Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft on Security: We'll Break Your Apps
jointm1k writes "Wired.com is running a story about how Microsoft is trying to act responsible and all by fixing (or trying to fix?) many (if not all) security holes in Windows. Not only new versions of Windows will be patched or improved, but as I understood they also plan to force security updates for older versions of Windows down peoples throats. Even if that means that some applications will mallfunction.
Nice to see Microsoft taking reponsibility for their mistakes, but they really should have done so when they designed Windows."
Is that the new niche for software designed for teenage girls?
Assuming Microsoft does actually want to clean up their act, which I'm highly skeptical about, it seems that they'd be criticized for forcing updates just as much as they would for not trying to make adoption of the updates widespread.
Yeah, your right. Microsoft should have written every line perfectly like every line of code you ever have written.
I read the same story at The Register
/. attacking them
The editiorial is innacurate and opinionated.
They are actually giving up on trying to secure older products.
And they are stating that for new security fixes on current products they are now putting security as a higher priority than not breaking the apps.
So rather than provide the security turned off, in the hope that some MCSE will turn it one once the app has been patched, the security is on even if the app breaks.
Now, regardless of the anti M$ feelings, this has got to be a good approach.
Yes you can read it as "Hear comes DRM, suck it down" or you can read it as "Secure by default really does matter, becasue we know 95% of users never change from the default settings" - the latter approach is taken by Suse in 8.1 and I don't see
but they really should have done so when they designed Windows.
I think you have to remember that Microsoft used to put functionality before security. There is a tradeoff between functionality and security. For example, do you allow mailing functionality within the VBS language and the macro language? There is a reason why there are over 20 worms that can spread using MSN messenger, and none that can spread using Yahoo messenger.
However, times change, and people change. Now people put security before functionality. Microsoft is just going with the times...
My take on this "impractical". A new version of OS comes out in every couple of years, and in near future I can expect it to be every year. Now that means shelling out money on new, improved version of apps and systems. Let me tell you there are people still using win95 and very happy with it coz it still works. Tell them to upgrade every year and shell out $500 a year on system. They'll just smile at you and say -"boy are you out of your mind, no way"
Amen, brother!
Nice to see Microsoft taking reponsibility for their mistakes, but they really should have done so when they designed Windows."
I mean, come on. When they do something right, you just GOTTA change it around to make it a negative. And you wonder why MS is after Linux, right? Who's being childish now?
I'd really like to know how many lines of code the submitter even wrote if he is naive enough to think that MS architects would design the perfect OS from the start.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
There is another side-effect: Just think of an update that does not only fix two recent security flaws, but also implements incompatible changes to the CIFS/SMB protocol. All users of MS Software are forced to upgrade, so there won't be any interoperability issues. But all those Samba File/Print/PDC installations across the world are suddenly broken.
And Samba is just a randomly picked example.
One of the main arguments buisnesses have been using against looking for Linux solutions is that legacy applications (of the windowsNT/95 variety) must be runnable. Now with Microsoft saying that they may not support all legacy code this is removing one of the last barriers stopping some companies from looking at Linux.
If a company is looking at redoing an application for the windows base it may just be easier for them to make it work with WINE than with the new windows code base.
I am sure Microsoft is aware of this. There must be some really big holes they are going to close with action or they would not consider dropping the support for legacy applications.
Microsoft is doing the right thing.
n dept." -- GIVE ME A BREAK. If that were the goal, Microsoft would quickly be driving itself out of business. "... but they really should have done so when they designed Windows" -- again, who are you trying to fool here?? The same argument could be said for every operating system in mass production use today.
Every vendor Microsoft, Apple, Sun, Red Hat, Debian can create an incident where a patch breaks a vendors application.
I've personally seen it happen with 4 out of the 5 vendors already. Deal with it. AFAIK there is still no forced patching. Your OS doesn't just up and DIE if you decide not to patch your OS because you are aware that patching will create problems for you.
