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Microsoft Kills Windows Gadgets Via Security Update
benfrog writes "Microsoft has taken the unusual step of killing the Windows Gadgets feature completely via a security update. According to an advisory issued Tuesday, an attacker could take over a user's system if they are logged in as admin and they install a vulnerable gadget. Microsoft has pulled the plug on its official Gadgets Gallery and is offering a Fix-it that completely disables the Windows Sidebar and Gadgets. Researchers Mickey Shkatov and Toby Kohlenberg are scheduled to give a presentation on the vulnerability at the upcoming Black Hat conference called We Have You By the Gadgets."
You jest, but consider the possibility that Microsoft actually released an Operating System that WORKED, was rock-solid, had bullet-proof security, was small, tight, and fast, was highly customizable, configurable, did it's job quietly and kept the hell out of your way... and never needed to be patched because it had been designed to be secure and uncrashable from the ground up. Try to imagine such a world. How would Microsoft convince you to buy the next version of Windows? How would they keep you from pirating it, since once you got a copy, you could install it and be done with Microsoft for good and all.
These would both bode bleakly for the future of Microsoft, which is why despite having raked in untold billions of dollars, after decimating the software industry, NOT, I say again, NOT by creating a superior product at a lower price, (or higher value per unit price, more to the point,) but by dirty tricks, outright fraud, endless scheming, and the perpetration of lies about their competitors, their BETTERS, despite all the decades that passed since they swindled a Seattle software company out of a clone or port of an Operating System called CP/M, called by them QDOS, for quick-and-dirty operating system... after all that time and all that money, and all the people they lured away or bought (by buying their company when they might have been under contract to that company, or whomever buys it) all the programmers who could have been doing work for the betterment of mankind... they STILL have yet to produce an OS that meets these standards.
Don't tell me they can't, because the Linux and GNU and FLOSS (in general) community has proven over and over again that they can, and they do make better OS's, applications, mostly without the financial resources Microsoft has had, facing an uphill battle against an intrenched but inferior product, against the perceptions of people outside the community who think if it's free it means it's no good, or if it's *NIX it means it will be hard to learn, etc.
So they build in bugs and flaws and rip out things that are or might be useful, (compare the sound recorder applet from Windows 98 or XP to the one in Windows 7. It's a JOKE! This is just one example). Then they make sure to program in or leave behind plenty of security holes and other things that will need to be patched. Consequently, it is commonly held belief that anyone who puts a computer running Windows on the internet, who isn't using the latest updates, etc., needs his head examined. So everyone has to use Windows Update, which means everyone has to register their copies, to keep their systems safe, forming what I would think would be an extremely effective anti-piracy measure.
On the other hand, it could all just be staggering incompetence and ineptitude, and not deliberate... yes, the thing that took thousands of people decades to build, costing the tech industry it's soul, not to mention accreting to Microsoft unimaginable wealth, to cover the costs associated with writing... AND IT STILL DOESN'T WORK. It still needs CONSTANT patching, innumerable updates, has stuff that is still broke or never worked right... and you want to STICK UP FOR THEM?!?
We DON'T... WANT Microsoft to be EVIL and Blundering, THEY ARE!!! And what's worse, what's downright criminal, what I can't imagine is how those jackals sleep at night, and wake up and look at themselves in the morning, being still technically human beings, when in fact they do this ON PURPOSE!!! I don't buy it's just that they can't do it. They could if they wanted, but that'd be contrary to their interests, which is ALL they're looking out for. They couldn't give a half a rat's ass for the interests of the "customers". They fuck their customers, making them pay for the same useless shit over and over again, deliberately buggy insecure crash-prone trashware, that only works if you never ask it to actually do anything, then they smile in our faces and continue to steal from us, knowing they have us over a barrel, and that many of us are unable or unwilling to do anything about it.
And... THAT is why we FUCKING HATE THEM!!!
Thank you. You may resume your regular activities.