Slashdot Mirror
Gates on Winsecurity
xandroid writes "Just a couple days after talking about free hardware, Bill Gates has sent an email to customers saying that Microsoft will continue to focus on security, titled 'A Microsoft Progress Report: Security' (MSNBC story, PC Magazine story, Google News' related stories). The email mentions that fast-spreading and destructive viruses and worms are 'threatening the potential of technology to advance business productivity, commerce and communication', but says that to counter the threats, Microsoft will make 'major investments in customer education and partnerships that will help make the computing environment safer and more secure'. He also talks about the XP Service Pack 2, and says that Microsoft is 'working with microprocessor companies, including Intel and AMD, to help Windows...support hardware-enforced data execute protection (also known as NX, or no execute)'." Reader Zephyr_in writes "Macworld reports that the beta-release of Longhorn is likely to be postponed to early 2005 because Microsoft is concentrating first on a security-focused update (SP2) to Windows XP. Earlier this week Gates said Longhorn is 'not a date-driven release.' and said the speculation that the operating system will come out in 2006 is 'probably valid.'"
Excuse me, but Intel's ripped off 64-bit system has no sort of NX bit on it. That is the primary difference between AMD and Intel's 64 bit x86 implementation.
What I'm curious about is if this statement from Gates is a forward statement. Does this mean that Intel will adopt the NX bit within the next year or so? Hopefully this will be the case.
I can imagine with this in place, I imagine a lot more of the script kiddies will be doing "Nuke" style attacks rather than full-on hacks. In this case, say if Apache were to have a buffer overrun exploit, the most that would happen is the service would be shut down. Still a pain in the ass for anyone trying to run a web server, but better than running a service that potentially grants access to your machine.
That and worms will hopefully not be so rampant anymore, provided that people stop opening exe email attachments. Don't we wish.
Gates said Longhorn is 'not a date-driven release.' and said the speculation that the operating system will come out in 2006 is 'probably valid.'"
Well, what exactly is the one "must-have" feature in Longhorn that makes it necessary today? Nothing really. A database-driven file system is not necessary. Internet Explorer 7 is not necessary (at least if you have Firefox it isn't). More DRM? Not necessary. What's necessary today are security fixes. And as long as Microsoft keeps patching WinXP, Longhorn is not needed anytime soon.
What is necessary now is SP2. And the sooner they release that, the better.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Which is 90% of us, so get over yourself. OS snobbery is obnoxious.
--------
Create a WAP server
Windows Longhorn: We'll release it "When It's Done".
char sig[120] = "\0"
Why does a protected stack need hardware modification ? IANACE, but doesn't OpenBSD do this on standard hardware? As much as I don't like substanceless MS criticism, and as much as I want the status quo's platform to be secure; I really think that actions speak louder than words, and while SP2 is a big step in the right direction, how about: 1. Ditching ActiveX, does anyone actually use this for anything other than malware anymore? 2. Disabling the (Outlook) preview pane by default 3. Higher SSL Verbosity with IE 4. IE URL-bar and statusbar should go into an "extra careful verbose mode" when it encounters hexadecimal encoding ( % ). IMO, these are all obvious things that should have been changed LONG ago, why are they still defaults?
I read Gates's comments a few days ago and noted that at no point does he even come close to admitting that every virus, worm, or other exploit that hits Windows is able to do so because Windows own code has made it possible. "Windows security" should be used as a perfect example for a dictionary definition of an oxymoron.
Seriously, with approximately sixty billion dollars in the bank, exactly what prevents M$ from producing a secure OS ?
And I suppose that all the people who buy Macs because they're a better solution for their needs are just victims of the reality distortion field, and should be first against the wall in the New Purge. All those scientists who are transitioning to OSX as their research environment are just ignorant.
You, sir, are an asshat.
