Microsoft Bypasses HOSTS File

whitehatlurker writes "Dave Korn announced on the Full Disclosure and Bugtraq security lists that Microsoft is bypassing local lookups for some hosts, meaning that you can't locally block some sites through your HOSTS file. All of these sites are MicroSoft controlled sites. The general feeling in the rest of the thread is that this was to obfuscate these hosts and prevent them from being blocked by malware. However, there are no non-MicroSoft hosts listed, giving a competitive advantage for MicroSoft's anti-malware tools over other brands."

Comments

WHY?

[dud83]

Do people CAPITALIZE the hosts file? I can't remember it being capitalized on any system that I've used. On WINDOWS it doesn't even matter about capitalization, and on both FreeBSD and Linux it is in all lower caps... WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN??!

Goodbye, Microsoft

[Progman3K]

People are tired of being treated as stupid by you Microsoft.
You subvert their trust doing things like that.
On top of it, you do it quietly, hoping no one will catch on.
My computer is supposed to perform MY bidding, Microsoft, not yours.
Goodbye, Microsoft. I can't trust you, and I can't see any difference between you and the bad guys anymore.