Slashdot Mirror
Trustworthy Computing
Anonymous Coward writes "This is a first: the Internet Storm Center is recommending trustworthy computing. They want you to trust that the unofficial patch for the Windows Metafile Volunerability that is currently being exploited by an IM worm. No patch from Microsoft at this time, and the exploit is arranged in such a manner that it cannot be detected by most intrusion detection systems (the snort rule will peg the CPU on your router) nor filtered by packet-inspecting firewalls (it spans two or more ethernet frames). Not really a whole lot of choice about this one."
As it says in the article, some people in the corporate world won't do it if the patch didn't come from MS. It's sad, really. If I had an exploitable machine around, I would trust their patch.
Plant a tree in a developing country.
Sometimes, I really start to think that security is so poor in commercial operating systems, because they want to use protection from all these exploits as the bait to get us into the "trusted computing" cage.
Trusted computing is a farce, because the one thing that *isn't* trusted, is the user.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
How many late nights, allnighters, and missed holidays have you experienced, thanks to things like ILOVEYOU and Slammer? How many times have you had to clean up the mess created by Microsoft's shitty, unsecure software?
Clearly Microsoft wasn't interested in calling people in over the holidays to whip up a patch for this critical vulnerability-- something that you could go in a couple hours early tomorrow and roll out to the PCs in your organization. They're going to let you suffer. And why should they care? They've already got the money of the company you work for. People are going to return from their holiday vacations tomorrow, load the wrong web page in IE, and get pwned. And you'll be left to clean up the mess. Again. Better pack an extra sandwich with your lunch tomorrow, because you probably won't be getting out at 5.
No flamebait intended, but that's a typical sensationalist misleading Slashdot headline. Noone's advocating "trusted computing" or similar initiatives here; all they do is saying "here's an unofficial fix, and we'd like to recommend even though it *is* unofficial, considering the seriousness of the vulnerability and also considering it was written by a reputable windows expert, namely Ilfak Guilfanov (author of IDA Pro)".
And for that matter, there's no mention of "the Snort rules will hog your router's CPU", either - that's total rubbish, probably made up by the article submitter. And it slipped, too, since the Slashdot "editors" never care to actually edit stories before they publish them.
Shame on you, Hemos!
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
..that if we all were running "trustworthy" computers, this problem would be much, much worse than it is now. Imagine that now instead of having a patch that's already been made by someone else while we sit and wait for Microsoft to get off their asses, we now have to wait on Microsoft, who still hasn't shown up.
Instead of having *some* machines patched, we'd have none. This late after the exploit has been released, and a zero-day attack has happened, we'd see no respite.
If you try to argue that Trustworthy computers wouldn't allow this to be exploited, what if the trustworthy compontent itself was exploited? As the Xbox and soon the Xbox 360 have shown, the more complex the hardware, the more complicated the bugs are. Microsoft's betting that the hardware complexity can outgrow the programmer's abilities to crack it, but if there's any truth in the world, it's that if it can be engineered, it can be destroyed. So imagine if this virus was actually signed by Microsoft through the exploit. How would this look for their company? How can you save face from a disaster like that?
No, trusted computers aren't the answer, just more secure computers, with better code. And the fact of the matter is, the more eyes that are on the code, the better it is, and that's why Open Source will always succeed. No amount of cryptography will help you if there's a hole in your crypto system.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush