Slashdot Mirror
IE Holes Not Microsoft's Fault, Says Bill
thparker writes "As part of the Media Center release discussed previously, Bill Gates had an interview with USA Today. Best quote: 'Q: Speaking of security, Internet Explorer has had well-publicized holes... Gates: Understand those are cases where you are downloading third-party software.' Well now we know -- these problems have all been our own fault." Any counterexamples?
Gates: Understand those are cases where you are downloading third-party software.'
Hrmmmm. Downloading third party software on my Macintosh does not seem to get me into trouble in the same manner as it does on Windows........Why is that Mr. Gates? Furthermore, I have performed the experiment: Install Windows on a computer and hook it up to the Internet. Leave it hooked up without downloading one bit of software from anywhere! and the machine will be compromised. Why is that Mr. Gates?
Moving along: Q: Might you add anti-virus/spyware protection in Windows? Gates: It's not a thing you build in. You have to offer a service......Why is that Mr. Gates? I would have thought that you would offer a secure environment as part of your product out of the box? What does that tell us about the quality of your products? After all, does not my automobile come with airbags and antilock brakes and skid control and all wheel drive? Under your logic, those features would only work if I paid a monthly premium.
You know, I kept waiting for something better to happen with Windows, but I have work to do and things to create, so I'll stick with OS X and my Macintosh. Thanks anyway.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Sick and tired of fixing spyware infested machines.
Those holes are what LETS third-party software install its freaking self.
I was just about to say this.
And you don't even have to view a webpage. How many Win32 worms* are there now?
* I mean real worms, not "the media calls it a worm for some unknown reason" when its really a virus.
Q: Yes, but will people continue to do that with Media Center? Gates: You might well do it. We need to use approaches that block people from ever getting software onto the machine they don't want. Me: Great. Now let me get a PC from a major OEM without windows - oh, not that software?
Don't worry - its just stigmata. Pass me a napkin and don't you dare tell my mother.
Sounds like Microsoft's Trusted Computing Initiative isn't getting as much executive support as it might've.
Remember that, Bill? When you said you were going to make all the Windows computers secure by focusing all your energies on securing your code?
Now, it's not your fault, and you won't do anything to fix it? Then why on earth did you tell everyone that you would?
I hear them from the Bush administration almost daily and corporate america is getting a lot more brazen. No one fact checks, dissenting opinions are marginalized, and the corrections page doesn't have nearly the eyeballs the front page does. And that's assuming a correction is ever given.
This is the same mentality of shipping a crappy product and having tech support take care of the issues. Okay, fine, at least I have someone to complain to and I can return products, but with information you don't have that option. You complain to your peers, who are just an echo chamber. The fact that lying usually goes unchallenged in media makes for bigger more destructive lies.
The browser has holes, its a piece of software. This is way over the line. How did the information age become the disinformation age? Perhaps we officially entered the post-postman world where everything is a soundbite that flies through the subconscious and sticks there. Long corrections don't have the same stickiness, so lying is now smart business.
Keep it up Bill, you're making my next Apple purchase all the sweeter.
Disclaimer for the mods: Yes, many politicians lie. Apple isnt perfect, etc. But there is a difference between small and big lies. Lies which are harmless and those which cause destruction.
Especially the ones that you get while downloading the updates.
So the thing the users keep doing wrong is hook it up to the internet.
Q: What's your take on making Windows Media compatible with Apple?
Gates: We're big believers in interoperability.
BWWAAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAAHHAAAA!!!!!!
Yes yes... ofcourse, interoperability within Microsoft products
Mod article +5 Troll...
Wish there was a rating system for articles.
Q: Speaking of security, Internet Explorer has had well-publicized holes ...
Gates: Understand those are cases where you are downloading third-party software.
Here how it goes.
If you never download, let say a third party web-browser like Mozilla's Firefox or Opera, you'd never realize how problematic Internet Explorer is.
So it is us, the consumer, who are to blame for downloading those third party softwares. Especially the ones that make IE look so horribble.
See the quote: "More has been invested in making IE secure than any browser on the planet by a long shot. Nothing is going to change."
Money is no replacement for clue.
The purpose of Internet Explorer is to download third party files (by viewing Web pages). Mr Gates's claim that vulnerabilites exist because of such downloads is therefore nonsensical; it's like saying we could end deaths due to automobile accidents by banning automobiles. Yeah, there's a certain logic to that, but it sort of misses the point. To take a recent, ongoing example: A malevolent Web page can use an image file to compromise a Windows system. This vulnerability is not created by users who have somehow previously contaiminated the local environment; it's a part of the system's design. The OS was originally built to offer features over security, and maintaining backward compatability rather than fixing those issues would make it more difficult to coax existing users into upgrading (and would also make it easier for existing users to consider alternatives rather than upgrading). I lost two years of my life covering the antitrust trial, listening to this guy and his minions cheerfully perjure themselves, and he just can't seem to stop making it up.
it's hard to imagine that anyone with half a brain could unintentionally write code so buggy and insecure, especially if they're getting six figures & sponsered by a multi-billion dollar company. i admit that the popularity of windows makes it a bigger target, but that same popularity is what gives them the $$ to hire a half-decent staff & do good r&d and is the prime reason to design with security in mind. apparently they haven't done much of either. even their security patches have security flaws. when was the last time they distributed a patch that wasn't vulnerable to attack or buggy and didn't require another patch to fix it? i've never patched anything in linux with the same disasterous results. if the people who do it for free can do it faster, with better performance, better security and no capital, why can't m$?
You need to see a shrink. You are SO in denial mode. Take it from your users, not your PR cronies, IE is broke, always has been broke, always will be broke. Firefox is great ( but there are still some problems with it) and it will get better. But I doubt if it will ever get a big following. Bill has us by the cojones. We know it, He knows it. Thats why he can lie, lie, and lie some more. Thats it, Bill, blame your users. Just once, I would like for M$ to admit fault. I can dream, right?
"I'm John Kerry, and I approved this plagiarism".
First of all, you are a business, so you want to make money. Your target is average Joe NoClue. What is gonna get the attention of Joe NoClue? Features, a whole friggin lot of features. He's not a sysadmin. He's not a freaking security expert. And he certainly doesn't care about thing he doesn't see, like security. You might say that Joe NoClue doesn't like having his computer hijacked. Well he still doesn't have a clue about this. So this is not a problem. Problem arise when Joe NoClue loses some precious data. This is what's important as far as security goes.
...
So let's assume that your product will sell because of it's features, security isn't that much of an isue (Joe isn't going to know about those big gaping security holes, when the product will be at the middle of it's usefull life, then Joe might notice, but not before.)
If you consider this as your view of software and OS, I don't see what Microsoft has wrong. Of course thay have some version for sysadmin, but before being sysadmin, a lot of them have been user... on Windows system. If they didn't touch any other thing, they might try and use some version of Microsoft's server don't you think?
Anyway, the only thing i'm trying to say is that a lot of people, at some point in time, began thinking that Microsoft's main market is not common Joe Dumass. And then these people started expecting thing from Microsoft.
"Microsoft machines are poluting the Internet"
Well, yes, corporation don't care about polution, it cost way more to make something the clean way rather than pullution like a dumass.
Stop expecting secure systems from Microsoft. As long as Joe IDontCare doesn't know about security, he's still gonna be using Microsoft products. If you want to help make Microsoft systems more secure, start educating people around you about the need for secure system and the polution on the Internet.
You'll basically get the same response from people as if it where about nature and other kind of pollution.
People won't care until it's gonna be a problem.
Anyone if free not to share my opinion, but I beleive it's an environement problem. And Microsoft is only going with what people are freaking asking for.
Microsoft is in it for the money.
Features sell beter than security.
Is it that complicated?
But don't you realize that it's because MS being idiots about this that most of us here have jobs? (Or had, if you've moved beyond the hell of tech support.) Yes, crappy jobs that involve cleaning out crap from computers everyday. But imagine if there WAS a good built in virus/spyware scanner in Windows that automatically fixes systems--imagine if Windows had no holes/problems and fixed itself. Who would need tech support then?
read the bunni comic
So Windows Media Centre is going to allow you to navigat your media files in "a very rich way". And Longhorn and MSN search are going to provide a "very rich search" on the desktop. What exactly does this mean?
Are we going to all get gout from using Windows in the future?
It doesn't really help if you don't provide what site statistics those are from... if those are the figures for mozilla.org then I'd say IE is doing very well, but if that's something like msn.com then obviously it's a different story.
Blame it on the user.
Again.
As usual.
As always.
Microsoft and especially Mr. Gates have both blamed the user for DOS and windows bugs, et cetera, ad nauseum, since the beginning.
It's one of the things that really encouraged me to dump windows. Being told personally, to one's face, by Microsoft and Mr. Gates that the problems with DOS and windows is my fault made it very easy to walk away from the huge investment in microsoft stuff.
Since the user is at fault, the user can fix it--like I did: dump microsoft.
Seriously... It's impossible to have an OS without a browser built in, but it's also impossible to build in virus protection.
Or hey, here's a novel idea... maybe make your OS secure enough that you might actually have a choice whether or not you want to drop X amount of dollars on a 3rd party virus scanning app.
My god. The people at Microsoft can be so completely dense sometimes.
This is a classic example of how humans are.. Microsoft give us alot (in vulnerabilities) that cant be exploited until the user downloads a file. So its not the browser thats at fault its the user...
This is just like the pinto.. the car wasnt going to blow up unless the other driver was crap.
It is kind of a catch 22. If Windows had built in anti-virus software no one would buy 3rd party anti-virus software and Microsoft would gain a monopoly in the market. They would get their asses sued and everyone would complain that they have a monopoly or they have created an unfair environment. We've seen it before. If Windows doesn't have built in anti-virus software everyone complains they don't.
And even if Windows did have built in anti-virus software, can you honestly tell me, given their track record, that you would feel secure with it? If everyone used Windows built in anti-virus software wouldn't it be just that much easier to exploit and cause even more damage.
Simply put - the "maintenance" that we refer to with software, and that's being compared to cars above is in fact no such thing. Every patch and update that's issued is to correct a _mistake_ in the software - not something that gradually failed because of wear. Cars need regular maintaining because they're physical objects in a physical environment and the stresses and imperfections of that environment cause real physical damage that needs to be repaired. Software "maintenance" is actually incremental development - it's correct mistakes that are in the original.
All that said, software (at least most of it) is far, far more complex than your typical car, and has had far less time to mature. The physical limits that a car operates in are well defined and well understood, and the vehicles are designed with that in mind. There are well known and well understood physical requirements and those requirements are easily tested. Software lives in a very different environment with a very different level of contstraint and a very different level of user expectation.
Software with modern complexity will always have defects. Accepting that fact, and designing for failure tolerance, is the kind of wisdom that has steadily improved automobile safety despite heavier use under less anticipated conditions by many more people. Software is no different, unless you have the magic to reduce software design and implementation errors to nothing.
--
make install -not war
I will never understand. If a grocery store so as much hires someone *unlikeable* to work the cash registers, they lose customers. likewise with vehicle manufacturers. If a bad car is designed, it is branded a lemon, and is treated as such by all consumer reporting websites/newsletters.
So why Bill Gates is still in buisness after making such a comment: "Understand those are cases where you are downloading third-party software" it makes my eys roll. Why is the customer always right? because only the customer knows what he or she wants. If the customer wants a good solid car, they are going to buy a good solid car from *insert favorite car manufacturer here*. So why people put up with this slander from the biggest man in Microsoft is beyond me.
Personally, i think i run a very tight ship. I dont need antivirus, and a nice firewall is all that stands between me and the next script-kiddie on the block. Problems i've ever had are related to IE and poor OS performance.
Because i will shortly be entering my era of University in 2005, my thoughs turn to my financial future. I will not be able to afford a new computer, much less new games/new MS OS. When the time comes when i can no longer play games on my current setup, windows will have no further place on my computer.
*Deep Breath* - Thank you for your time.
You are confusing me with someone who cares.
Understand those are cases where you are downloading third-party software.
True, that. Now the point is that you're downloading this "third-party software", aka virus, trojan horse or spyware, even though you never wanted to.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Put differently,how does microsoft.com manage to be stable?
Why does yahoo do this
Last Q/A in the article:
Q: There is talk of a Google browser. Internet Explorer has had its security woes. How do you keep users?
Gates: More has been invested in making IE secure than any browser on the planet by a long shot. Nothing is going to change. That's the one over 90% of people are going to keep using.
[Italics and bolded sentence my own markup]
So let me get this straight, Mr. Gates. You have thousands of people working just on Internet Explorer, and yet...a thousand or two thousand people working on Mozilla have bested you?
Nothing is going to change, indeed, Mr. Gates. You're going to keep spewing the same old story, ignoring obvious holes in your own logic (third-party software is to blame for all security problems, true...but that doesn't mean your software should allow third-party software to install itself without the user doing a thing), denying any obvious falsehoods in your own statements (" We feel like we are pioneering an experience that to us is a clear thing most households will want." - Gates, regarding Windows Media Center PCs...I'm sorry, I didn't know you pioneered multicasting from a set-top box...I presume Linksys is paying you licensing fees for their video broadcast device, to name one alternative?), and hoping people will be stupid enough to follow it.
