Uhm they do. The hosts file has the exact same privileges as what you list (Administrator full access, Read-only for everyone else). The wrinkle in that is that almost everyone runs as Administrator. Very dumb.
I may be totally misunderstanding, but won't the 40 devices need to have their private numbers assigned from the central authority as well (and presumably have to pay $$$$$ for it)? Otherwise, when they send [1]+[2] to the device they are cracking, and get back [3]+[4], it will be meaningless unless the hacker's internal numbers' 3+4 addition equals 1+2 of the remote device.
... You can run everything that runs on Windows, everything that runs on MacOSX...
You can run everything that runs on Windows... on Windows. How does MS lose out? And if you are stuck booted into Windows more than OSX to be able to run all your Windows apps, how is this a win for OSX? If you really want to spur the adoption of OSX, the point should be that the don't need to run Windows.
While it's great to suspect some extortion/conspiracy theory, the signed driver requirement is in place so that it'll be much harder for Hacker McPhee to install that driver rootkit on your machine.
For a legitimate hardware manufacturer it is not difficult at all to get their drivers signed through a certificate authority. This is not done through Microsoft (and is different from their certification programs).
To obtain a PIC, a publisher must first obtain a VeriSign Class 3 Commercial Software Publisher Certificate. Registration with Verisign results in establishing a credential that can be used to establish a Microsoft Windows Quality Online Services (Winqual) account. The publisher can then use that certificate to authenticate itself to Microsoft. If the certificate is valid, Microsoft issues a PIC. A publisher typically completes the authentication process once a year through the Winqual Web site. The process is completed over a channel that is protected by the secure sockets layer (SSL). Figure 1 illustrates the process of obtaining a PIC. For more information about Winqual, see "Resources" at the end of this paper.
Figure 1. Obtaining a PIC Important: The process of obtaining a PIC is separate from the Windows Logo Program submission process. The PIC signing capability does not replace the WHQL program. Microsoft encourages publishers to use the WHQL programs such as the Logo and Driver Reliability Signing programs, whenever possible. The primary purpose of the PIC program is to introduce identity into the kernel-mode and driver ecosystem, in cases where participation in the WHQL program might not be suitable. The PIC signing capability does not require the publisher to pass certain Windows Logo Program testing requirements associated with WHQL.
But as the base of Mac users increase, so does the base of Windows users, doesn't it? Especially if, in the short term, they want to play Windows games or run Windows apps. So in a year, an app developermay point out that, hypothetically, OSX now has a 20% market share, at the same time that 20% market will also run Windows, so why not concentrate on Windows and hit both markets? The following few years will be really interesting.
I see boot camp having one effect, and one effect only -- lower the amount of software available for OSX. It is hard enough to justify an OSX port when confronted w/ only a 10% market share. With boot camp the Mac users can simply boot into Windows, making the argument moot. OSX has the coolness/niceness factor, but this is simple economics. As a result, the non OSX-zealot Mac users will slowly find themselves booted into Windows more often than not (play games, use whatever new app-of-the-day is in vogue). Soon, Apple will face the diminishing returns in spending all this time polishing OSX, and will move to drop OSX entirely. In 5 years, we'll have Final Cut Pro PC version.
But the analogy doesn't quite work. Scientists tests drugs on mice and limited human trials, but ultimately the drugs will be used by humans who vary between each other in almost infinite ways. For Apple, they have a limited set of MacBook laptops, within which there is a limited set of variance in the internal components. Their laptop will run with these configurations out of the box, period. If they want to continue to be known as the provider of a solid platform, they have to be thorough when they test these variances. Notice the solution to their problems isn't increasing manufacturing quality, but revising the motherboard, signifying they had not expected these issues with their original model. It seems to me like they rushed this thing out.
To fully test a single platform that has little hardware variation?
how many billion dollar deployments...
on
Why Windows is Slow
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· Score: 4, Insightful
...depended on OS9? Lets be serious for a second. While I'm sure it's a painful process nonetheless, you can't really compare Apple forcing Adobe/Macromedia and a handful of other software makers to rewrite their packages to OSX' new API, to Microsoft forcing, say, the DOJ or Siebel to rewrite their software deployments. A Microsoft deprecated API could easily cost hundreds of billions of dollars. So for Vista MS is tasked with reviewing and security testing the heck out of whatever legacy components they cannot remove. And they do often take out legacy functionality that couldn't possibly fit our security model. But the major stuff, for the most part, has to stay in some form or another.
That said, I do wish more were done with virtualization to clean out the main OS.
Actually, for the Vista development one aspect of a build verification has been to strictly monitor the interdependencies of each individual dlls/exe's. They've establishes a 'layering' scheme, where no component in layer X can take a dependency on a component in layer Y, where layer Y>X. The end goal is that one day they want to be able to draw lines between layers and consider these autonomous units that can be managed independently. So if you want to make a UI-less build of Vista (hypothetically), you could cut everything above and including the UI level and not be burned by finding all these command line utilities that assume they are running in a UI based shell.
It's still a monolith system, but it's taking an interesting approach towards modularization.
While the current system does need to be sped up, I cry at the thought of going back to the old days. Hundreds of people checking in to the same depot resulting in one new build a week (if we were lucky), and even then no guarantee that the thing would even boot let alone be functional. Now that we have thousands of devs, it would be impossible to manage.
The new system keeps daily winmain builds stable by only allowing sub-branches that build and make it through the full test pass to be merged in, and at the same time I can keep checkin in my fixes in my branch, and our testers can verify with our private builds. For the most part devs aren't even involved in the whole merge process, so I don't know where this guy is coming from.
I agree MS isn't doing a great job at synthesizing what's new in Vista. There are so many updates/redesigns/new features across the board in all aspects of the OS, that it's honestly a little hard to put it all in one place. But here's my try at some of the basics:
There are obviously tons of kernel improvements, a new driver infrastructure, the new presentation framework, and system-wide search built-in.
On the client side, new versions of Media Center (great new UI, handles cable cards), new Media Player, a DVD maker, a calendaring app, a sidebar for creating gadets (yes, a la OSX), improved photo handling. Setup has also been improved, both in time (staged builds take >45 minutes to complete), and simplicity (only a few targeted questions at the start and end, no need to stick around during the actual install).
There's more, but that's a gist of some of the new features.
Flip 3d is just eye candy. I personally think it's a bit silly... just there for the 'wow' factor.
But the classic alt-tab also has live previews of the applications, as does hovering the mouse over the window's taskbar area. The thing that is missed in the captures is that as you tab through the apps all windows are showing their current content (i.e. - movies still play in the alt-tab/flip-3d versions of the windows). Definitely eye candy, but the live preview can be useful when you have lots of windows open.
Meh. So a stranger's technique was 'confirmed' by a group of other strangers on a webpage I don't frequent. Until they post the steps and this starts getting a large 'worked for me' in the community, excuse me if I remain skeptical.
Sorry for my ignorance, but is the ACID2 test page static, or does it dynamically change for each render attempt? If it's the former, then can you really translate passing the test to being fully standards compliant? Can't the browser simply have been tweaked to correctly render that specific combination of html/css/etc..?
Even as an MS employee I've always considered the MSN group to be pretty lame, and produce lame products. But I gotta tell you, they have a fire in them right now that is palpable. They suddenly have an influx of real talent, tons of research resources, and a determination to outshine Google. Some of the stuff they have on the pipeline is geniunely interesting. Anyway, take that for what it's worth. They may still come out with lame products and fail spectacularly. But MSN '05-'06 is definitely not classic MSN, which is good for everyone.
No, the security hole is that gmail will execute javascript in e-mail. You can't assume that all clients on the web will filter out javascript before sending them gmail's way.
Opening a port for the video network traffic shouldn't open you up to viruses, even on Windows. If these machines are 'virus hubs' then they are certainly being used for other purposes. First, restrict access to the servers so that they are only used for their intended purpose of capturing video, and not, say, surfing the web. If you are really concerned, you should run the capture process under a non-administrator account, so that even if the application consuming and generating network traffic is insecure, it cannot own the system.
... can get you only so far. You need to have parallelism in mind when you write the high-level code, otherwise it may end up with needless dependence on serial execution that a compiler may not be able to break, reducing the benefits of such an architecture. It will be interesting to see how well games are suited for concurrent execution. Logically there are lots of computations that can be performed independently (AI, physics) but all of it has inherent interaction with a central data source (the game world).
