Slashdot Mirror
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."
Gates: Ballmer, loyal comrade, I've an assignment for you.
Ballmer: Yes, master?
Gates: Say, how much would it cost to purchase the country of South Korea?
Do you like German cars?
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.
Conspiracy theories inside, who actually intends to put a vulnerability into a product? Perhaps this should be "not fixing the vulnerability" or potentially even "ignoring the problem". I don't think any of Microsoft's programmers intentionally insert bugs into their shipping products... although... nah, it couldn't be.
I hope the Judge kicks these people through the goalposts of life.
Ow wait, South-Korea.. Those are the good guys, right? Dagnammit!
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
Shut up and patch your systems like the rest of the planet.
Software isn't a physical thing so it's impossible to make it bug-free.
You knew about this vulnerability for months, there was a patch for it, and you did nothing about it."
Pick a defense, any defense...
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
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!
fuck them!
Wow. Your logic is flawless.
In other news MS is worth more than Ty(15982) ...
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...
They actually bought Windows in the first place!!
Let it be noted that Microsoft already had SQL SP3 out which fixed the problem before it ever occurred. PSPD should try using a vulnerability that could actually hold water in court like Code Red or it's dirivative, or any other Word ActiveX open-execution macro vulernability.
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();
Opponents of open source frequently argue that proprietary products are better then open source because "you can sue somebody".
Here somebody is suing MS. Let's see how that works out.
War is necrophilia.
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?
Anyway there is a very important point about *incidents* like this : they get people's attention about the completly crazy EULAs that some SW companies (namely Micosoft) and content providers (RIAA/Hollywood mob) are currently imposing to they 're costumers ...
imposing a bit of regulation about the limits of what could be put in a EULA is IMHO a very good think ...
if the ppl who launched this lawsuit make the
Cheers from Portugal
Obviously they haven't read Microsofts EULA for SQL Server 2000 which simply states:
Owned.
Except MS has the same wording in their license.
Michael Loves Me!
(I am not a Korean laywer)
Does anybody know if the click-through license is worth a rat's ass in Korea? Does Korean law give the plantifs an edge that they wouldn't have in the US? Any Korean laywers out there?
Following Microsoft's audit of South Korea, North Korea has agreed to dismantle its nuclear program, fearing repercussions.
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
Gates: Hey lapdog...get over here!
Ballmer: Sir, I don't like it when you call me...
Gates: Shut up lapdog.
Ballmer: Yes, sir.
Gates: Buy Korea.
Ballmer: What's by Korea?
Gates: No, purchase it.
Ballmer: Which one?
Gates: There's more than one?
Ballmer: North and South.
Gates: Oh...does it matter? No. Buy both.
Ballmer: I don't have that kind of money sir.
Gates: Charge it to the company.
Ballmer: Yes sir.
I got nothin'.
Microsoft's dislcaimer of warranty is ineffective on several levels. First, under the UCC, a purchaser has a right to a "perfect tender" - that is that the purchase perfectly conforms to what whatever was purchased purports to be. For example - you could not sell a vcr that only worked 50% of the time when it felt like it, or only on a wednesday, (unless you disclosed that up front) and the purchaser agreed in a definite and seasonable expression of assent. Some legislation has proposed so scale this back in the terms of software (UCITA).
Second, products come with an implied warranty of merchantability and fitness for purpose. It essentially means that they are manufactured correctly and that they will be able to do what it is claimed they do.
Bottom line is that anyone can claim that there is no warranty that goes along with their product, but some warranties the court will imply and refuse to not enforce, or will enforece other law tantamount to a warranty. The implied warranties above are examples of those that rise above that of contract, that they can be enforced regardless of what is put in the agreement. The agreement may create a presumption that you have waived these rights, but the court could also find that agreement void as unconscionable.
They should at least have a warning during installation of the software for those who aren't aware. Sort of like the "unplug your computer before installing" warnings that come with hardware. Something like:
WARNING: Unplug your computer before installing this software. And under no circumstances should you connect it to a network until all the patches have finished downloading and installing.
First, if Microsoft's EULA already prevents them from being sued, software is as-is, why do they release patches in the first place?
This isn't a question about whether or not a user can sue, but a more basic matter of accountability and responsibility. These are the most fundamental issues in selling anything to the public.
Microsoft is responsible for this snafu, but they have never been held accountable. Their bugs, their glitches, their crashes. Its become a running joke with techies. It shouldn't.
