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Trustworthy Computing At One Year
ackthpt writes "One year ago Bill Gates issued forth an email directing the company to work toward Trustworthy Computing, making Microsoft operating systems, applications and services secure and reliable. Where is that effort at today? vnunet has this Q&A with Microsoft security chief Stuart Okin. Slow, steady progress seems to be the result. They've targeted Security, Privacy, Reliability and Business Integrity, but so far have had a go at Privacy. Okin indicates the strategy may take 5 to 15 years, but more immediate milestones are targeted within the next two years and focusing on reducing vulnerabilities in the next version of Windows, rather than attempting to fix 2000 or XP. I'd chalk this up as a frank and honest interview, rather than madly spun, and paints a picture of the massive cat herding effort undertaken."
Secure...reliable...I still don't trust all the misc info that is dumped to disk at install time. 400+ printer def's, and misc. etc... MS seems to be throwing hundreds of small .exe's into their system to make it easier for tasks to be done, but correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it harder to keep a system secure if you keep adding application after application to a base install? More apps, more code...more room for something to go wrong...
-- AcquaCow
up 12 days, 22:30, 2 users, load averages: 993.20, 994.21, 994.56
*makes note to limit user processes...
the path of least resistance
Since the interests of a business aren't necessarily aligned with those of buyers, and those of a monopoly even less so, MS computing will be about as trusworthy as the rest of the business world. Unless there's someone (regulator or consumer interest group) breathing down their neck, they are unlikely to be worthy of anyone's trust.
I guess that's trustworthyness through DMCA ? If you can't even secure a game box, why would I trust them with my servers !
Some people think it may be a hoax, but for what it's worth...
ISONews
Yahoo
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
a) Huh?!?
b) So it isn't the 72 security bulletins, and it isn't the fact that putting out that many overwhelms IT people, and it isn't the fact that the patching process can be so arduous and potentially destructive (can you say Slammer) that people will avoid it for months on end, and it isn't the fact that MS tends to be initially evasive/dismissive of a large number of exploits discovered. The problem is the going public.
c) I'm still not feeling the Trustworthiness.
His answers seemed frank and honest, a nice touch. Makes me wonder if he'll find himself out-of-work next week.
If, a decade from today, Microsoft is still trying to fix the problems they have now, then they're dead in the water. Someone leaner and meaner will come along and push them aside.
That's the way this business works. We're not the car industry.
I'll tell you what the 'effect' is! It's pissing me off!
The wierdest thing happened today. My father picked up an el-cheapo computer I built for a relative from me, and asked about linux. I was floored. My father is intelligent when it comes to many things, but is not computer savvy. You guys will probably flame me for this, but my father wants to try linux because he can't pirate XP easily. However, his company buys a ton of software based on his recommendations (based upon mine), so his decision usually ends up filling Microsoft's coffers a fair amount. I like the idea because I can ssh into his machine and fix something if it breaks, and I don't have to worry about all the damn viruses, key loggers, and spyware he seems to collect like a bee collects pollen just through regular email correspondance.
When I hear people bitching about the new direction Microsoft is going with anti privacy and anti piracy I rejoice, and wish them to go further. All it does is push more people into a free operating system such as BSD or GNU/linux.
Craig uses the analogy of the telephone: You can unplug a telephone and move it to another room and plug it in, and 99.9999 per cent of the time it will work. When we use it, we are pretty sure that we know who we are talking to, and we know we'll get a bill at the end of the month and we know what rate we'll be charged at, and we are protected by Oftel. That's the vision, and that's where we want to be.
Good lord, that's Microsoft's idea of trustworthy? At least 75% of the Verizon bills I audit at work are wrong, many to the tune of thousands of dollars. And don't get me started about the impossibility of figuring out whether the caller is a telemarketer before picking up the phone...
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Well, consider:
The first version of Windows came out somewhere in the mid to late 80's (can't remember exactly when). It took them from then to now, about 15 years, to finally make a halfway decent version.
So, 15 years for them to get the trustworthy part right? Sounds like a pretty good estimate to me.