On another note - Certainly Slashdot leans a little left politically and leans a lot toward "open solution" computing but everything about this story just reaks. "windows-ain't-done-while-competing-apps-still-ru
Give it a rest. Your just starting to look foolish now.
http://windows.scares.us
Hopefully we can look forward to more posts containing phrases like "I reckon" and "Y'all" to appear on Slashdot soon. Not to mention that there isn't even anything new in this post at all that has been discussed ad nauseum on Slashdot already.
First of all, one of the big selling points of Wintel is that you have a wide choice of software. In the future, however, Mundie says that you can expect your old apps to be broken.
"We have decided that we will begrudgingly forsake certain app compatibility things when, in fact, they don't allow us to have a default configuration that opts for more security. In the past, the biggest thing that happened to us was IT managers would come to the company and say, hey, all those new features, they're great, all that new security stuff, that's great, but whatever you do don't break my app. So just turn it all off and trust me, we'll fix the apps and then we'll turn it all on. And the reality is that never happened.
And so we're going to tell people that even if it means we're going to break some of your apps we're going to make these things more secure and you're just going to have to go back and pay the price."
Notice that they're breaking your old apps not so they can sell you new ones, but purely in the interest of your security, and furthermore it's your fault they have to do this.
The other point Mundie makes is that, even after they sell you the new OS and the new apps, any security needed will be your responsibility, at your expense.
"And the other thing is that the customers, whether they're individuals or corporations, are going to have to make a decision about when and how much they spend to get these machines to be more secure. And to some extent you can do it by insulating them, to some extent you can do it by putting things around them or in front of them that protect them, you know, firewalls in some sense. And then in some cases, you can just replace them when you get new machines or new software or both that have intrinsically better capabilities."
Thanks, Microsoft, I'm glad you're looking out for my interests.
Making trouble today for a better tomorrow...
I'm torn on this issue. After years of trade rags ignoring well-designed alternatives in the marketplace and failing to do anything besides sucking Microsoft cock, I still find it refreshing when slashdot, a mere weblog, pulls out a headline with sardonic spin. I also find it amusing that people feel the need to rush to the defense of Microsoft. Seems as silly as protecting god with a sword.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
He *never* says "screw the userland apps". Modules yes.. system utils yes.. general apps NO.
In fact, you can still run your old a.out apps from 5 years ago provided you have the right libraries installed.
This is the same mentality where I work. We have users still using Lotus 2.4, WordPerfect 5.1, and other crazy applications because the IS people refuse to **MAKE** the users do their own work. The users want the IS departments to migrate and test all the spreadsheets and documents for them because we have Office '97 or Office 2000 installed on the machines. Now 10 years ago when Lotus 2.4 and WordPerfect were introduced we didn't go around making macros and cell calculations for them did we? But we try to introduce new products to keep up with the times and they act stupid on us and say we are killing business because we **WON'T** migrate their stupid macros.
We can't even get the users to try and open the spreadsheets in Excel or Word. They just refuse to do it. My recommendation in the last meeting was to just turn off Lotus 2.4 and WordPerfect (apps run on server) and tell the user either to use Microsoft Excel and Word or find a new job.
My point being, Microsoft is doing exactly what should be done. You want everything to be stable and secure, well you better be ready to upgrade or patch whatever doesn't work after we do our fixes.
"Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps." ~ Emo Phillips
Actually I HAVE read Linus's post on LKML and that is far from true. In most cases he is willing to break the internals of the kernel but he loaths to break something in userland (but will do it if there is a really really good reason). That is why most programs written for 2.0 still work for 2.4.
I miss the Karma Whores.
Actually MS just dumped the next server version after .NET, so it looks like they are headed towards longer release cycles. Since Liscense 6 gives you support for the last 5 years of os's it would not behoov MS to come out with a new OS every year, that would mean supporting 5 OS's for corp customers and testing all their apps against 5 OS's, not cheap. Instead it looks like MS is going the opposite way, look at the next version of Office, it won't run on any OS's other than win2k with SP3+, or winXP. MS is trying to dump the old kruft to reduce problems and hence support costs both external and internal.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
"I might be threatening to write code."
I think I'll stop here.
And he's right, the only way to avoid massive layers of backwards-compatible cruft is to just slough off the existing infrastructure and create the OS anew for every release.