If it's the game that everyone is expecting then, yes.
Meaning: They could release a Halo 3 that meets consumer expectations soon (i.e. - simply better graphics, better gameplay). Instead, they are working on a game that will 'defy' expectations, so it will take as long as it needs to.
In the end it's all marketspeak. My hope is that they are sitting on the game while manufacturing gets up to speed. BillG said they'd release it opposite PS3, but I can't imagine why they wouldn't rather come in to the PS3 launch with a strong post-Halo 3 market presence, instead of trying to boost it once the ps3 is out.
I'm seriously not trolling -- where has google succeeded outside of search (& advertising behind the searches)? It seems to me like every other one of their services has done decently well, but none have become leaders in their market.
Re:The problem is implementation rather than desig
on
Buy Vista or Else
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· Score: 1
You are right. And Vista is the first MS OS to be doing just that. Which is why this headline is so confusing... Vista will be more secure... It's the first MS OS that's really designed for security, sometimes *gasp* at the price of user friendliness. XP SP2 was just hacked on to XP too late in the game. Win2k3 has many less vulnerabilities thanks to the improvements in dev practices, but it still has the fundamental priviledge problem you mention (priviledges are there, but everyone runs as admin). Vista is build off of the win2k3 codebase, with full LUA support. Honestly, if you are forced to run Windows, Vista would be the best option just because of LUA.
What's the difference between running IE as Administrator, and running any other application as Administrator? There's no difference, so the point is moot. Last I checked IE doesn't run in the kernel. Everything that IE does, IE does from the confines of the process. The real problem is that everyone is Administrator.
What they've effectively done is told their employees: We care about the company
Make that cared about the company. They've cashed out 1.5 billion dollars in stock. Money is no longer an object for them. From now on they're keeping the company afloat only because of good faith.
It would be different if they could only cash in, say, $100,000 worth of stock every year. Only then the argument could stand.
Slashdot Mirror
Uhm they do. The hosts file has the exact same privileges as what you list (Administrator full access, Read-only for everyone else). The wrinkle in that is that almost everyone runs as Administrator. Very dumb.
I may be totally misunderstanding, but won't the 40 devices need to have their private numbers assigned from the central authority as well (and presumably have to pay $$$$$ for it)? Otherwise, when they send [1]+[2] to the device they are cracking, and get back [3]+[4], it will be meaningless unless the hacker's internal numbers' 3+4 addition equals 1+2 of the remote device.
... You can run everything that runs on Windows, everything that runs on MacOSX ...
You can run everything that runs on Windows... on Windows. How does MS lose out? And if you are stuck booted into Windows more than OSX to be able to run all your Windows apps, how is this a win for OSX? If you really want to spur the adoption of OSX, the point should be that the don't need to run Windows.
While it's great to suspect some extortion/conspiracy theory, the signed driver requirement is in place so that it'll be much harder for Hacker McPhee to install that driver rootkit on your machine.
i t/kmsigning.mspx:
For a legitimate hardware manufacturer it is not difficult at all to get their drivers signed through a certificate authority. This is not done through Microsoft (and is different from their certification programs).
Here's the text from http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/64b
To obtain a PIC, a publisher must first obtain a VeriSign Class 3 Commercial Software Publisher Certificate. Registration with Verisign results in establishing a credential that can be used to establish a Microsoft Windows Quality Online Services (Winqual) account. The publisher can then use that certificate to authenticate itself to Microsoft. If the certificate is valid, Microsoft issues a PIC.
A publisher typically completes the authentication process once a year through the Winqual Web site. The process is completed over a channel that is protected by the secure sockets layer (SSL). Figure 1 illustrates the process of obtaining a PIC. For more information about Winqual, see "Resources" at the end of this paper.
Figure 1. Obtaining a PIC
Important: The process of obtaining a PIC is separate from the Windows Logo Program submission process. The PIC signing capability does not replace the WHQL program. Microsoft encourages publishers to use the WHQL programs such as the Logo and Driver Reliability Signing programs, whenever possible. The primary purpose of the PIC program is to introduce identity into the kernel-mode and driver ecosystem, in cases where participation in the WHQL program might not be suitable. The PIC signing capability does not require the publisher to pass certain Windows Logo Program testing requirements associated with WHQL.