The saddest part of the above discourse is, Gates is probably right. People are, until told otherwise, going to keep using bug-ridden products, until they are shown that there are alternatives...I know many users who have never clicked Windows Update in their lives, and not because they've never used Windows.
I could be wrong, but I'm sensing a downward spiral, when M$ can announce things such as they did in their article, and not get negative feedback from the interviewer. Just my $0.05.
It's only an insult if it's not true.
Our children are being indoctrinated from a very early age to believe what authority figures (parents, teachers, the tv, etc.) tell them. Should we be surprised when a concept ingrained for 10+ years during the most formative childhood years translates to an easily misled populace?
Do not believe anyone. Do not believe politicians, scientists, priests, your parents, the police, and please don't believe the mass media.
Teach your children to think, not believe.
Q.
Insert Signature Here
Downloading third-party software is exactly what gets people into trouble with Windows... especially when IE holes cause them to do so unknowingly!
They have flaws in the first place because debugging an operating system is pretty difficult
;)
IIRC, the article is about the problems in IE, which should be just a normal user-space application. I don't know how tightly they integrated their IE into the ring-0 kernel space, though
"What's this thing you wanted me to install, son? Uhm ... anti-virus, it said, I think? Is that safe? I mean, I heard Bill Gates on the TV the other night saying that the reason thing go wrong with peoples' computers... it's all because of third party software. Nice guy, that Gates. Good mind for business.
... I have something I want you to check out when you're down at mine. There's this window that keeps popping up in the middle of my screen, telling me that my Internet is slow. It's been doing it for about a year and I keep closing it, but I got to wondering - d'you think it's right? I mean, when I use my Internet Explorer at work it's a lot faster. The little picture in the top right is different, too. Does that have anything to do with it?
"What was I saying? Oh, yeah. Third party software. I dunno. My computer's running pretty slow at the moment, ever since you came over a few months ago and installed all that stuff for me. What was it, Thunderfox or something?
"I remember you tried to show me how to use it, but I prefer that Outlook program. Doesn't try and stop me doing what I want to do, make all the images in my emails broken and stuff like that.
"D'you think that that's why my computer's slow? After all, that Gates guy was saying that third party software's what makes 'em go bad. Are you sure that stuff you installed was safe? I mean, I've heard there are a lot of viruses going around on the World Wide Web...
"Maybe you better just keep this anti-virus software, and take that Thunderfox thing off my machine, and see if it speeds up any. I'll just stick to Microsoft stuff, that should be safe enough.
"Besides, I don't think I need anti-virus stuff, really. My doctor always tells me to get a flu jag, and I ignore him. Hate needles. But I've not been ill for twenty years and I'm not intending to be ill any time soon. I don't go out in the rain without a scarf on, I cover my mouth when I'm sitting on a train next to a guy who's coughing and sneezing away. Sensible, see?
"It's like that with the computer. I don't use the Internet Explorer much - mostly I just use the computer for email and typing up letters and stuff. And I've never been on this World Wide Web thing - I remember a guy at work saying that you could get a lot of viruses off this Web, so I stayed away from it. So I'm pretty safe, right?
"Anyway, I'll see you next week. Oh, and hey, while you're at it
"Yeah, anyway, see you next week. Sure, I'll say hi to your Mom for you. Alright, bye."
That is a obvious lie. If your are installing Windows and your computer is connected to internet (so you can download service packs etc.), it is not even possible to finish the installation without getting Sasser and various other security exploits. And this is while finishing Windows installation a lot sooner than any third-party software installation.
Q: Speaking of security, Internet Explorer has had well-publicized holes...
Gates: Understand those are cases where you are downloading third-party software.
What is implied by these comments:
Fear:
Trusting "third-party software" will get you rooted. Only use official Microsoft software.
Uncertainty:
Perhaps we have been being lied to by all the reports about how vulnerable IE is, nevermind that IE may not give you a choice or even let you know that your system has downloaded and installed third-party software (spyware/viruses). I think it is safe to say that IS an IE bug regardless of what your definition of "is" is.
Doubt:
According to Bill, you probably shouldn't trust those comments from CERT and the like about using, say Firefox or Opera, because it is all caused by other people's software.
