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Microsoft: We Make Hackers Obsolete
bahamat writes "This article explains how Microsoft was forced to yank a magazine ad by the Advertising Standards Authority. In the ad MS claims that they'll make the hacker extinct. The tagline reads "Microsoft software is carefully designed to keep your company's valuable information in, and unauthorised people and viruses out. Which means that your data couldn't really be safer, even if you kept it in a safe. Which is great news for the survival of your company. But tragic news for hackers." Does MS really think that people are too stupid to remember what happened less than 2 months ago? My favorite quote from the article is "Clarke described Microsoft's claim as "laughable". "
It might be the end of advertising as we know it.
Yeah, but Microsoft gets dinged for lying more often than other companies. Like that FTC thing about wireless capabilities a while ago?
Considering that an advertising standards board thinks this is bad, MS is looking really silly right now.
I've been suprised out how recently Oracle "Unbreakable" ads have been running (here in the US). I'm not in the UK at the moment, but given that Oracle products got thumped anew pretty quickly after Oracle decided to brag about being "unbreakable" I'm surprised nobody has asked the ASA to jump on it.
After all, it's not exactly an infrequent problem.
Of course they make hackers obsolete. I just got done spending a week making dotnet asp/vb code talk to a unix based web services. Did I want to learn about the wonders of a new webform? A few years back I could respect myself (somewhat) in the morning after some serious ATL development. I wonder if there is a 'hacker' audience anymore.
Now what they did not say is 'we make Crackers obsolete'. Their marketing department gets one right and everyone gripes...
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
So it looks like Microsoft doesn't realize how lucky it has been in recent times.
SQL Slammer - affected users had better be thankful the packets only caused congestion - a packet 5 times the size but had a damaging (as opposed to disruptive) payload would hurt a lot more.
The WebDAV hole - a hell of a good job keeping hackers out of the US Army website.
The JScript hole - so just by reading my (HTML and JScript enabled) mail, an attacker could potentially run arbitrary code on my computer?
SirCam and Klez - information really does want to be free, it keeps escaping from Microsoft products!
In Soviet Russia, Microsoft owns Hackers!
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
the original mac mouse had one button because it was decided that two would be confusing for users accustomed to keyboards - a mouse being such an innovation at that time.
sticking with it since then has just been sheer cussedness.
+1 fashionably cynical
... and I'm sitting at work this afternoon, after corporate sent out the latest microsoft "critical update" notice and recommends that we patch all our servers...
so we are looking at an "update server" to keep everything up to date, and the guy I work with notices that there are over *900* updates for Win2K. Now, ok, not all of these are critical security holes, I'm sure... but... even saying that Win2K has been out since March of 2000, 3 years, thats almost a a patch a *DAY*!!
yeah, MS... they make stable secure software. Any day now those hackers are going to be gone... of course, it might be well after the next SQL Server hole is found, and your entire company's database is wiped out...
this is some marketing shmuck in M$ pulling what they do best , a publicity stunt. looks to me that we are the ones who need a reality check.
as another poster pointed out , oracle has the
unbreakable ads. heck every company advertises
their product as "the best", "the biggest innovation", "the change it all" - its called
marketing. agreed that in this case the disconnect between what they say and what is the truth is a little appalling.....
i guess the ASA was worried about PHB's and joe's being misled. well they are a decade or two, too late! The money is in the kitty and the people have already been misled
vv
Any logical person would conclude that what follows will be a conclusion presented by the advertiser, based on the afore-mentioned fact.
I have no doubt that some will argue that Microsoft software designers do not take security into consideration when designing software, or that Microsoft intentionally introduces security holes, so as to promote the purchase of upgrades to it's products (although msot security patches are distributed freely, think SUN and their policy of many years ago, requiring that companies wanting a bug fixes in Solaris were required to pay for the patch to be created).
The other issue is code change. The products to which the advertisement refers MUST be based on new code, because we know that in the past Microsoft did not design software with security in mind, because Craig Mindie said so:For this reason, IF the products are all based on new code, and IF you think that Microsoft would act in it's own best interest to sell more software and IF you believe that designing security in mind is likely to sell more product, then the ad is not misleading at all.
The key here is to see that Microsoft is NOT CLAIMING that their software IS SECURE they are claiming that they try to design it so that it is secure, and then draw the conclusion (however ridiculous it may be) that it is in fact more secure than a vault, but this is a conclusion, not a statement of fact.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
bahamat wrote: Does MS really think that people are too stupid to remember what happened less than 2 months ago?
You don't need to look that far back. Try this week. It seems as though Microsoft has an ongoing program to nurture and feed the *acker types of the world.
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
Plus, it's also worth considering that eventually, the new PC user market will dry up. Within the next few generations, there won't be a large market of first time PC users to fool with flashy graphics and a fat guy dressed up like a butterfly. Kids are learning computers, and that's bad for Microsoft. Now's the time to sell your Microsoft stock, because as a company, they're doomed on _every_ front.