True. However, if the userland apps are written properly using a sufficiently high-level language, even C, and using standards-based and/or portable APIs, then kernel changes should break only the invervening abstraction layers. Download the updated API or whatever (not much effort), and the huge amount of effort that went in to the userland app is preserved.
This is why I feel so sorry for people who write applications using Windows-only or UNIX-only or whatever-only APIs, when there are portable ways of doing things. Taking standards documents and black-lining the parts that aren't implemented on all the target platforms (thus achieving the lowest-common-denominator) goes a long way towards producing an application that will tolerate volatility at the operating system level. And, really, it isn't much effort for an important piece of software (and a week or two sifting through documentation will only improve the end product, trust me).
And guess what: even the lowest-common-denominator is usually very useful and sufficient to meet the requirements for the software. People who whine otherwise are usually the eye-candy babies who demand using all the nifty Internet Explorer extensions to make dancing mouse trailers and other garbage (for example).
The only excusable applications are those written before truly portable APIs came around. For example, old UNIX apps written with Motif should be forgiven, because Qt, Java Swing, and other fairly recent APIs weren't available. But new applications? No excuse at all.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Microsoft lives on the income from OS/Office upgrades at least as much as from new installs.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I think you can turn DRM off in Media player. I also think the whole purpose behind it is so if you wish, you can keep people from stealing your music.
There is a difference between writing a security patch that happens to break an application, and a security patch that is designed to break an application.
A security patch on any OS could potentially cause problems with software that runs on it. However, it wouldn't put it past me for Microsoft to purposefully make sure that competing products are broken.
At best case, MS isn't going to purposefully break anything. This is a legitimate attempt to fix security.
At worst case, this might Microsoft's first step in "testing" the strength of the court to see if they'll notice/tolerate them purposefully breaking applications and then claiming they can't release the fixes to the application maker because it is part of Windows "security."
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
I'm all for security updates as long as they don't force Digital Restrictions Management or their usual abusive EULAs upon those who install the updates. I want my windows box to be secure, but not at the cost of limiting what I can use it for and what control M$ would gain over my system.
The trade rags may be sycophantic pole-smokers, but I'd like to think the Slashdot population is more fair than that. We have been kicking Microsoft square in the nuts about their lack of security for years now, so does it make sense to flipflop and start kicking them for taking security seriously?
Now if the article was more like "Microsoft breaks apps to implement security, offers expensive upgrades" then we could continue kicking M$'s family jewels guilt-free.
When I first started visiting Slashdot, the articles were much more geek-friendly and much less anti-Microsoft. In the 3-4ish years I've been reading Slashdot, it's definitely seemed that it's devolved into a MS bashing forum.
One or two Microsoft stories are published everyday, no matter how insignificant the news is. Even if the news is a good thing, typically the submitter of the story puts a negative spin on it (like today's submission). Of course everyone jumps in and bashes away, not only at Microsoft, but at anyone who tries to speak positively about Microsoft. It doesn't do well to encourage intelligent discussion--anyone who is happy using Microsoft products and speaks up about it around here quickly becomes bitter and defensive. Or they leave.
Slashdot nowadays is quite similar to the media in the middle east. My grandfather lived in Dubai for 8 or 9 years, and he was amazed that the newspapers had an article about "The Jews" on the front page, every day. The Dubai media never referred to Israel. "The Jews" were always killing Muslim children, subverting the government, doing-random-very-crappy-thing, etc. The media was breeding hate among the people.
The big difference between Slashdot and Dubai is that the Dubai government was intentionally making people hate to distract them from shady things it was doing, and Slashdot's de-evolution is (probably) not intended. It definitely seems that the editors have got some bug up their ass about Microsoft, but I think they're just publishing what kicks up the most response rather than trying to fan the flames.
I think it's because Slashdot has become the epicenter of a pro-linux geek subculture. In this subculture, it's cool to hate Microsoft. Folks want to fit in somewhere, so they come to Slashdot and bash Microsoft.
Linus said in this interview:
"I've tried to stay out of the Microsoft debate. If you start doing things because you hate others and want to screw them over the end result is bad."
I don't think he hates Microsoft. He likes Linux.