Slashdot Mirror
Windows Vista still Rife with Insecure Code
osxpetition writes "As noted in a News.com article, Symantec researchers have been testing the latest Microsoft Windows Vista build (Beta 2), and have found that the code is 'complete with new corner cases and defects' in the networking component. Symantec describes how Microsoft scrapped the old networking stack code from Windows XP in favour of newer, rewritten code. 'Microsoft has removed a large body of tried and tested code and replaced it with freshly written code.' Since January 2002, Microsoft has put a stronger emphasis on protecting PCs by attempting to implement stable, secure code into Windows XP and their new operating system. This latest report from Symantec brings attention to Microsoft's trustworthy computing campaign, and shows how it will be a long way before it is ready for the mainstream."
It is still beta, right?
The opposite of progress is congress
have a solution that will "protect" you.
I would like to know If the so-called shatter attack still works in Vista. If it does, no amount of privilege limitation can help you.
Global warming is a cube.
Marketing deadlines always trumps everything else, except for OpenBSD and maybe Linux kernels. Curiously, both have dominant but benevolent personalities in charge......
This may not be a bad thing.
I am much happier with well laid out, structured and simple code that has X rate of defects than well polished over the years, old, cruddy and complex with X rate of defects because with the former:
Fixes will be faster.
Fixes will be easier/cheaper.
Fixes will be possible!
Bug fixes will have less chance of introducing new bugs.
Given time we can then be sure that we will end up with... err well polished over the years, old, cruddy and complex. But it probably won't be as bad as if the process never happened in the first place.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
So they're saying that beta software still has bugs in it?
I don't think its particuarly fair to be making these public accusations at this time. I'm sure the developers appreciate the testing, but an article to CNET seems a little too much
OK, so Symantec makes money selling products that patch up problems with Windows OSes. Microsoft trying to put them out of a job. I'm not saying Vista is really achieving this goal, but what sort of report did you expect from Symantec? "Wow, this Vista really makes our products unnecssary"!
FUD. At least they learned Microsoft's greatest marketing strategy.
-Ryan C.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
Isn't it to Semantecs best interest to generate demand for their product by creating uncertainty when it comes to OS security. They did this to linux too...
Granted Microsoft may be using new code, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's more insecure than the current network stack.
Let's see what the non-beta software looks like, and see what a independent lab reports.
Bill
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
You beat me to it. Absolutely true. Just about any extremely popular piece of software will never be completely secure, especially if it is from Microsoft. To be fair, however, the new networking code has not had any attacks yet, and should momentarily (long enough for the PR machine to take advantage of it) benefit from security though obscurity as hackers scramble to find its holes.
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
I'm thinking Symantec is feeling the heat from Windows defender. Once people have that, a large number of people will probably be too unconcerned or too lazy to bother installing a different virus program. Symantec cannot be trusted for a neutral veiw (NPOV comes to mind).
Before you die, you see DoubleRing...
Jeez man, paranoid much? You really think Microsoft could care less about most of these countries? They won't respect their court rulings, but they allow not just one, but multiple, back doors to be programmed in? And why would they do that? What is Microsoft getting out of the deal?
DA GUBBERMINT WANTS MAH TEEFS!!! RUUUN!
Remember kids, tin foil doesn't work, so use LeadHat.
Ok, I run a network in education, but I can imagine Network Mangers banging their heads into walls already. I think I've got my network locked down enough to cover most of the bases, but seriously, can anyone really say they are looking forward to rolling out Vista across an entire network? I understand network / computer security companies have a vested interest in showing there is a need for their product, but they are not the only ones suggesting Vista is going to be a nightmare.
> hey won't respect their court rulings, but they allow not just one, but
> multiple, back doors to be programmed in? And why would they do that? What
> is Microsoft getting out of the deal?
(dons tinfoil hat)
A free ride on the court rulings?
They've been too busy with cool stuff.
This isn't Beta code, this is a public beta, the current name for what was originally called "Gamma". Aka, the stuff right before release.
This isn't a problem if the problem you find is a minor thing where if you click on a button it crashes only if you have a ATI card that was made in June 2005.
This is a problem if the majority of code, that has been rewritten from near scratch has major flaws that would take another full rewrite to get rid of (or years of critical updates). Vista is supposed to be the reinvention of Microsoft security, however this isn't secure. This isn't a "we're still adding features" problem this is a critical flaw at the core of the system.
