Marc gets annual checks of Microsoft money to pay for his old source code, which was used to destroy his beloved company. Makes me feel bad for him.
Still, it is kind of funny that Microsoft ends up paying some miniscule part of my University salary because they've never been able to write a web browser from scratch.
Microsoft: Now with more exploited holes than a two-dollar hooker.
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I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
gopher://gopher.URr00t3d.ru
"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
Just because nobody uses something legitimately, it doesn't mean that nobody will use it maliciously.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Closing all the pop-up windows that you get at some sites is like playing whack-a-mole.
In Soviet Russia, hot grits put YOU down THEIR pants.
This could bring the entire Internet community to a halt!
Next thing you know, they'll discover people using IE for archie searches will allow users to hack your windows box too.
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The Internet is generally stupid
I found it humorous that in the "Special Offers" Box there was a ad/link that read: "Access Your PC from Anywhere - Free Download"
The problem is that with only 32-bit addressing it's impossible to programatically store all of the bugs in Microsoft's software.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Click here to download it.
my other penis is a vagina
And just why should we trust anything this guy says? Their official spokesman won't even stand by what he's saying. And what is he saying, anyway?
His identity is being protected through obscurity. If he open-sourced his name, his job/email account/etc would be open to attack.
So again, as far as Microsoft is concerned, it's the fault of the people who publicized it. It's prudent to assume these guys are not the only ones who know about the problem. Which means my information is already at risk.
Your information has been at risk ever since installing your operating system. You agreed to the EULA upon installing it, and that paper holds you responsible for data sharing, you agreed to not hold Microsoft responsible for data loss, intrusion, etc. Also what concerns me is that you claim that other people know about the problem. That is unlikely, as the EULA also forbids reverse-engineering the code to find exploits.
Additionally, you have the DMCA to protect you, which means that if anyone tries to circumvent the data safeguards on your system, they will be prosecuted.
I think you are being overly paranoid.
-fc
. echo -e \\04 >
You mean you haven't found it yet? It's right here!
karma capped