When Slammer first hit, people said installing the patches required taking down the servers, running several patches, and praying it still worked. No garunatees about anything. What's the justification? Time wasn't available. Who could afford to do this? How high was it on MS list of things that had to be done?
But no one is mentioning those same arguments now. Its South Korea's fault for not doing the updates.
As I recall weren't the patches buggy enough to cause another major security hole?
We know Microsoft is responsible. We know who should be held accountable. But MS throws in a disclaimer and all is good. The disclaimer is not a silver bullet. There must be accountability for faulty software, no matter who wrote it.
Will it stifle open source development? Probably scare off crap coders is what it will do. If everyone working together reviews, checks, and verifies, they are going to catch most of the bugs before it goes out the door. The remaining bugs are fixed with patches.
I honestly don't see anything wrong with suing them. The EULA is not a catch all. The EULA should be thrown out, and rewritten. Users have the right to hold developers accountable.
Its about time someone figure out how.
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.
Ok, fine, that's not what I'm worried about. I'm worried about how this will affect the closed source that I develop. You know, the kind that I get paid to write? You mean a customer can now sue me or the company I work for, even though they insisted on having the software completed in an unreasonable amount of time without testing, and put it into production well before it was ready for that? Wonderful.
--Drunk as in Beer
If there is any legal eagles in the audience, what is the precedent involving a seriously defective car that causes injury/death/damage? This defect would have a notice sent out somewhere/somehow offering the capacity to take the car back to the shop and replace the defective part, but the user either didn't know or didn't follow through with the effort involved.
This seems to be what this software has done: there was a defect and a capacity for a customer to do work to fix it, they didn't do it, and damage resulted.
Any cases like this with products in the automotive area, and did they favour the defendant or the plantiff?
Best wishes,
Robert
-----
Cast a Cold Eye
On Life, on Death
Horseman, pass by
--W.B. Yeats' gravestone
the eWeek article is refering to this Chosun Ilbo article in a Korean daily newspaper. The lawsuit is part of the 3 way lawsuit against the South Korean Information Minister, ISPs, and the South Korean division of Microsoft. Again this is the SOUTH KOREAN division of Microsoft for failing to inform Korean ISPs of the patch and its signifigance. These are people and businesses who were knocked off the grid for days and had nothign to do with microsoft's licensing. Thus a class action lawsuit. The idiot poster makes it sound completelly different.
yet if your car was to suddenly veer off the road from a known defect you'd expect the auto company to deal with it! Driving the car down the road doesn't generally cause the wheels to just 'fall-off'! That is the issue with MS.
Maytag repair guys are what 100,000-to-1 with their insalled base? even doctors are about 100-200-to-1. yet PCs are supposed to be 10 or 20-to-1 for admins. It's a crock! If any other business system was this terrible, it would be bankrupt in a year! And MS only answer is that the admin should run around and babysit the system? They offer automated updates, then again blame the admin for not "testing". You all check the gas quality going in your car before you fill up right. Or, you consult medical texts after going to the doctor just to be sure he called your illness right.
I'm sorry, this stuff should just work. Compaies have invested 10 years and billions of dollars into windows and it still doesn't just work! Billy designed the system so that MS had 'plausable deniability' After all, they don't make hardware [not their fault], or drivers [not their fault], or systems [oems didn't test, not our fault], or software [sure we have Secret APIs but not their fault], they pretend to train admins [but not their fault if admin shamans don't dance right], and of course users because they make the computer do "stuff" MS might not have planned! [if MS did plan it, they'd charge more!] They have no techincal support without outrageous fees [Linux cost is mostly support--and you can afford to use it!] Well, it's basicly like OSS only costs more. They offer the same package of benifits!
That said, I don't think a lawsuit is the way to go either. We're trying to get rid of stupid IP laws, not tie ourselves to them more! If the liability cost of software goes up, then free software will die a horrible death. We're not sophisticated enough to have software "building codes" yet and license "Software Accountants" to set them up. Even then without 100% control of a system, you just can't have that kind of liability...Then again, maybe that's what MS wants [OK we know they want it] total control of the systems and your wallets!
Sidebar from an article on Slammer in the Feb.3, 2003 issue, page 12:
... it's only with Service Pack 3 that it became easy to install".
"...many IT departments did not install the initial patch because installation could not be scripted. Instead, DBAs were required to manually stop each instance of the software running in their organizations, rename or remove some files, and paste the patch files into each instance
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?