A properly designed system is not harmful to other properly designed systems. Windows is not properly designed. OSX (and BSD and arguably Linux) are properly designed.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I KNOW how to spend all day trying to configure various things and optimize them for security and use. However, sometimes, I don't feel like reading through piles of security docs just to make sure I can feel safe plugging my computer into a cable line. It's nice to have things just work, and work securely, right out of the box. Apple, however, has provided an operating system whereby I can spend endless hours tinkering with settings, in both a CLI and GUI environment; but by no means do I have to do this in order to get my computer working securely. The best thing you can do for a clueless user who just wants to check e-mail is get them an eMac or iMac. No fancy cables to plug in, no massive suite of security software to install -- just turn on OS X's firewall (built on that rock solid BSD standard ipfw), set up mail.app for their e-mail and get Safari or Mozilla Firebird to start blocking popups. Instantly, they're secured against anything except a direct, targeted attack against their computer. Worms, trojans, spyware... not a problem.
IAALS.
I disagree, and, as opposed to modding you down, I will reply. I'm an intelligent, well-versed, apple user. I've been working with x86-based machines seriously since I was in 7th grade. I'm now about to graduate high school. Last year, I ""switched", as it were. I went out and found myself an old tibook. It's a good, solid, stable machine. I run linux and many versions of windows via work or at school. However, I like to come home to my Mac. Why? It just works. I putz around with pcs all the time, I am paid to do simple repairs and upgrades. Pcs are a hassle, and I spend a lot of my time working on them. I don't have to fool with my mac. It does exactly what I want, it's rock-steady, it's unix (I know this!), and most of all; It's pretty! Not all mac users are net-incompetent. Very few that I've met, in fact, are. That is a false assumption.
Apple computers are created for, and solely used by people who know, and want to know nothing about computers, the "proudly ignorants".
Ah, but they are also used by the most advanced computer users out there. Those that use them for a variety of fields in science from quantum chemistry to astrophysics, medicine and computer science. Pretty impressive that.
This is a dangerous mindset to encourage. Their computers are set up to do everything for you, to treat the user with a kind of benevolent contempt.
What is a dangerous mindset? Allowing people to be connected? Allowing them access to information? What are you going to say next......That people should not be able to vote for whom they want?
As to doing things for you, yeah, when I want to plug in a hard drive, it is automatically mounted and I don't have to type in the CLI two or three lines of commands to get it mounted and shared. There are many other examples of this and why you perceive this as benevolent contempt completely escapes me.
Some recent pricing of upgrades illustrates the kind of attitude Apple has to its customers.
This leap of logic is confusing. And what recent pricing are you referring to? Can they not expect to make a profit on their investment? Be thankful Microsoft has some minor competition, or else you might be paying more than you might think.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
About freaking time. IBM's mainframe and midrange server architectures have been doing this for years. In OS/400, for example, the only things the processor will execute are program objects. Memory blocks marked as data cannot be executed, even in the event of a buffer overflow. The OS and hardware work together to ensure this.
Slashdot posts every single letter, lecture, and little throwaway statement Bill Gates in order to give the "M$"-bashers something to froth over.
Absolutely nothing new will be offered in the discussions for this article.
Meanwhile, Gentoo, Debian, GNU (twice!), and Gnome have all been hacked in the span of the last six months, and LinuxSecurity reports dozens of vulnerabilities for each distro every week alone.
It will always boil down to this--security as a criticism against Windows will always be something that's only valid to other Slashdotters. Most of the rest of the world doesn't see it that way, and the rational of us see it as an admin and user ignorance problem. When Slashdot posts articles with titles like "Another New Microsoft Hole" and it turns out to be a user-ran executable attachment worm (yes, this was a real article), or "Microsoft Violates Human Rights In China" simply because Windows is used by the government there (never mind that China has its own custom Linux distribution, but I doubt we'll ever see "OSS Violates Human Rights In China"), I can only shake my head and just wait for the next cool technology article.
Becuase that's why I first started coming to Slashdot--the cool tech news. Not "let's fill our daily quota of one 'bash M$' article per day." I used to go to K5 as an alternative because of the interesting tech articles that didn't get posted here, but at some point K5 became a liberal anti-Bush administration site. This place has become an anti-RIAA, anti-M$ site. I miss when there was no agenda other than being a cool site for nerds to get news on the latest Stallman lecture, Linux kernel technology, or programmer interview.
You troll .. and to the mods your no better.
