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Microsoft Sued for Defective Software
Door-opening Fascist writes "eWeek is reporting that a South Korean citizen action group, People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, is suing Microsoft for putting the SQL Slammer vulnerability into Windows. They are doing so on behalf of the South Korean people and businesses affected by SQL Slammer."
First, this is not good if he wins, because someone could sue a GPL author for the same kind of deal.
Second, it seems that it would be like suing Stephen King for causing nightmares.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
I hope the Judge kicks these people through the goalposts of life.
Although the zealots will be amused by this story, this could set a dangerous precedent for other similar vulnerabilities (especially unintentional ones). What happens, for example, when some group of people (in this case, a country) decides to sue the openSSL group for a flaw in their encryption that allowed credit card numbers to be stolen?
I'm glad to see that someone is trying to hold MS liable for their mistakes, but this is the wrong way to go about it.
If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten. -George Carlin
Clearly they haven't read their software agreements. It specifically states that MS is not responsible for damage caused as a result of their products. A better chance to procecute MS would have been during the Code Red incident. One might have argued that not being proactive enough about patching consitituted "negligence" on their part. I guess it can't hurt to try!
I somehow doubt that Microsoft intentionally put this hole into SQL server, so that should probably steer clear of anything malicious. Negligence, perhaps, but this would open a whole can of worms (at least, if it were to show up in the US courts. Although now that this is happening in SK, I'm sure it'll make its way to our shores soon enough.)
I feel sorry for the companys who were sent to their knees over this vulnerability, but if there was a patch out months and months beforehand that could've avoided all this, the end-user needs to share some of the blame for this... There's not much more Microsoft could have done for it, if they'd forced the installation of the patch they'd have been even higher on the privacy zealots' shitlists than they already are.
I do seem to recall in the back of my mind that there was some nasty side-effect of the patch though, although it escapes me at the moment...
You buy the software, you choose to use it, YOU DEAL WITH THE CONSEQUENCES.
True, Slammer was bad, but it's not like MS intentionally added it, and they DID agree to a EULA when they installed it. Of course software companies should be responsible, but it's not like MS isn't trying (though they're not doing a terribly good job.) Idiotic lawsuits like this set a bad precedent.
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
They're suing MS, because their (South Korea's) tech people suck? Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure that MS had a patch out for the slammer months before the outbreak... it's their own fault if they can't keep their servers updated.
Username taken, please choose another one.
Google: AARD:
A Serious Message and the Code That Produced It.
Microsoft included a bug in the Win 3.1 Beta that caused Dr. DOS users to crash.
Unsurprisingly the makers of Dr. DOS lost their jobs, like many other victims of malicious code.
Hard sell for the exploit that caused slammer. Maybe other exploits/bugs.
.DLL. Even though no one ever used the .DLLs in question ( I think it was .hda, .hdq files ) they could have been. You could argue that someone could have written a program that used to long a URL and crashed IIS. The slammer was using a port in a way it was never intended to be used.
SQL has a pretty good record for security. The exploit had also been patched before the worm.
The exploit was not put in on "purpose". I guess it could have been, but that is a pretty hard to believe.
The virus spread fast, but only because there is not a million SQL servers out there exposed. So it spread across the web fast, big deal.
Furthermore good administration ( especially for a db server), ie. a good firewall could have blocked it. There is the desktop engine that could have been hit, but most apps that use it are still in the server category.
The exploit itself is not a defect. Sure it could be used by an attacker, but in itself it didn't make the software defective. This could spawn a big argument. Is an exploit that would never actually impede a program unless someone uses it really a bug?
Code red was a buffer overrun in an ISAPI
I agree that companies should be held accountable, but intent and the way a company handles the defect also.
MS essentially called a recall by issueing the patch. It said, send in the part and we'll fix it, but in a more modern approach. How can you sue a company that found the exploit and offered a free fix?
...and if they do win, there are two possible outcomes:
1) It's the end of software sales in South Korea. That means Red Hat and FreeBSD, too.
2) Lawyers come up with some new way to avoid liability. EULA's become more convoluted and "ownership" of software becomes even more tenuous.
No idea how a case like this would be tried in the Korean system, but that's a lot of damage a witless or simply anti-American jury could do to a major technology power.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
But, you're missing the more important point, this suit has NOTHING to do with EULAs, except for a bunch of /.rs trying to hammer home a (valid) point by squinting until they see an opening that fits their needs.
..."
...