*Bill waves hand*
Microsoft software is not vulnerable, only third-party viruses are.
Yeah, you can get away with running some applications using the "RunAs" command, but that is nowhere near as powerful or as capable as the much older *nix version of that.
Seriously though, out of the millions of people that use computers running Windows, very few of those people are even aware different levels of access to the PC and a smaller number of those folk understand that there is a utility in MS Windows called "RunAs".
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
At least twice a year Microsoft comes out with another security patch to try and block the latest holes in IE, without changing the underlying design flaws that make the explouts possible. Shortly afterwards, another hole surfaces. Everyone with a passing understanding of the 20th Century knows the expression "generals are always prepared to fight the last war": assuming the lessons learned in the last war are all that is needed to prepare them for the next. The classic example is france preparing for trench warfare all over again, caught unprepared for the German Blitzkreig.
Microsoft doesn't do that well. They're forever preparing for the first war all over again, never learning the lesson they're faced with after every new exploit.
The problem is that Microsoft is trying to use discretionary access control to implement a design that requires mandatory access control. In an environment with mandatory access control, every object (document, program, web page, email message) in the OS has its security level bound to it in such a way that an application displaying that object can have no more rights than the least secure object it has accessed. The only way to raise the security level of an object is through a trusted component that has explicitly been granted the rights to do so.
Their "security zones" can't be depended on unless the whole operating system and all applications operate on this basis. If they're not going to create a compartmentalised Windows AND make it the default configuration (and wouldn't people scream at that!), the only place they can create these compartments, these internal layers of sandboxes, is by having the applications themselves handle their own sandboxing. Remove the responsibility for trust management and remote access from the HTML control and let it merely render HTML. If the document displayed wants to access an image or stylesheet or script, run a script or a plugin or embedded component, let it ask the application for it, and let the application decide if the request should go through. Internet Explorer would let it fetch remote documents, but not run scripts or applets that weren't sandboxed, nor pass URLs or files to applications that aren't prepared to enforce the same level of mistrust. Windows Explorer wouldn't display remote documents at all. Outlook would be even more restrictive. And IE wouldn't blithely pass files to arbitrary desktop applications to open.
You can't do this by having the HTML control guess, no matter how good a guess it can make, because it's not in a position where it can actually know what rights the document should have. Only the application does.
Split the HTML control down the middle like this, and restrict IE to only running fully sandboxed applets and scripts, and there would be very little change in the user's experience. About the only thing they'd notice is that Windows Update would have to become a separate program instead of an ActiveX plugin (and likely run faster), and a few applications would need updates because they were doing dangerous things. There would be an enormous improvement in security, though, and Microsoft could quit wasting time on fixing the unfixable and get around to working on the NEXT war instead.
Q: Speaking of security, Internet Explorer has had well-publicized holes ...
Gates: Understand those are cases where you are downloading third-party software.
This is just a lie. I wonder if he really belives this bullshit.
Q: Might you add anti-virus/spyware protection in Windows?
Gates: It's not a thing you build in. You have to offer a service. There are third parties who are doing a good job. We're always taking a hard look, but we don't have any concrete plans.
And here you can see that the whole attitude towards the security is weird at M$. I mean I don't want Anti-Virus or Anti-Spyware Software from Microsoft. I want the structural problems of Windows solved.
If you start MacOS X the root user is disabled per default. That is why Spyware doesn't have a chance. Even the most stupid user will think twice if he has to enter his system-password if he installs Software. Same with Linux. The whole Spyware-thing would be much much less trouble if the default install of Windows would create a user account.
And Windows has these capabilities. But at the moment this feature ist pretty much unusable because most of the software vendors don't give a shit about multi-user install. And why do they do this? Because M$ creates a default Admin-Account anyway. If M$ would change that, the software-vendors would adapt very quickly, like they did with SP2.
Same with Firewall: First install zillions of services which most of the users don't need at all. And instead of swichting these services off per default, you create a Firewall to fix it.
It's the whole "If we have to decide between usability and security, we will always go for usability" approach that bothers me...
Why isn't there a checkbox for "never trust Microsoft"?
Until enough studies came out showing how dangerous cars were (things like the steering column being a spear aimed at your chest) and the public started to get aware and goverment was starting to take action ONLY then and very slowly did the car industry do something.
Why the hell would we want the government involved? It's not their job to make your PC protect itself. If consumers want those protections, they should use their buying power to initiate change. We all know that there are more operating systems out there that are more secure. If you want that security, fix it yourself. Take some responsibility.