From the article: Microsoft submitted documentation to substantiate its claims about the security of the software and said the advert was not designed to mislead the consumer.
Their substantiation is pretty fucking worthless IMHO, as long as the software includes a EULA that absolves Microsoft of any responsiblity should the software NOT be as secure as they claim.
~Philly
I wonder how many crackers and script kiddies cut their teeth on Microsoft vulnerabilities. I'd wager that the vast majority of the black hats out there owe their "careers" to Microsoft software.
The cure for cancer is coming: Reovirus
Of course they wouldn't. Such a group would not be insightful in the US. It wouldn't even be appropriate. Wouldn't make sense.
In the United States, corporations have the right to lie to you. God bless 'em! Yee ha!
The fool who ruled that corporations are the same thing as persons should be dug up and shot a few times. Someone please explain to me how this is supposed to benefit individuals?
Don't they give MS authorization to go into your computer on a whim?
I dunno about you, but I don't give out the combination of my safe to anyone, including microsoft.
It's not as if the Dodo went extinct because it fell into obsolescence. It went extinct because the Dutch sailors and settlers arrived in Mauritius bringing rats and cats, then cut down half the forest and clubbed the few surviving dodos for sport. Not unlike MS' historical conduct in the software industry, come to think of it.
Yes, they can. Unfortunately (or otherwise for myself) I believe that I happen to know of something like 8 or 9 exploits giving you 100% access to any Windows box (not behind NAT or firewall'd). Windows based firewall software running on the same box, is, well, useless. ZoneAlarm? You'll never hear a thing...
I started the migration for the company from Windows starting in 01/01/01 for at the time were 30+ reasons -- many of which are being found and patched.
What scares me is I'm a schmuck and don't like/use Windows and I keep finding them. How many are there for real? Sorry Microsoft, but I have a business to run, and the job you've been doing creating the software to run my computers has stunk. UNIX to the left, UNIX to the right...
Each key on a keyboard is unique, with a different symbol, and thus a different use.
On a single button mouse, a single click is unique, and a double click is unique, as is a click and drag or a click and hold.
With two buttons, then there's a question: Which button to use in any situation? With three buttons, you've also got to worry about two button combos (keyboards have combos!)
So in a sense, it's just less training. The Mac OS is designed to be sufficient with a single mouse button, and every additional button and scrollwheel is acceleration.
The Windows OS is *not* designed to be sufficient with a single mouse button. Rather, it's extremely inconvenient to use only a single mouse button.
On the *flip* side, the Mac has not traditionally been designed to be run mouseless (OS X may be more so, but I haven't tested that capability), while Windows has been designed from the ground up to be navigable without a mouse. Not terribly pretty, but it works.
So the bitching about a single mouse button is wasted energy; if you're using a Mac, you don't need more, though you are certainly welcome to use more if you want it, while on Windows (and Linux) it's just different, not worse, not better.
GPL Deconstructed
Funny you should mention that--Microsoft teamed up with Signetics to create a WOFS for their write-only memory chip.
Remember NT Server 4.0 achieving DoD C2 Certification?
Remember how MS touted this certification to the world, saying that if it was good enough for the U.S. Dept. of Defense, then it is good enough to be run anywhere on the Internet?
Remember how we found out that the C2 certification applies to a computer ***with no LAN/Internet connection?***
That C2 line smeared thick BS over the eyes of many an IS manager. I can think of several offhand that converted entirely because of that certification.
Life is tough. It's tougher if you're stupid. --John Wayne
anyone know the ISA Server's track record? I hear it's very secure and it's firewall engine inspects packet data and not just source and destination address. Didn't they win a secure computing competition recently using the ISA server?
Your thoughts are appreciated
I just read this to my husband, a Microsoft Lead SDE from Windows NT/2000, with many years of experience shipping that product line. His comment was:
"AAAAGGGGHHHHH! I want to throttle those ad people! What the **** are they thinking. What the **** are we paying them for? We know that our security *SUCKS*. We are working *hard* to improve it. We're the most hacked system and we are trying. AAAAARGH."
My comment:
If only more technically trained people were put in a tight-loop with marketing and advertising..... grrr.
But this gets back to a greater problem... many product advertisements are from outer space when we look at them with a rational mind and, when appropriate, proper scientific background. But truth doesn't necessarily sell products.
I spent all of those years as Anonymous Coward and all I got was this lousy number (204976).
That's funny because my wife used to work for a company called DigitalStock that was purchased by Corbis (BG's personal art collection) and was (along with 95% of the personnel) fired. Corbis now sells digital stock images.
Actually, an non-maskable-interrupt is a very specific thing: it's an interrupt on the CPU's NMI pin. CTRL-ALT-DELETE is just a regular old keycode, and is delivered via the maskable interrupt pin. It's just that the key-sequence is trapped in the lower levels of the system and never propogated to userspace. Microsoft could have caught another key sequence instead and had things work just the same way, but there would be the off chance that this other key sequence would've been already in use for something else.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
see, now I've used three button mice with AIX, two and three button mice with windows, and one button mice with mac.