You idiot. You do not rewrite a whole networking stack in the time between beta and release. The whole "it's only beta!" excuse only holds up for fixing trivial mistakes, not poor design concepts.
Please THINK before you post.
To be fair, the original design of NT networking was focused on IPX and NetBEUI. The bandwidth was 10 Mbit. If you routed in several steps, you didn't expect minimal latencies. You were also supposed to kind of trust the traffic on the network (no SYN attacks or stuff like that.) IPv6 on current Windows versions still has "it will kind of work" status. You don't start with MS-DOS and end up with XP. You end up with Me. Rewriting something because the old version is broken is highly unwise. Rewriting something because the old version is unappropriate for what you currently use it for might make sense. I remember the JWZ article and he talks about all the hidden assumptions you've found through hard work and how those are an essential value in the current codebase. If enough of those assumptions are not true anymore, it can make sense to rewrite something.
My critical thinking skills tell me that this is a false analogy because the government has no incentive to make automobile manufacturers issue recalls, and really the attorneys and enforcement and regulations involved would make this nothing but an expense for the government. When consumer protection laws are enforced, the governmental officials involved can at least claim that they are doing this to benefit the public, even when doing so does further someone's personal agenda.
The situation as described by the A.C. is where the government requires backdoors so that its own governmental snoops (law enforcement and possibly more shady, less accountable organizations) can easily access systems that would otherwise be difficult to access due to security protections. This directly benefits the government because it makes their legitimate law enforcement job easier and it also makes less legitimate ventures (potential data mining, eavesdropping, etc) much easier and has the nice side-effect of eliminating some of the need to do old-fashioned police work. This scenario certainly does not benefit the users of Microsoft software and so the intent shown is nothing like your analogy. If this is actually happening, then this is a very dangerous precedent for two reasons: One, if the government can use such a backdoor, so can anyone else who learns of it; two, the job of law enforcement was not intended to be easy and efforts to make it an easy job immediately preceded the rise of most totalitarian states that existed during the 20th century (at the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, Nazi Germany and the USSR did not take place due to powerless and ill-informed police forces).
Further, when speaking about Windows you are dealing with proprietary, closed-source software. You and I simply do not know with 100% certainty whether or not there actually is such a backdoor in any of the Windows code, nor do we know what agreements Microsoft has made with which governments. What you can know is that we are in an era where privacy is on the decline and law enforcement powers are increasing, and being able to easily access over 90% of all desktop computer systems does fit the stated purpose of programs that we do know about, such as the NSA wiretap program. To say that we already know about every possible threat to privacy and that the statists who desire this kind of surveillance are now satisfied and will not be seeking further powers is a lofty claim indeed. Study history and you will observe that the USA has a bad case of "it can't happen here" regarding foreseeable abuses of power.
Also, unmotivated programmers and undocumented backdoors are not mutually exclusive. It is possible that they both contribute to the sad state of security in Microsoft's code. It is also possible that neither are true and that some third factor (such as program design being dominated by marketing and forcing otherwise good programmers to work within these parameters) can explain the lack of security. But to observe that the possible existence of unmotived programmers could explain the situation and then claim that this is a valid reason to dismiss other arguments out-of-hand does not fit the spirit of critical thinking that you mentioned earlier.
But it does indicate that maybe, just maybe, you live in the USA and are in denial about the direction towards which it is headed.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
I think the early 2007 one is going to be some sort of "Vista ME" to business customers they're now saying Q4 2007, which is I guess when the non-beta will be sold to the public.
Never buy a 1.0 product from Microsoft.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
So, point me to the place in the article which says something is still rife with insecure code?
Well, of course, there'll be securite holes in Vista too, like most other OS's, but I'm not sure that's what the article means? It seems someone somewhere have come to the conclusion that there are still major problems with it and I just, darned as much as I try, can't find the place in the article.
It seems to me Symantec only speculates, as Vista will have a new network stack?
But then, Symantec themselves say:
So, which is it, and is the article just spun like this on Slashdot because it's Slashdot?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
The discussion is about security kid, we all know that MSV is going to be shinny, have new colorful icons and have a nice wallpaper.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.