And how do you propose several hundred million people get their news, and know its 'fact'?
Reember they have lives, and that they dont live anywhere near the records, which are often kept from the average citizen anyway. ( perhaps not techincally restricted, but the artifical barriers that have been erected serve the same net result )
And btw, the same goes for your totally OT statement about Senator Kerry, appears you dont know diddly either.. Start reading his public voting records and then compare them to what he says.
It should be easy, he tended not to show for work too often.
Or just listen to televised debates, and actually listen to what he says from sentence to sentence.
Where did you get your 'facts', from another biased news service i bet?
( and no, i dont claim his main opponent is any better.. before you go blame me of being biased )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Q: Might you add anti-virus/spyware protection in Windows?
Gates: It's not a thing you build in. You have to offer a service.
Imagine if automakers charged to offer seatbelts and brakes as a service.
Isn't windows supposed to work with 3rd party party apps? If so, then msft can't excuse msie security flaws because users dared to use a 3rd party app.
what is soo funny about this?
he's telling the truth!
they provide a common API for all viruses and worms to be compatible with.
"More has been invested in making IE secure than any browser on the planet by a long shot. Nothing is going to change"
I am not surprised at all from the above statement. After all, IE has the biggest security problems, so it is natural that IE had the biggest expenses in making it secure.
A better example would be of a home builder saying, there's nothing wrong with your roof, it's the rain causing the leak!
- dj
The plural of "anecdote" is not data!
.
Even though you acknowledge the overall statistics, you then rely on one person's experiences for choosing not to wear a seatbelt in many circumstances to overrule the statistics.
To see why this is crazy, imagine asking a 1000 people all across the country to toss (fair and balanced) coins. Ask the 500 or so people who get heads to toss again. Ask the 250 or so people who get heads that time to toss again. And so on, through 125, 62, 31, 15, 7, 3, till you're left with 1 person. Now this 1 person has tossed a coin 10 times and it's come up heads every time! [1]
Now if you didn't know much about coin tossing, except a statistic that said they come up tails about 50% of the time, and you only knew that one person, should you believe her if she says "Well, the statistics say tails comes up 50% of the time, but from what I've seen, it's heads all the way!"?
Unless you know of a broad survery of many accident investigators who detect a tendancy for low-speed or low-traffic density accident injuries to be increased in either number or severity because of seat belts, then you must take what you're hearing with a hefty grain of salt, even if what they are saying is 100% true[2]. (By the way, I fail to see the difference in between accidently wrapping oneself around a telephone pole on a busy road vs. a quiet road.)
Don't forget there's an obvious potentail for observer's bias here too: you're not seeing his formal reports, but just the stories he's choosing to share with you in an environment which encourages entertaining conversation, not neccessarily statistically accurate conversation.
In the absence of such of survey, perhaps the best thing is to consider the failure mode you're really concerened about: it's not that wearing a seat belt is bad during the accident, but that you may be trapped afterwards. Put a box cutter or similar within reach, say in the door drawer. If you can't operate the cutter because of unconsciousness or severe injury, well, in your condition, you weren't getting of that car anyway
[1] There's actually a well known stock-market scam which operates in very much this fashion.
[2] The furor over silicone breast implants is another good example: a lot of women honestly reported problems after breast implants, but when all was said and done, their problems were coincidental.
"Just once, I'd like to meet an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets." -- The Brigadier, Dr. Who
My Linux box is "targetted" as frequently as any Windows box.
Of course, since most of those attempts are from compromised Windows boxes, looking for other unsecured Windows boxes, the attacks don't get very far.
It just that the overwhelming majority of compromised machines are Windows machines that are now looking for other Windows machines.
"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it." -- Dan Quayle
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Is it MS fault that a 3rd party app needs admin to run? Install yes but run? I would say so if all applications needed that permission. Lay the blame where it is deserved. The application developer not Microsoft (for once).
I thought some USB drives had a "lock" switch that prevented writing. That seems infallible.
The basic idea is a really good one. It adds anothe rlayer of defense, as how many spyware and virii REALLY are going to try and write to mozilla.exe?
People should make more of a distinction between what is possible and the reality of what is around now. A number of people act like because you COULD write spyware for OS X or Linux, that there's no point in switching - when the reality is Windows is the only system you have to deal with that crap right now and it will probably be years before anything hits the other systems.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley