Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Downplaying Recent DNS Vulnerability
Microsoft Watch writes "Microsoft downplays a recent DNS vulnerability in all Microsoft operating systems (XP, Vista, 2000, and 2003), claims Amit Klein, the security researcher who published the original vulnerability description (PDF) earlier this month. According to Klein, the description in Microsoft's Secure Windows Initiative blog entry is misleading, contains disinformation about the DNS transaction ID algorithm, and downplays the severity of the issue. Klein refutes Microsoft's claim that there is no way to reproduce the next transaction ID, given a series of observed transaction IDs. He shows that this is possible in his paper, which Microsoft had before publishing the SWI post, as well as on the series of data provided in the SWI blog itself."
damage control.
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Or rather than spending all that effort in trying to downplay it, they could just fix the vulnerability and stop all the would-be attackers in their tracks. Nah, that would make too much sense.
$DUDE finds vulnerability in $PRODUCT made by $VENDOR. /., lots of page hits, lots of add revenue, PROFIT!!
$DUDE claims this is really serious and should be fixed at once.
(optional) $DUDE does the Right Thing and tells $VENDOR about it so they can fix it before he goes public.
$VENDOR replies that $DUDE's claims are overblown.
Flamewar on
(optional, much later) $VENDOR quietly fixes $PRODUCT.