Microsoft Says "War on Terror" is Overblown

SlinkySausage writes "The endless security measures imposed on society as a result of the "war on terror" have become overblown and intrusive, according to Microsoft Redmond senior security analyst Steve Riley. He made the comments in a talk at day one of Tech.Ed Australia about software security. Riley also fessed up that Microsoft cocked up XP from a security perspective. "We let you down with XP," he said. Microsoft also showed a very interesting new desktop virtualisation technology called SoftGrid, which allows applications to be virtualised individually, rather than a whole OS. Think Virtual PC or VMware, but instead of virtualising an OS, just a single application is virtualised."

Comments

Riley is smart, and VERY entertaining.

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Too bad you have to read him - not see him in person.

Oh, and a pity he makes the fron page at Slashdot for stating the obvious!

WINE, Anyone?

[ArcherB]

Microsoft also showed a very interesting new desktop virtualisation technology called SoftGrid, which allows applications to be virtualised individually, rather than a whole OS. Think Virtual PC or VMware, but instead of virtualising an OS, just a single application is virtualised." I remember when it was called WINE!

Re:It's not terrorism that threatens it

[telbij]

Okay, I can't speak for Britain, but come on man, have some faith in your own culture. The only thing preventing first-generation immigrants is nostalgia, if they're old enough. However the younger generation will easily be indoctrinated into the culture quite rapidly. Especially western culture which has already proven powerful enough to invade the whole world. You know, previous generations of immigrants did not magically integrate. It takes time, but it's inevitable. Sure the old culture is subtly changed over time by this influx, but it's a good thing. Do you really want to inbreed yourselves until your eyes are all half an inch apart and your culture is as flavorless as the food you eat?

What's the big security problem with XP?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Riley also fessed up that Microsoft cocked up XP from a security perspective. "We let you down with XP," he said.

What's the big security problem with XP? It installed by default with a firewall that denied inbound connections. It allowed people to easily give the kids and the wife non-admin access to a shared system. It automatically tells me when new security patches are available from Microsoft, and it always installs them without incident. It even complains (through a tray icon) when my virus-checker's images were getting out of date. I've been running the same XP system on my laptop now for about three years; I haven't had any spyware, viruses or worms yet, and the system still boots as fast as the day I got it. So...what's the beef with security?

Re:I'm still curious...

[Dystopian Rebel]

Now, understand - there is always someone inconvenienced. I'm not talking about a perfect system. I'm literally asking, does the average American (or Brit, etc.) really feel that they've lost something specific?

Sir, I suspect that one of the reasons why you don't hear an answer is that some of your interlocutors are frozen in disbelief.

Although the USA may try valiantly, not everyone who displeases the government can be incarcerated. People think Guantanamo is bad; the US prison system is a systemic Guantanamo fit to burst with the highest percentage of incarceration in the world.

Do all the people who are not incarcerated have any reason to be concerned? If the government is above the law and there is no law to protect them, the only protection they have is their sleepy ignorance of their vulnerability.

You would call their sleepy ignorance proof that they have no cause for worry. Coincidentally, there's a group of men in the White House who agree with you.

Re:What's smart about a false choice?

[Thrip]

With real user and process separation Also available on Windows. I cry bullshit on that. I used to hear for a long time "So many people say Windows is insecure, but they run as Administrator all the time. They should run as an unprivileged user." And that sounded reasonable, so I pretty much believed it. So the next time I had to use Windows, I made an unprivileged account, and discovered that the restrictions placed on unprivileged users are so arbitrary and absurd that it's essentially impossible to work that way. You can't even change your own file associations. I had to keep logging in and out of my user and admin accounts all day to get anything done.

Maybe things have improved in Vista, but the user separation on Windows XP seems to be designed to drive you insane.

Re:No, OP is correct

[Grishnakh]

I call BS on this.

First, print drivers have no reason to be kernel-mode. None whatsoever. Printers are either connected through ethernet (the proper way), or USB (the cheap way). Either way, there's no reason for kernel-mode drivers; user-mode drivers can do all the work of formatting the data to be sent to the device. Notice that in Linux, all printer drivers are user-mode, and are usually actually called "filters", since they're just changing the data, not directly interacting with low-level hardware. Usually, all that needs to be done is convert the file to Postscript or PCL or some other printer control language.

However, the norm on Linux systems is that root sets up printers and printer drivers, because it's easier that way and makes more sense: the printer is a system-connected device, not one which each user should have to set up himself. So root sets up the printer with CUPS, and then users just have to select it and print to it.

As for file associations, there's no reason for this to be inaccessible by users. If I want to open .jpg images with "mirage" instead of "kview" by default, why should I not be able to set that? This is an issue purely about user preferences, just like what I want my screen saver and desktop background to be. How would "security vulnerabilities" have anything to do with this?

Re:Choose "cry".

[Pragmatix]

I always wonder what we could have done with the hundreds of billions of dollars we have spent fighting in Iraq, if instead we spent it on alternative energy research. It always seemed like a better long term strategy to me.