Slashdot Mirror
Vista Security Discussions Get a Rocky Start
narramissic writes "A technical glitch Thursday morning prevented many security vendors from participating in the first online discussion regarding Microsoft's plans for opening up the Vista kernel, ITworld reports. In a blog posting on the subject, Microsoft Senior Product Manager Stephen Toulouse wrote, 'We had a glitch where we sent out a messed up link. ... We're very sorry about that, it certainly was not intentional and we definitely see that was not a good thing for people to experience on such an important topic.'"
Phew! It was just an accident!
I left my wallet in El Sigundo!
Sending out messed up operating systems is also a glitch I take it?
'We had a glitch where we sent out a messed up link. ... We're very sorry about that, it certainly was not intentional and we definitely see that was not a good thing for people to experience on such an important topic.'
Was it a glitch, a bug or a feature? Inquiring minds want to know...
Yeah, well, it was a link to an IIS server.
Meta will eat itself
You mean like Steve Ballmer jogging along the beach, throwing sparring chairs at punching dolls while some 80s influenced background music accompanies his efforts to fucking kill everybody? Nice, really.
Microsoft employee sends an email with an incorrect URL in it! Collapse of Micrsoft predicted! End of the world is nigh! Extra, Extra, read all about it!
Slashdot has just sunk to a new low of pointlessness in their "articles". Urgh.
Symantec and Microsoft have a long history of a love/hate relationship and Microsoft has put more and more things into its operating system products that have closed entire markets for Symantec (and it's predecessors).
My blog
While it seems more a move to placate a rabid EU, this move is actually pretty good for all users.
First, not all users will get the APIs. In fact, only a tiny fraction of users, all of whom work at security and anti-virus companies, will get to see these opened APIs. Why then is it good news?
It's good because it brings into the fold those most able to spot security issues. Despite Microsoft's money and the experience of their top engineers, they all have tunnel-vision when it comes to Windows. And it's not hard to see why, after all, it's their baby. So even though they've got top security people working for them looking deeply into these issues, the very nature of those engineers' employment makes it difficult to see some of the problems that an outside observer would be able to spot easily.
By turning the baby over to the wolves, so to speak, Microsoft is getting Vista tested by the best testing teams around. The OSS motto is "more eyes makes all bugs shallow", I look forward to that same principle working well here.
To err is human.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Like it never happened to anybody!
This is beyond bashing, this is being anal.
Who thought of this? MS wants to keep kernel secret, then capitulates, and schedules conference with security vendors, then admits it screwed up and schedules another one for people to attend. A net meeting?!?! To discuss security of an OS?!?!?! Does this not set off flags in the minds of the security sector? I am sorry but if I want to discuss such sensitive things as OS kernel and API programming and how to avoid, detect and remove malicious apps from infecting the OS, I do this face-to-face with people that are screened, background checked, and sign NDA's specifying to whom they can talk to and consequences if they reveal anything proprietary to anyone w/out express written consent.
Perhaps I am anal that way, but come on, we're talking about an OS that will likely suceed the millions of Windows 98, 2000 and XP in the vast majority of homes and businesses across the planet!
Just another nameless binary in a crowd of 1's and 0's
Suggestions:
Reduce, reuse, cycle
Zune the security companies audio files of what they missed.
In Soviet Russia, dots slash you!
'We had a glitch where we sent out a messed up link. ... We're very sorry about that,
A source has informed up that the "messed up link" was in fact a link to tubgirl. Disciplinary action has been taken against the employee responsible. The project manager for Symantec was quoted as saying the experience was "educational", and he is likely never to click on that link again...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I certainly don't think this is a case of "accidentally-on-purpose." But I do think it is a symptom of a endemic problem in the PC industry, which is lack of attention to usability because computer people are intolerant of human fallibility. Even though they exhibit just as much human fallibility as anyone else, when they encounter a technical glitch they are reluctant to blame the design of the system.
Sure, "everyone has glitches from time to time," but when people at Microsoft can't get an important web meeting to work it suggests that there's something flawed about this "all-net-all-the-time" vision they've been touting for more than five years.
Computer technology reached a peak of usability in the early 1990s, when PC vendors still felt that they had to make things easy to use (and supply real support) in order to secure adoption. Once everyone was locked in--not so much to Microsoft, but to PC technology in general--usability was allowed to deteriorate.
The pretense that unreliable, hard-to-use unfinished technology is ready for release is so imbued into Microsoft's culture that Microsoft managers are evidently willing to use unreliable, hard-to-use, unfinished technology to conduct important Microsoft public business.
Stepto should _not_ blame "us" for the "glitch" and apologize. Instead, they should take a long hard look at what it was about the technology they were using that made it easy to "send out a messed-up link."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Thats their business model.
File this under 'off-topic rant'.
you know, I think a lot of companies in the world could do a lot better without their pr arms sometimes, and we'd do a whole lot better without reporters. MS is apologizing for a technical glitch here, but why the need for the public apology? I'm sure PR told them to do it and even wrote it. Whoever wanted to be in the meeting should just get a "uh yeah, sorry about that; we'll reschedule the sucker if we can't figure it out in a few minutes." Guess what, it happens! Then you'll get some idiot reporter who'll come around and open an article with "In an embarassing turn of events, no one could attend a seminal meeting about security in the upcoming Vista software release. Microsoft has apologized, but is it enough for the beleaguered software giant? Experts are thumbing there noses at the meager response, saying that it's an excuse to stall. MacAffee and Norton representatives (who spoke on condition of anonymity) were insensed. 'This is just another trick by MS to curtail our efforts to protect their customers. If this kind of stall tactic persists, we will have no choise but to pursue legal recourse.' MS representatives could not be reached for comment..." You get the point, it's not news, it's fabricated spin based on a technical glitch. I'm not gonna send out a press release when my phone's got no signal!
MS doesn't need to apologize for this, and it has nothing to do with Vista security (which I am not stating an opinion on, so don't call me out hehe). Apple doesn't need to blame MS for a Virus landing on the iPod. Sony doesn't need to continually baffle us with ridiculous statements about PS3 vs XBOX vs Wii. I swear, PR teams and patent lawyers suing and countersuing every day are just completely pointless, and the tech and business media is not reporting on any of it: it's a collection of "here's my opinion what's happening and of how this reflects poorly on the company involved" opinion editorials, there are no articles at all.
MS sent a bad link. It's not news, it's just unfortunate. The guy that did it will get a "nice one, dumbass" from his/her coworkers, just I like I would here if I did the same thing. I dunno. Hopefully you all see my point here.
[/end rant]
Doesn't sound like a messed up link. According to this dozens of users were kicked off the system. How does a messed up link cause them to login as 'presenters'?
.. Fifteen minutes into the much-anticipated briefing, dozens of the security companies were kicked off line and could not connect again
.. said .. participants signed on as presenters. "Which, if you've ever used Live Meeting, is an invitation to chaos".'
Microsoft finally called an online briefing
"There were problems with the audio and video. We could not get back on."
A Microsoft spokesman explained the crash was due to "technical problems" and an extra briefing would be set for Monday
'Alex Eckelberry
Did the users actually sign on as 'presenters' and how would this crash Live Meeting?
davecb5620@gmail.com
Funny you should bring this up. Apple does have a glaring typo in one of their dashboard wigets. The Dictionary/Thesaurus displays "dictionary thesauru" before it expands when you search for a word. The problem is 'thesauru" doesn't display an "s" at the end after expanding. Ummm...it's a dictionary widget, why not look the word up if you're having trouble spelling it?
News headline: God has changed the human being structure to not be susceptible to disease anymore. Antibiotic firms complain, consider it unfair competition.
(the point: if you're a parasite company that's living off anothers companies flaws, bugs and holes, don't complain about the cure)
You're taking me a bit literally and out of context, let me clarify. A world without the 'reporters' that I'm talking about would be good. We definitely need journalists, or people who legitimately report on world affairs in an unbiased neutral "here's what happened" form. We don't need tabloid media. Reading CNN's RSS vs CBC's is incredible (and the CBC is not the least biased medium out there either).
As for the congressman and pages, that thread follows my argument completely: A lot of the 'reports' you see about it are nothing but hearsay and spin (just what I expect from Fox News and / or CNN). A 'report' would be that the congressman in fact did this, the page is safe and sound, and that the republican party disapproves and are investigating while suspending the congressman's membership (hypothetical example). A 'report' is not speculation on what this will do to the Republican party's chances in terms of votes or what Dohickey McGregor thinks about the mother of the page putting him in harm's way or whatever other useless experts and theorists they dig up. That is a spin on the real story. Jon Stewart provides better impartial views and more honest analysis than the spinners do, and he is a self-professed gag-media outlet. "fake news."
The Iraq war falls into the same category: the media has us so confused with a constant barrage of "here's the real story," that nobody knows what to think. I don't even know if they know what they're saying in the first place! It's pretty much "if we say Bush is under fire and Iraq is difficult, we'll sell more ads."
This MS thing was not even news, that is my point about reporters and PR.