I can't see any advantage to having all three buttons on the mouse except to cause repetetive stress injuries faster.
with the ctl and alt buttons on the mac, (laptop I might add,) I have been able to avoid repetetive stress injuries that plagued me as a windows and UNIX user in the past. my wrists thank me for using a mac.
what's your problem? wrist pains got you down???
some of us have better luck with women and cars, but hey, I work for a circus.
cheers!
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
The result of this evaluation is that both products are not safe to use on the Internet and as a public terminal:
(Read it yourself.)
So Windows is indeed certified to be hacker-proof, unless you connect it to the Internet, or the hacker is unwilling to cooperate.
Although the concept of wanting to make hacking impossible in time is a commendable one,despite the near comedic boast of Microsoft. I wish them luck in this,and it's luck they will need,because the enemy they face is not merely "hackers",but...
Human Nature.
For every person trying to achieving the mythic "Good Thing",to bring to the world something useful and wonderful,pouring their time energy and sweat in pursuit of some happy dream of an idea,for every person trying to contribute to the betterment of their fellow human...
There are a thousand assholes who will break,hurt,interfere with,muddle,malign,and oppose anyone not because it will benefit themselves,not because of misconceived righteous indignation,not with tangable reason.
But because it's F-U-N. Grief play. Entertaining to make the worms wriggle when you are only a worm yourself.Sad,true.But it might be possible to drag these muck dwellers to the shores of enlightment by making such acts of hacking punishable like real crimes.Theft is theft,sabotage sabotage.Throw enough of them in jail and maybe the rest might take the hint.
Or maybe not.It's Human Nature after all.
As a representative for The Evil Media (TM), the largest tabloid in Norway, I must say that the largest resistance to the use of the word "Cracker" is currently in the public. I strive to make a difference in the articles I write, but every time I write the word "cracker" I end ut in a time-consuming discussion with some pedant who tracks the history of the word "hacker" all the way into the 15th century. Usually I say "whatever floats your boat" and refer to the Jargon File. But american media has really fucked up the usage of the Hacker-word.
I suppose that claiming Microsoft is going to "make the hacker extinct" (future-tense, no definititve time span) isn't quite fraud, but it does walk the line, since the existance of Microsoft goads hackers, and claims that Microsoft is going to eliminate said hackers--it only further inflames an already passionately anti-MS crowd. Nothing that is that hated by a group as intelligent as hackers, or a group with as much free time as script kiddies, will ever be safe.
Microsoft needs to watch their advertising people more carefully, as they're excellent at making the 'folks in the know' hate MS even more than they did already.
However, the majority of humankind remains clueless. "Whaddayatalkin'about? Microsoft is THE ONLY OS!, it's secure as Fort Knox, and the only enterprise-ready solution!" Gah. They'll just look at an advertisement that says Microsoft is gonna make Hackers obsolete, and read it as though hackers *are* obsolete, spread the word, and keep on not bothering to patch their un-patched first-release of Win2k Server that comes complete with Nimda, Code Red, and other buggy little 'features'.
-Sara
Such good timing I would say ....
http://196.30.226.221/sections/software/2003/03032 00801.asp?A=%&O=F
Unless the faked login screen read kdmrc. That would be pretty damn easy since to source code for parsing that partiular file is readily avaliable.
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
The laughter is overwhelming - so far there's 57 +4/5 Funny comments.
"Smithers, are they laughing at me?"
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Dear Anonymous Coward,
No one is stopping you. Keep calling them hackers.
On the other hand you could show some respect to those who have contributed a lot to the open-source world, and use the proper word.
Thank you.
GrimReality
2003-03-22 14:41:45 UTC (2003-03-22 09:41:45 EST)
There's a reason for every marketing move Microsoft makes. Deciphering the corporation's intent may not be easy or precise but is necessary.
The depiction is one of the majority of users of Microsoft products, a person who is put off by
Microsoft abandoned two generations of their developer community with .NET. Most of them were white males in the U.S. This new start puts everyone in the global workforce at the start of a new race to learn Microsoft .NET technology. Microsoft has decided that the existing Microsoft developer base is disposable. Part of this marketing scheme is to tar members of that community with a broad brush, depicting them as potential "hackers".
While it is likely that a Microsoft "hacker" (someone who breaks into Microsoft-designed systems) is a member of the set of white middle-aged older Microsoft users, that only follows because a priori most Microsoft developers are in that group (e.g., there are an estimated 3 million Visual Basic developers - if only 0.1% were "hackers", that would be 1,000 hackers!).
That's funny because the definition for "hacker" states: "...A slang term for a computer enthusiast, i.e., a person who enjoys learning programming languages and computer systems and can often be considered an expert on the subject(s)..." So in theory wouldn't MS be making their own obsolete?