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Developers, program managers, QA engineers, and marketing leads should be held accountable for security holes found in the products they ship. Even after the fact. E.g., those responsible for the recent Slammer vulnerabilities should get smaller bonuses and performance incentives this year. This should be part of their "Trustworthy Computing" initative. If development and business owners are not being held personally accountable within Microsoft, their products are not going to improve. Period.
Decent MSFT employees stay on average 5 years. This is more than enough time for the "dis"-incentive of a post-mortem on the security of their product to have an effect.
You listening, Bill? Steve?
PS: I'm ex-MSFT. I left because while I believed in the strength of the individual developers (the best as a whole I've ever worked with) the corporate management does not listen to the actual needs of the customers. They are very, very good at listening to what the customers will buy. Unfortunately, those are two different things right now.
The first three I understand, single words with a direct meaning. The forth business integrity ? Why is integrity qualified with business? Whose business and how? Its seems a little more difficult to pin down what they mean by that.
And I don't think Microsoft really understands the real reasons why. The interview hints at the mentality of MS that its detractors are somehow upset because the company is succesful.
I don't dislike MS because it's been so succesful, I dislike MS because A: Its preditory business practices and B: Its disdain for its users.
It would be like Al Capone saying the only reason why people don't like him is because he was so rich and powerful.
The Internet is generally stupid
From the linked article: But if you follow any of the vulnerabilities of our competitors, we are not as bad as them.
Um, which competitors are these? Where are the numbers (minus duplicate counting across distros and inconsistent inclusion/exclusion of apps)?
Would this be the FOSS community that acknowledges and patches holes in hours?
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
Reduce the number of products! They should have stayed focused on the OS and left the rest alone. MS wasn't a bunch of mean asshats before they had a vested interest in Office. When it was just DOS/Windows they were pretty cool with most people (safe Lotus, but they always seemed to have it in foir those guys).
If MS put everything they had into making Windows the best OS out there, and let other companies develope products to run under Windows, rather than taking over every market that runs under Windows, no one would have aproblem with them at all.
And the certainly wouldn't have all those damned Outlook virii that rampage across the Net!
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
On the other hand, I got infected with a worm because another XP computer on the same network got infected. I was at sp1, they were not. It's stupid that you can be compromised in that fashion, there should be no path that will allow it. It's not like I have any blank passwords, or passwords in common with the other system.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Quick! Close the source of any Linux project that may have security vulnerabilities.
I hate this kind of lame ass comparison. The TV has few problems because it does one thing and you don't tamper with it.
A TV that had to be changed every couple of months to handle a different signal from each station would not be "trustworthy".
A phone that had to do 15 things, such as playing games, doing calculations, and decoding text messages would not be as "trustworthy".
The computer must do all these things. But the most untrustworthy part of the computer lies in it's necessity to contact other computers. You have to allow your computer to "trust" some information coming in. Without accepting outside data as good, you could never allow your machine to decode anything. And it just so happens that not everything out there is good. I want my computer to stop crashing. I want decent drivers. But I don't want my computer to be a telephone. I don't want to give up all it's features just so it wont break.
I want to be able to run games from people that MS doesnt like. And I think that MS's version of Trustworthy basically means stopping your computer from running any code they don't approve first and not allowing reputable users from knowing of vulnerabilities.
I think his point was that his machine was fully patched to the newest version, but this didn't fully eliminate the vulnerability because another unpatched machine infected his.
I'm no security expert, but the fact that he got it anyway indicates that he wasn't patched, right? If he was patched, it shouldn't matter if he stuck it on a floppy and ran the executable, right? It still wouldn't work.
How many people now refuse to buy Firestone tires because of the tread-separation issue?
Mostly people that don't understand the issue. I worked in tires for a year as a mechanic, not a salesman, and I can tell you that the tires weren't that bad. I saw them put on a number of non-Ford vehicles with the guilty numbers on them and they're still on the road! The problem is that the Ford Explorer uses a funky suspension by comparison to other SUVs, and tends to wear tires differently. It was really just a matter of putting tires on a truck where the truck's suspension wore the tires in their weakest spot. Not necessarily the best thing to do, and certainly a bad combination, but not really the worst thing to do either. Granted, Ford and Firestone both could have dealt with the situation much better than they did, but the tires shouldn't reflect on all of Firestone's tires, since they were really only a problem on Ford Explorers.