Consider the reasons why Slammer was such a problem:
- there was a bug in SS2K
- exploit used a stateless connection (UDP)
- the state of Internet border security is "allow everything but
- admins didn't apply a patch that had been available for 6 MONTHS (more than enough time to test)
- admins don't properly protect their servers
Of these, only the first is Microsoft's fault and they are the only ones who fixed their contribution to the problem proactively.
But, since Microsoft has deep pockets and geeks hate them, let's sue them
Time to grab some perspective -- patch and defend your fucking systems, people !!!
Cheers,
JAKD
SQL has a pretty good record for security.
I have noticed a trend recently that people are more and more often referring to SQL Server as SQL. This is wrong! SQL is an ISO standard, and this habit, which I have noticed especially among Microsoft staff, of trying to conflate the standard with the Microsoft product is just another example of the company trying to create a meme that is misleading.
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
IT WON'T AFFECT OPEN SOURCE
When a company sells you a product that company is accepting a certain amount of liability for that product (unless you clearly absolve them of this liability via a legal contract). If the product fails to work as advertised, causes damages that it shouldn't cause, etc then the company is liable.
This does not describe an open source project however. I as an open source developer am not selling you anything. There is no implied contract between you and I. You are simply taking something that I'm giving to the world at large for free and using it however you wish (within the possible restrictions of a passive license agreement). If you use my product and it borks your filesystem, I am not liable. If you find a flaw in my product that open a security the size of Montana, I am not liable. You haven't bought anything from me. I haven't received a penny from you for my product. There is no contract, not even an implied one. Therefore there is no liability. Simple.
Saying that I as an open source developer am liable is like saying that I as a freelance author am liable for something I write if you quote me and found the quote to be inaccurate. I am not liable to you (I might be liable for libel if I was writing about a person as fact but I'm not liable to you if you quote me).
To think that an open source developer is liable is absurd. I can't believe the sheer number of comments thinking this will be the case. One comment was made that OpenSSL might very well be liable for an SSL exploit that was used to gain access to credit card information. That's absurd! That's like saying Anderson Windows is liable for not making a window that a burglar can't break to gain unathorized access to a home. Try to think before you type people.
Most physical things cannot because they are mechanical/electromechanical, and so are prone to defects due to decay.
You are so full of shit. There isn't a meaningful piece of software released that doesn't have bugs. The Slammer worm came out 6 months after the vulnerability was patched. This is just some S. Korean lawyers participating in 2 of America's favorite past-times: Claim your mistakes are someone elses fault and get rich quick by suing whoever has the money. It's horseshit like this that gives EULA's validity because corps claim they need to protect themselves from frivolous lawsuits. It will also stifle innovation by independent developers due to fears of being sued when someone discovers a bug in the software that you wrote. Notice I said when, not if.
I'll get modded down as redundant, but it needs to be said as many times as possible (and I don't see much of it in this thread [reading @ +1]):
A legal remedy here would set a really bad precedent - as a software developer who is not unrealistic about my skill level, I am terrified of software liability becoming either law or accepted assumption.
If MS loses this, I see absolutely no way I could defend myself if, god forbid, a program I wrote or even maintained caused catastrophic dataloss, or in worse cases, physical injury.
Note: Ironically, just *yesterday* I was bitch-slapped, albeit in an odd way, by Slammer: in certain situations, applying one of the hotfixes to SQL server that closes the Slammer vuln. without having SQL Server SP2 installed *completely* horks up SQL Server. The ISP (Rackspace) of a dedicated rack unit I "manage" on contract (client has almost no $$$) installed said hotfix in the process of physical maintenance, so I got a panicked call from my client in NYC that the "server is down". A couple of hours worth of research later, I was fine, but it sucked my afternoon away.
I hate the stacks of dependant/conflicting patches and service packs, not to mention the damn bugs, but I'd prefer to take the risks on this end than be open to litigation of software I write contains bugs.
--astro
Nice try dumb ass... Couple of problems: A.) There is no such place as just "Korea", and B.) This is SOUTH Korea, not NORTH Korea... North Korea being a member of the "Axis of Evil"/rouge state/etc... stupid sarcasim like yours is not all that funny to begin with, but it is even less so when it's INCORRECT.
most EULA state in legalese what I'm about to paraphrase: "If you lose money as a result of using our software, it's your loss and yours alone. You cannot sue us for damages even if the damages resulted from using our software."
Oh yeah - remember, you never own most commercial software packages - you but the right to use them only.
