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Visual Studio .Net: Now with more Viruses
News.com breaks the story (and 8000 readers submit) that Microsoft distributed Nimda-infected copies of Visual Studio .Net in Korea. I don't even know what to say here; nothing seems adequate, except to point out that "trustworthy computing" does not seem to have had any effect whatsoever. News.com just updated their story to point out that it probably won't infect the people who installed Visual Studio .Net, but it's still a rather nasty faux pas for a company that's supposed to be cleaning up its act.
Did McAfee or Norton give this press release?
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
"breakable"
:-)
or maybe that doesn't quite say it. Hmmm, what am I trying to get at.
"trivially breakable"
It only infects one file that's never referenced by the system, and there are all sorts of unlikelihoods that prevent this from being executed. Still, bad press is bad press.
The guy who wrote that virus should sue Microsoft for distributing it without his permission. We're talking about theft of intellectual property here!
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Hell, nimda is a better feature than that stupid paperclip thing!
None of your shoddy open-source crap here, no sir!
Carousel is a lie!
I'ts not a virus/spyware.. it's a feature that enhances your web experience.
"You probably won't get any viruses from installing our software!"
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
"breakable"
or maybe that doesn't quite say it. Hmmm, what am I trying to get at.
"trivially breakable"
In this case, "broken" is what your looking for.
The "third party" that translated the software into Korean had something to do with the problem.
Morons.
Slashdot is rapidly becoming useless with the constant derision it heaps on Microsoft. Let's have more computer news and stuff about FreeBSD and Linux and less "make fun of" news about Microsoft. As if Linux doesn't have it's problems. You might end up like Larry Ellison and his ridiculous "Unbreakable" claims.
Of course, that's a problem with the Linux crowd. Feer of being, and being seen as, professional.
According to the Article, it appears that "Microsoft's flagship developer tools picked up the digital pest when a third-party company translated the program into Korean...".
Ultimately it was MS's responsibility to verify they did not shit in their own bed, but how many of us look at every line of code in a distibuted or outsourced project.
Just my $.0199999
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
Leave out the middleman when it comes to distibuting viruses! Give it straight to your customers!
The revolution will be televised. Blackout restrictions apply.
A spokes person from Microsoft was quoted as saying "This is the best chance we have at cleaning up our image."
OK, someone messed up.. but it isn't as bad as it sounds. First off, it wasn't MS that put the virus in, it was some third party thing they used to convert the language to Korean. However, MS should have at least run virus scan on it before they shipped it. Second, the person running VS.NET would actually have to install IE 5.5 over IE 6 (why would anyone do that) and browse a certain help file in order for it to get infected.
I'm not trying to defend MS. Just pointing out the facts (or at least how they were stated in the article). On one hand it's kind of funny to read through all the quick one-liner jokes about MS (definitely worth a chuckle) but I think MS isn't quite as bad as they're being made out to be.
By the way, anyone know the company that wrote the nimda infected software?
Have you ever been to Korea, you moron? Those people are absolute technophiles. They love all of the newest little electronic gadgets. They're not always the highest quality little gadgets, but everybody has them. Koreans are not aborigonees living in a wasteland. They live in big, crowded cities like most of us, except they're usually bigger (the Seoul/Inchon area alone has something obscene like 14 million people) and they have lots more concrete (if you had ever been to Korea, you would know what I am talking about). You need to leave your momma's basement a little more often.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Viral Studio .NET??
This is just another example of Microsoft trying to bundle everything with windows. Now that they are bundling Nimda, Melissa is going to go right out of business.
Truly, life indeed imitates art(satire). Microsoft Bundles Worm with IIS .
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
How would you know they'd fixed IE if they didn't distribute a virus that no longer worked?
By the way, this is just another example of a premature attack by OS zealots. Just as the case of the cross-platform virus discussed previously, the Nimda file is installed as part of the help system, but is never loaded by the help system. As the tounge-in-cheek editorial posted by the illustrious Slashdot editors put it, "Only a complete moron would get infected by this virus." So unless someone in Korea is stupid enough to uninstall IE 6.0 (required for .Net to run), install IE 5.5, and then load the Nimda file, it is unlikely that they will get infected. For every MS goof, there is an equal goof in the OS community. (But we all know people that point that out get modded down....)
Now, instead of meaning it ships with no viruses, it means they include them at no extra charge!
You are missing the point. The problem isn't really that Microsoft is shipping a virus (although you have to admit that this is pretty darn funny). The problem is that Microsoft is shipping files that they don't know about. This file could have been anything.
Microsoft has set up their business so that their customers have to trust them. There is no way for Microsoft's customers to verify that Microsoft software is safe. Yet time and time again Microsoft has shown that they simply are not particularly trustworthy. It has gotten so bad that it isn't just /. that is laughing at Microsoft. This particular story was published by CNET (which is a very Microsoft-friendly news source).
They're worried about the viral nature of the GPL?
Move on. There's nothing to see here.
Like this? =)
See here for details.
Nope, no sig
When I read this article, the banner ad was for Microsoft Visual Studio .NET.
/.
It's that kind of policy that keeps me reading
So, Microsoft only scans the files they expect to be part of the install but they ship all the files anyway. While there is no way from the outside to prove or disprove this statement, I think it's odd they aren't consistent in which files they choose to scan and which they choose to ship. A decent process would use a consistent way to manage it.
At a minimum, I find this an example of the sloppy techniques I see all over the industry. Of course, sloppiness is one of the reasons that all these viruses keep finding new ways to infect software so I think it's a pretty big slap in the face for MS's Trustworthy Computing program.
It isn't a problem in the sense that it's going to cause damage, or infect anyone, but it is *damn* funny.
And it is a PR nightmare for MS because a lot of people aren't technical enough to understand what's necessary to become infected. All they hear is "shipped with Nimda" and it's bad news.
I don't have a solution, but I certainly admire the problem.
Most of the time that MS uses a third-party company, that company screws up. My question is, who exactly is in charge of seeking out and contracting with those companies? Fire him big time.
There is no way it can be stated that it's no big deal when this kind of thing happens. Period. The bottom line here is quality. If this kind of thing gets through, what else can get through? What kind of quality controls are really in place?
Whatever controls ARE in place, apparently they aren't effective or aren't being followed...
Computer Science is Applied Philosophy
...M$ includes a really efficient piece of code with their compilers.