Note, I wouldn't use Firestone tires myself either, but that's because I don't trust Firestone mechanics. I was in the business a long time, long enough to know which chains to avoid.
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Having had some experience along that line myself, I'd also say that part of the problem was mishandling of the vehicles. My experience was in grain truck/tractor repair, but we replaced a lot of tires that were way overworn from obvious bad handling (example: cutting tight turns at highway speeds with a full 20t+ load can produce massive outer tire wear including sidewall seperation).
I don't know how that applies to SUVs/Firestone, but I would be willing to bet some of it does, given how I've seen people driving those things on the roads. They think they're driving friccin' Ferraris.
I do know that no Firestone tire I've ever had on any heavy vehicle I've ever driven has caused problems. OTOH, Ford has *always* had funky suspensions (remember the IBeam suspensions? what a PITA!)
Would welcome comments.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
"Trustworthy computing" is analagous to buying a car where you don't get the keys!
Um, actually, the key is supposed to prove that you own the car, or are at least authorized to drive it. You're supposed to guard your keys, keep them close to you at all times. Now, it's not the security issue it sounds like.
For example: When I go to bed, I lock all the doors in my house. My keys hang in a jacket pocket on the front door (it's a temporary situation, they should be in my bedroom, where I normally keep them). To get them under normal circumstances, someone would have to first break into the house. Well I already check the locks on the windows and doors in the house, and they're locked. I don't worry about too elaborate security measures. I keep the outside well-lit at night (whenever possible, I was fighting with the upstairs neighbor over this issue, actually, but now she's moved out). So, at night, to get the keys to my truck, you have to first go through the well-lit area, then break something (a window or something), then unlock the door or window associated with the breaking, then come inside the house. There's 4 people sleeping, theoretically, but there can be anyone awake at any time of the night. My kids know to wake me and my wife if anybody comes in the house, so if they see the intruder they might wake me. Anyway, then they have to find the keys, checking various pockets. Normally, they'd have to actually enter my bedroom to do this.
Of course, as soon as they break in, they have as much chance of finding the keys as they do of browsing the web on my computer. :) (password-protected, not strongly, but your average burglar wouldn't be able to guess it)
Why is all this important? It's important because one of Microsoft's plaguing problems which the Free Software community wants to adopt is the fact the PEOPLE DON'T THINK ABOUT SECURITY.
I fought my upstairs neighbor over the lighting issue because she was worried about our electric bill while I was worried about our house being the easiest pickings on the block. She worried about money, I worried about, um, guess what, SECURITY.
Your average bear doesn't go wondering around thinking about whether or not his keys are vulnerable. He takes it for granted. Your average person leaves doors unlocked, trunks unlatched, and so forth. I see people late at night leave their cars running while they run into a gas station! They left it running so it wouldn't get cold. Of course, a gas station, late at night is the WORST place to leave your car running! Even if you lock the doors and carry a second key! You've just made it take 2 seconds to steal your car, and no matter how closely you watch it, you won't get out there to stop the guy quick enough, and he's gone with your car. Call that security?
Yes, MS software seems to have an inordinate amount of bugs. Argue with me, I don't give a shit.
Yes, MS software tends to install with poorly chosen defaults from a security standpoint.
Yes, MS software is frequently run by people who don't ever think about security in any other aspect of their lives, why the hell should they think about it now?
For many people, "computing" is some vague amoebic thing and they expect "experts" to make it secure. They just don't think that they need to lock their doors and turn on a few lights! Hell, they don't even do it in their own homes when it's their very lives that are potentially at risk! The only way Microsoft is ever going to get out of their mess, and this is something we need to look at as a growth-minded community ourselves, is to EDUCATE END-USERS. It's a friggin' MYTH that people don't need to know anything about their computers. Do they understand "lock your doors"? Do they understand "keep your key safe"? Security is a pervasive concept. You either think about it, or you don't.
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