I think most people will agree most security problems boil down to one simple thing, the stupidity of the user
Your missing the whole point. The users aren't stupid - they don't care. Computers are not an integral part of their life as they are probably are for you. Hence implying they are stupid because they can't spot a virus is just plain rude.
I have to ask if you know exactly what happens and what to do if your car suddenly stops for no reason. Does it make you an idiot if you have to ask for help ? No because for most cars are a tool not a lifestyle - just like computers.
Apple computers are created for, and solely used by people who know, and want to know nothing about computers, the "proudly ignorants".
Now that Apple is *nix based I find this kind of statement quite suprising. What a bunch of proudly ignorant people.
Apple computers yes do have the obscurity security benefit, however they also have intelligent default settings. Windows with XP SP2 will finally set the defaults to what they should have been from the start.
You are the ignorant one not the non-techie users.
Funtage Factor: Purple
But, here's an idea! What if the email program DIDN'T EXECUTE SCRIPTS WRITTEN IN BASIC!
Hey, Bill, here's some code that will kill worms dead:
How long will it take until Microsoft dips into the Outlook code and stops the running scripts in message attachments?
Maybe never. They'll just build rarely updated "after the fact" virus scanning in the next XP service pack! Yeah, that'll do it.
I won't need it. I use Thunderbird and Mozilla Mail.
Ever dream you could fly? Get up from the Flight Sim. I Fly
With Longhorn only coming out in 2006, hopefully Linux will make a huge push over the next couple of years to cement itself as a serious 'business desktop' platform.
.NET and include things like Avalon, Indigo, WinFS, and so on. I guess what I'm saying is Microsoft is actually pushing to do a revolutionary release--this will be the same kind of change going from Windows 3.1 to 95 was.
People were saying this around 2002. Two years later, and KDE and GNOME are still pretty much the same, slowly taking evolutionary baby steps.
Longhorn is going to be entirely
Plus, I think Slashdotters ignore that people have Windows software and won't magically dump it all and switch to Linux simply because the next version of Windows is due out in 2006 instead of 2005. I see no signs whatsoever that signify Linux is going to make some sort of great stride in the next two years. In fact, things look much the same as they did two years ago, except that KDE and GNOME have, like, more buttons and stuff, and now we're supposed to be switching away from DevFS or something in our production kernels...
Personally, I think Apple is making incredible headway lately. They're Doing Everything Right(tm). If anyone's making strides today and in the next couple of years, it's Apple. OS X just gets better and better (and subsequently ripped off...).
Sure, it was easier to write an assembler program adding it's own code to a software, while keeping the infected program executable, than scripting 15 lines of VB Script.
Oh, those poor and innocent individual users. What a wonderful way to make them think they are only victims, and never responsible of the spread of a virus, even if they don't make any effort to secure their system.
Of course, the idea that a malicious program shouldn't be able to do much damage, because it has very restrictive rights is a strong innovation.
Wonderful ! Microsoft OSs will (at last) have memory protection ! Let me remember, how old is Unix ? Nearly 40, isn't it ?
Could someone explain me how Microsoft can be seen innovative by so many people ? And how they can so proudly try to make us believe they always were (and will be) on the right way ?
-----
Interesting points, wonder why you got modded down?
I'd like to add to what you've said and point out that there is a difference between stupidity and ignorance. Stupidity is not being able to learn somethiing. Ignorance is not knowing something, but it doesn't exclude the capacity to learn. Most people, when it compes to the intracacies of the PC, are ignorant, rather than stupid. And they want to be.
For example, I don't want to know the specifics of which particular gasket a mechanic's going to tighten (or loosen) when he reapirs my car, I just want to get to work. I could, if I chose, get materials on automotive mechanics, find out this information, and be knowlegable, rather than ignorant, and even possibly do the repairs myself; but I have no need to know this stuff, so I remain ignorant.
IMHO, This has been one of the fundamental failings of understanding of the Open Source movement, as they try and move from the hobbyist to the mainstream. Doctors, lawyers, and other professionals have too much to worry about in their own fields to concern themselves with makefiles, mount points, and other intracacies of Linux. And, quite frankly, a large number of people simply don't care to learn this stuff, any more than I care to know exactly what happens when I turn the ley in my car to get to work. I just want the engine to start, and use my fundamental driving skills to get to work, or home or to the bar, or wherever.
Does this ignorance mean that I can't drive as well as someone who knows the full workings of an automobile? Certainly it does, however, there are indicators and saftey features in the car itself to protect me from my own ignorance.
This is part of what Microsoft has realized. They realize that people want to know nothing about how their machines work, they just want them to work. That's why their now working on protecting the ignorant user, rather bothering with attempting to educate them. For these users, it's better to put the govenor on the engine, the automated seat belt, and the airbags rather than trying to teach them to use a turn signal when they change lanes.
If Linux is going to embace the mainstream, they are going to have to embrace this ignorant user. Linux is going to need to be so simple that people aren't going to fear it anymore as a more complicated (albeit better performing, more stable and more secure) system than Windows. They're just going to put the cd in the computer, and drive away.
Linux/*BSD will have a better GUI than Windows, more application and driver support than Windows, and an infinitely better design and development process.
.NET Show" videos every month showcasing the new technologies. People can make apps using XAML and a few lines of .NET code. One video shows the dev writing 10-15 line app that lets him update his website blog. They're hardware-accelerating everything, stripping out Win32, and revamping all of Windows. Where are we going to be at in 2006? KDE 3.5 and GNOME 2.8, with the same old XFree86 technology running beneath (oh, gee, it might be XServer instead which will, gasp, add transparency). Same old, same old.
Doubt it. Care to point to any signs that show this magical stride Linux is going to make?
OK, two out of four isn't bad. But Microsoft must be scared of something. Why is one of the wealthiest corporations in the world and its army of developers having so much trouble getting something out the door, and why is Bill going out of his way to appear to tow the line? Kind of spooky.
They're not having any "trouble." They're creating entirely new technologies for this new operating system. MSDN has been putting out "The
Security is nice and all, but Longhorn is starting to remind me of heaven - a long way off with no concensus on what it is really like.
Guess you missed the Longhorn PDC build, the endless Longhorn build leaks that come out every couple of weeks, and the monthly videos MSDN has been putting out that showcase a new Longhorn technology by the devs who wrote it.
I don't get the need for people to imply it's "vaporware"--Longhorn is coming, and we need to be ready. There's a reason we have the Mono project...there are devs who recognize what the future will be.
Do not tempt the gods that way. You're just asking for something.
Is it fascism yet?
"Microsoft will make 'major investments in customer education and partnerships that will help make the computing environment safer and more secure'. "
BILL: GET RID OF THE MICROSOFT HTML CONTROL.
Getting rid of ActiveX and splitting the MS HTML control into a separate modules so programs can display local HTML without worrying about it kicking off a local exploit or downloading untrusted material from the Internet... not just defining zones, but separating the display code, the internet code, and the active desktop code into separate modules that don't interact with each other except through an application that has to explicitly request dangerous things... that would do more for security than anything else Microsoft could do between now and the end of time.
But to do that would be to back out of the claim that it was essential to merge IE and the desktop back when they violated their agreement with the DoJ back in the '90s, and Microsoft cares way more about losing face than improving security.
... that "Winsecurity" is so far removed from actual "security" that it deserves its own word.
Apple computers are created for, and solely used by people who know, and want to know nothing about computers, the "proudly ignorants"
Every extra hour that I am forced to spend learning how make make a computer do what it should have done in the first place adds $50 to the TCO of that machine. So if I have spend even one hour per week figuring out how to keep my machine safe from exploits, I've added $2500 to for the cost of that machine for that year.
I am not proudly ignorant, I only realize that my time is limited and that spending it patching gaping holes in a badly designed product is not top of my list of either fun or productive things to do. At best, you could call me resentfully ignorant because I resent that ignorance should be a problem.
I'm not even sure how you can blame Apple for much of the Internet's current dismal state of affairs. What percentage of viruses, trojans, spam, etc. are distributed via Apple machines?
But, as long as we are playing the blame game, I might as well burn a few karma points. Lets add some more culprits to the list:
1. All the IT vendors that touted software and internet services.
2. All the businesses and organizations that listened to IT vendor's hype and gave PCs to all their employees.
3. The original internet standards designer who gave us naive, overly-trusting standards that make it too easy for anonymous blackhats and spammers to send out untraceable virus packets and spam
4. CPU makers (and Gordon Moore) for giving us such a rapid pace of performance growth that no platform ever matures before it is replaced by another exploit-ridden next generation OS
I'm sure there are others.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
On OSX/Linux/BSD/Solaris...
For the virus to be executed, it would have to be saved to disk and then have the execute bit set. For it to do this automatically, that would involve executing, which it doesn't yet have permission to do.
For a user to execute it, they'd have to save the attachment, switch to their file manager, change the permissions on the file, then run it. That's one more step that is require on Microsoft Windows, and following the data that's more than 2 clicks away is too far away rule, a lot of people won't bother if it takes that much effort.
Most operating systems have this feature built in. If Microsoft were competent enough to have it built into Windows, there would be no need to go chasing the CPU manufacturers.
Follow me
When it comes to viruses, whoever is using the OS that is in the majority will be part of the problem. The reason that virus writers write for Windows is that most people are using windows.
So explain all the internet worms that have brought the internet to a crawl and infected from machine to machine with no user intervention.
Windows has a 20% share in this market. Apache is 70%.
*All* of the worms are for Windows and Windows only.
That was the sound of your argument crashing down around you.
Security through minority is an even worse idea than security through obscurity.
Nice try, but minority or majority, when it comes to security Windows is the absolute loser.
How long has linux existed, and how many worms have there been? Or applications: 2 apache worms or so? and apache is by sheer numbers, what? 60% or more of the webservers on the internet. (lets assume there are actually a dozen apache worms since 1992, if there are even that many, that's one a year.) How many IIS worms are there?
How many worms have been able to break into the kernel itself? Oh, given the couple of kernel bugs, it was possible, but they were all local exploits. Which requires the code to be run on the system as opposed to things like the Classic MacOS had some virii for it, but compare the length of time it had been out (and how it was the GUI computer for quite a while) 16 years or so (1984-2000) Over that time, there were probably less virii for it than windows 98 got in the first year. (Probably partly because as an OS it was one of the dumbest in terms of networking, you couldn't do anything with it.)
MacOS X has been out for around for 4, and the number of worms is comparable to those for Linux, as in almost nothing.
I expect when Longhorn comes out, there will again be another torrent of worms. But maybe Microsoft may be getting it together with regards to security. They did a pretty good job of stability with 2000, but backslid on XP.
Even if Linux/KDE became as dominant as dominant as Windows is now, the problem wouldn't be nearly as bad. You see, Linux distributions (almost all? and the people who aren't should know what they are doing) use package management. This means that instead of running an installer for program a, b, c off of cds or the internet, they use packages provided by people who they can check cryptographic signatures of automatically, for example with rpm. Now, that's not perfect, and you don't have to have that, but it gets people into a method of expecting part of it to come from a trusted source (eg gentoo which provides md5sums of all the packages downloaded. or rpm which allows both server and developer signatures last I looked.) The distribution is EXPECTED to provide this, and if they don't either the user doesn't know enough to get it, and askes someone else for help, or knows enough to figure out that www.warez-cracks-hijacking-your-game.com is not a good site to get things from.
Well said, sir.
Microsoft is constantly lauded by the press and the business world alike for bringing computers to the masses. A chicken in every pot and a Windows license in every home. And while that is a commendable feat, helping to spur the absolutely exponential growth of the internet and computing in general in the last few years, no one stopped to ask if the masses were ready for all this computing at their fingertips. Computers are powerful devices, and are becoming ever moreso with increased use of broadband internet. The potential for a computer to do serious damage is great, when the right person (or perhaps the wrong person, depending on your perspective) is doing it. The problem right now is that the computer companies are doing exactly what every business in our capitalist society *should* be doing with a home appliance: trying to make money. That, above all else, drives their product creation and marketing. The problem with this line of thinking for computers, which are more than just appliances, is there is no responsibility or accountability for consumer ignorance. Yet.
Consider other home appliances: stoves, televisions, water heaters, automatic litter box cleaners. None of these things require a license to operate. Why? Because although they may be dangerous if used improperly, they don't really pose an immediate danger to other people; just the person operating the device. Since we as a nation believe that people should take responsibility for their own uses of these devices, only product warning labels, owner's manuals, and occasionally tech support are offered as education.
Now consider devices that truly do pose an immediate danger to other people: automobiles. Because we are all driving on roads with *other people* and are a potential danger to them, we as a nation decided that drivers needed to be licensed in order to drive, i.e., there is a mandatory level of education needed before people are allowed to use the device.
When personal computers were first introduced, they fell into the first category above. Each unit was separate. If you didn't read the manual and fried your hard disk, that was your problem. However, as we network more and more, and desktop environments such as Windows and Zero Install try to blur the line between working on your own machine and working as part of a network, computers are migrating into the second category. We're all driving on the proverbial internet highway. Now, if you are a clueless user who clicks every attachment in emails and forgets to install security patches, you are endangering the livelyhoods (if not the lives) of other people on the network. Even the responsible people can still be hammered: you can't tell me that mail servers running OS X are not slowed down by the deluge of emails from Windows boxes still running SoBig and MyDoom. No one is immune, and it translates to lost revenues for everybody.
So what do we do to fix it? Do we mandate that computer companies educate their customers? No. That would be like asking car companies to teach their customers how to drive. How about the ISPs? Nope. They're just the toll booth operators. TThe problem is standards: the world of personal computers sprang up absolutely overnight, from a standards compiance point of view. Automobiles have had over 90 years with the same basic premise (gas, brake, clutch, steering wheel, internal combustion engine), and they have been refined to be compatible with each other. Take one driver's education course, and you can drive any car built. They can all run on the same fuel. They all fit on the same roads (current SUV trend notwithstanding). All of them have at least some interchangable parts. Yet there are dozens of car companies, each with its own set of designers and engineers. Computers sprang up so fast, with a new technological revolution every week, that standards compiance hardly had time to ask, "what the hell just happened?" As it is, we have several major operating systems, none of which run the same software (they all req
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
No, not everything, of course. But some of what he says is right. Much of
the bits about isolation and resiliency are dead on the money: having the
firewall on by default is a start, but if I understand correctly what he's
saying (which is hard, because the wording is brief and nontechnical; it
was obviously not written for a technically-inclined audience), Microsoft
intends to actually *fix* Outlook. Not "patch" it to stop a particular
exploit, but actually fix the root problem.
He also says some stuff that's good to hear despite not really constituting
security -- e.g., popup blocking, and not loading remote content in email.
He also talks about taking measures at the system level to mitigate the risk
of buffer overruns, but I can't tell from what he says whether what they're
doing there will be helpful or a placebo. This is where the CPU NX stuff
comes in, and I'm a little over my head there; I understand the idea, but
I don't think I grok all of the implications.
This is actually a good article. Not perfect, but good. Go read it, those
of you who haven't yet. I don't think we're going to slashdot Microsoft.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Here's an interesting though. Is Linux more secure and stable BECAUSE it is more difficult to set up?
Linux makes few assumptions. You have to explicitly install and run things if you want them. There is no marketing pressure to force you to take features you do not want. Heck, you can even build your own kernel to include or exclude features. The "barrier to entry" under Linux is higher. So the majority of Linux installs were installed by somebody who actually knows something about a computer.
Conversly, Windows is easy to install. Furthermore, since it comes pre-installed on most computers, it is REAL easy to install. Windows is not so much of a choice for most users as it is the failure to make a choice. Many of the people "succesfully" running Windows are "twelve o' clock flashers". (You know, those people who's VCR constantly flashes "12:00" because they have no idea how to set it.) Combine this with cheap, always on broadband and you have a recipe for disaster.