When will people realise that buying software from a large company such as i.e. Microsoft isn't going to get them more "rights" then using free software is going to get them. Both camps have a none liability clause, which means, you can't sue either of them for damages! But at least one camp (which shall remain nameless) has the option of sending them a check and make the software you use more usable/bugfree for them. Also, you have the choice of hiring a third party code-reviewer /directly/ , who /can/ be sued directly if he fsck's up reviewing the code. This model, called free, or OS by others, is based on the knowledge, or merit of this particalular individual. So, why take the risk of challenging a EULA to which you've already agread, when you can sue a freelancer who doesn't come around with what he/she promissed, namely a secure system.
Free/OSS software is a risky bussiness, that's why only the best of the best apply. Think about that before your next "convenient" purchase!
Strangely, none of the posts so far have mentioned the author(s) of Slammer as being one of those responsible for this mess. They're certainly harder to find (ok, they'll probably never be found), but shouldn't the culpability be shared with those who exploited the problem? It's not as though the server didn't perform its primary function correctly (storage and retrieval of database records), it's that it had a security vulnerability.
To borrow the Ford Pinto analogy from previous posts, it seems somewhat like somebody cutting your brake lines and then you suing Ford for making the lines so easily accessible. I think the person who cut the lines is truely responsible.
I don't see how unplugging your computer is going to be conducive to downloading patches. :)
Actually, a better analogy would be if you did lock your door - but a vulnerability was discovered in the lock that made it (say) openable by jiggling the handle. Yes, you should get a new lock - but at your own cost, when it was poor lock design to begin with?
An unlocked door would be like leaving the root (or administrator) password blank, and the account enabled.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
The news here is not so much that MS might be held accountable for their product, they won't be, and for about a gazillion reasons.
The news is that someone actually decided there was some benefit in even bringing up such a hopeless suit. Maybe they are trying to shake down MS ? Dunno. But the news for me is that someone would even bother to bring this suit on in the first place, considering the defendant in it.
Truely, if any one (or any company) deserved to be sued for putting out shitty software, its Micro$oft. ...But, I think that this is a really bad idea and sets a very bad precedent that could ruin the software industry as we know it (and I'm including Open Source here - especially open source).
...Not that OSS would die altogether, but we would have to start releasing code anonymously.
If people start flinging lawsuits at software producers then it'll kill open source pretty quick (OK, maybe kill is too strong; how about 'chill' or 'drastically reduce').
Micro$oft at least has $40Billion in the bank to fight such suits, but your average open source programmer doesn't have enough cash to even hire a lawyer for a couple of hours. These sorts of lawsuits could quickly have a chilling effect on OSS creation.
They can't sue m$ for this.
1) A patch exists.
2) Software has bugs. It's a fact of life. If you dont' like bugs, don't use software. (Or hardware for that matter).
3) M$ never claimed their products are perfectly secure. "Secure" is relative. M$ platforms are secure to an extent. Weather that's goo enough is up to the individual.
Once again another case of M$ being in the right. I hate these, but it's stupid to say they're bad JUST because they're M$. They do enough bad stuff to satisfy anyone's faming needs. I'm glad that a fair number of perople do oppose this, though.
This is the best argument in this direction I've seen on this thread. Though my first reaction when I read the article was the complete opposite, I think you have a very good point. However, I still think this suit has the potential to go too far, too fast.
If this lawsuit is successful, it will set a precedent that EULAs are legally untenable, no matter what. The patch was out there for six months, and Microsoft is still responsible? That will be interpreted to mean that all software vendors are responsible for all problems with their products, always.
What needs to happen is to start with a bug that's undocumented, and show that the software company is accountable for that. Once the courts have some experience dealing with these cases, then we can start to get into subtleties like the fact that the patch required taking down the server, the patch introduced other vulnerabilities, etc., that would hold the company liable in this case without the bug being undocumented, but also without them being liable in all cases.
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
I buy a car. It has defective seatbelts. Ford recalls the car, but I don't take mine in to get it fixed.
6 months later, can I sue them if the seatbelt fails?
Interesting how the lawyers will field this one. It will probably come down to how accessable Microsoft makes it's patches.
Well, probably not. On the other hand, there is this full database of every single Ford on the road and who owns it and where they live. And you are required by law to provide that information if you want to drive your Ford... and hey, you have to renew every year too... hmm.
that's not entirely true. at least not in terms of popular vote.
"Not entirely true"? You're dead wrong. Bush won the election fair and square. According to the constitution, he won. End of story. There is no special rules for winning the popular vote. There's no half-winning or half-losing. He won. Complaining otherwise just demonstrates a non-understanding of the US Constitution. Get over it.
And no, I didn't vote for Bush. I voted for Gore. And who do I blame for his loss? Gore himself, for running an awful, pandering, uninspired campaign. I also blame the Nader-ites, who, in their quest to make a political statement, managed to cut off their noses to spite their face.