You've heard of "Security through obscurity", well Windows suffers from "Insecurity through ubiquity"
I think you underestimate users. People will double click, unzip and spend however long it takes to run any attachment they get. Even if their e-mail program or ISP or whoever says something like "The attachment is a virus... do not open it." They will still open it.
Now, for most users, It's not the 2 clicks away is too far rule... it's called you need an administrator password to install anything rule. This is why people tell you to not log in as root. (and why the root account is disabled by default in OS X) Now when you double click that attachment and instead of opening a document, it prompts you with the password dialog box, alarm bells should start ringing.
Oh and most archival programs will save rwx flags. So while it's harder to get a virus, never underestimate how stupid people can be.
So on OS X, if I download a SWF file or a HTML file with embedded JScript, or visit a page with a Java applet in it, I won't be able to execute any of the scripting code embedded in those files unless I copy them to my hard disk and set an execute flag?
Saying that forcing users to enable an Execution Flag on files before you can run them, is a 'security feature' is ignorant. There are plenty of plain file formats that can contain executable code in them, and an 'execute flag' doesn't do anything to solve that problem. All it does is inconvenience users. Word Macro Viruses were plenty effective even though you couldn't double-click a Word file and run it just like an EXE file.
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
I was talking about executable files (notice the word "executed" in my post). You're talking about interpreted scripting languages. If you don't want such things to be run, then either disable whatever "feature" causes them to be run, or choose to use software that simply doesn't run them.
./perlfile.pl until the execute bit is set. Running it using perl ./perlfile.pl is different, since the initial program being run is the perl executable, and it's not up to the shell to decide how to run the script.
Java VMs (at least the real Sun versions) have a security policy which prevents applets writing data to anything other than the domain from which they came. i.e. if it came from the internet, it cannot read/write to any arbitrary part of the local filesystem unless you change the security policy manually.
"Plain file formats" do not contain executable code. They might contain code that can be interpreted. A perl file downloaded from the Internet for example cannot be run by typing
I'd agree that any point-and-click GUI that lets users run interpreted code from files like that is missing something in the security department.
The execution bit being a security feature is a fact, not a sign of being ignorant.
Follow me
Don't you just love how Windows' in-securities are spun as "evil forces"?
And don't you also love how Microsoft's solutions always point the responsibility finger elsewhere. They always try to paint themselves as the good guy, having to clean up after the mayhem someone else initiated. "Here's our progress on taking steps to combat the evil in the world."
One of these days, business is going to wake up to this shell game and start holding the software manufacturer to blame for the general design problems of their products. Then you'll start seeing a general shift to another platform, maybe starting in the back office, file and printer serving, firewalls, etc. The desktop will be last.
Wait a sec, perhaps that explains the new firewall corporate bought for our branch to replace our old Win2K one... Linux.
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
And AMD supports it first. They support it right now. Intel is dragging their feet on it. That's the reason I WILL be buying AMD and boycotting Intel (although there are others, this would be the main one).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Mod me offtopic... Windows and Windows software is insulting. No, it doesn't suck. It's very good, but it's insulting. UNIX is the same way. It used to be I could just pop in my software, install it, and begin operating it. At most I'd have to supply a serial number. Fine.
But now, the act of purchasing, installing, or using Windows software forces me to put up with accusations of fraud and theft. Please comment if the following list of insulting behavior is incomplete:
It's reasonable that software publishers want to curb piracy, and I know that these methods can be effective at preventing regular people like me from stealing. But Windows users have come to accept this presumption that we are criminals trying to take advantage of some poor software publisher; that we are not to be trusted; that we should be prevented from doing anything bad with our computers. Maybe some of us are, but I don't like being put in an adversarial position vis-a-vis my software and my computer. Essentially I have to provide picture ID everytime I want to do something new on my computer - and as a hobbyist, I enjoy doing new things. All I ask for is that Microsoft trust me and show me respect as a registered user who has owned every version of Windows and Windows NT since 1.0. I also ask the same of other other software companies too.
Imagine if restaurants behaved the way software companies did everytime we wanted food.
Here's where I believe the true benefit of Linux and FreeBSD comes into play. Open Source advocates talk proudly about freedom, but I haven't heard anyone address dignity attacks Windows users regularly submit to. When I install Linux, I know that, with a few exceptions, I won't have to deal with the issues I listed above. I know there are no real deep pockets in the Linux business, but someday I would like to see a national advertisement for Linux aimed at desktop users where the central point driven home is that personal computer users can gain back that dignity they lost over the last 15 years. Flame away.
Are you sure? SOMETHING'S got your keyboard fucked up.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Couple of random thoughts:
1. NX bit is not an end all in preventing mal code from running. It does limit some exposure.
2. DRM is not guaranteed security as MS is trying to sell to the public. It does guarantee that fixing a hacked system will be sooooo much more difficult. A successful hack could rended someone's local data inaccessable. And we are sure to see version 1.0 type vunerabilities in bios, os and libraries for a while... eeek.
3. MS providing antivirus, firewall and so on will not work out as competition between vendors has fueled a ton of creativity and generated some pretty amazing products. Let's hope this feature is like the backup software included with Win3.11 and 95 rather than IE.
4. None of this really speaks to MS's most important and weakest security-wise product: MS Office.
-- $G
I got the e-mail. For me, it was spam. I never asked for it. I didn't sign up for any Microsoft newsletter, and certainly not in any way that was verified via a reasonable opt-out system. Thus, I found the passage about spam particularly ironic. Here was some long-winded spam that trumpeted how the next version of Windows would have spam-protection tools. Naturally, I fired off an abuse complaint. So far, I've received no response to that.
You're being misleading! The fact is, I as a Windows user don't even need to save a virus to disk and run it in order to get infected. :P
So UNIX users are actually three steps removed from dangerous attachments, but seriously will KDE and GNOME eventually bring in traditionally Windows specific security issues inadvertantly by trying to mimic the Windows environment?
I think you underestimate users. People will double click, unzip and spend however long it takes to run any attachment they get. Even if their e-mail program or ISP or whoever says something like "The attachment is a virus... do not open it." They will still open it.
Tell someone there are 100 billion suns in the Galaxy, and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint on it, and he has to touch it to make sure.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
It's not the opperating system itself that is causing the problems, it's the smacked asses that use it maliciously. Don't blame the drunk driver, blame the car and the sober drivers right? Get a clue.
I disagree. The "smacked asses" are starting the problems, but the operating system is turning a very small problem into a very large one.
To use your drunk driver analogy, suppose 90% of the cars on the road, made by "Fireball Motors Corporation", suddenly exploded when even tapped by another vehicle, let alone a full collision. Even worse, after these cars become rolling fireballs, they suddenly accelerate wildly and run into as many other cars as possible, which of course turns them into rolling fireballs. Of course, this isn't much of a problem if everyone drives perfectly and never makes a mistake, but every Friday night, a few drunk drivers accidentally run into other cars, causing the freeways to turn into massive infernos. A few people escape unharmed, because they bought cars from Orange Motor Corp., Banana Motors, or built their own. These other cars just get a little dent when a Fireball car hits them. However, every Saturday after the morgues have processed all the charred bodies, the victims' families cry about the drunk driver that caused the tragedy, but no one ever considers getting rid of their Fireball car. When an Orange driver asks them why, they say they like the knobs on the stereo better, and are willing to risk their life for that. Then the Orange driver throws a rock at their car and laughs as it bursts into flames.
Sorry, but given the risk you run by sticking with Windows, I have no sympathy for you at all, and I'll laugh when a virus or worm wipes out your data. It's just a matter of time.
Well I run several *nix servers, my home and office machine are both Win XP. I ave *never* been infected by a virus. Never.
In the words of some of the security professionals out there(from the people at @stake and foundstone):
If you have never been hacked [sic] you are either too small a target to be worthwhile, or, you have been hit, but are not good enough to notice.
Amongst security professionals, you are rated good if when asked how many times have you been hacked in the last 5 years, and your answer is "once or twice". If it is "never" that is almost as bad as "lots".
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
There's a *BIG* difference between "a hacker 0wn3d my b0x" and "Some VB script 0wn3d half of the windows boxen on the internet, automatically, without any manual interaction from the hacker".