But as the base of Mac users increase, so does the base of Windows users, doesn't it? Especially if, in the short term, they want to play Windows games or run Windows apps. So in a year, an app developermay point out that, hypothetically, OSX now has a 20% market share, at the same time that 20% market will also run Windows, so why not concentrate on Windows and hit both markets? The following few years will be really interesting.
I see boot camp having one effect, and one effect only -- lower the amount of software available for OSX. It is hard enough to justify an OSX port when confronted w/ only a 10% market share. With boot camp the Mac users can simply boot into Windows, making the argument moot. OSX has the coolness/niceness factor, but this is simple economics. As a result, the non OSX-zealot Mac users will slowly find themselves booted into Windows more often than not (play games, use whatever new app-of-the-day is in vogue). Soon, Apple will face the diminishing returns in spending all this time polishing OSX, and will move to drop OSX entirely. In 5 years, we'll have Final Cut Pro PC version.
But the analogy doesn't quite work. Scientists tests drugs on mice and limited human trials, but ultimately the drugs will be used by humans who vary between each other in almost infinite ways. For Apple, they have a limited set of MacBook laptops, within which there is a limited set of variance in the internal components. Their laptop will run with these configurations out of the box, period. If they want to continue to be known as the provider of a solid platform, they have to be thorough when they test these variances. Notice the solution to their problems isn't increasing manufacturing quality, but revising the motherboard, signifying they had not expected these issues with their original model. It seems to me like they rushed this thing out.
To fully test a single platform that has little hardware variation?
...depended on OS9? Lets be serious for a second. While I'm sure it's a painful process nonetheless, you can't really compare Apple forcing Adobe/Macromedia and a handful of other software makers to rewrite their packages to OSX' new API, to Microsoft forcing, say, the DOJ or Siebel to rewrite their software deployments. A Microsoft deprecated API could easily cost hundreds of billions of dollars. So for Vista MS is tasked with reviewing and security testing the heck out of whatever legacy components they cannot remove. And they do often take out legacy functionality that couldn't possibly fit our security model. But the major stuff, for the most part, has to stay in some form or another.
That said, I do wish more were done with virtualization to clean out the main OS.
Actually, for the Vista development one aspect of a build verification has been to strictly monitor the interdependencies of each individual dlls/exe's. They've establishes a 'layering' scheme, where no component in layer X can take a dependency on a component in layer Y, where layer Y>X. The end goal is that one day they want to be able to draw lines between layers and consider these autonomous units that can be managed independently. So if you want to make a UI-less build of Vista (hypothetically), you could cut everything above and including the UI level and not be burned by finding all these command line utilities that assume they are running in a UI based shell.
It's still a monolith system, but it's taking an interesting approach towards modularization.
While the current system does need to be sped up, I cry at the thought of going back to the old days. Hundreds of people checking in to the same depot resulting in one new build a week (if we were lucky), and even then no guarantee that the thing would even boot let alone be functional. Now that we have thousands of devs, it would be impossible to manage.
The new system keeps daily winmain builds stable by only allowing sub-branches that build and make it through the full test pass to be merged in, and at the same time I can keep checkin in my fixes in my branch, and our testers can verify with our private builds. For the most part devs aren't even involved in the whole merge process, so I don't know where this guy is coming from.
I agree MS isn't doing a great job at synthesizing what's new in Vista. There are so many updates/redesigns/new features across the board in all aspects of the OS, that it's honestly a little hard to put it all in one place. But here's my try at some of the basics:
l uate/overvw.mspx
l uate/feat/secfeat.mspx
o rk/evaluate/new_network.mspx
At a high level, here are some of the new features (not an exhaustive list):
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/eva
Deeper into the new security features:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/eva
Deeper into the new networking features (in a nutshell, there's a lot more since this was written):
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itsolutions/netw
There are obviously tons of kernel improvements, a new driver infrastructure, the new presentation framework, and system-wide search built-in.
On the client side, new versions of Media Center (great new UI, handles cable cards), new Media Player, a DVD maker, a calendaring app, a sidebar for creating gadets (yes, a la OSX), improved photo handling. Setup has also been improved, both in time (staged builds take >45 minutes to complete), and simplicity (only a few targeted questions at the start and end, no need to stick around during the actual install).
There's more, but that's a gist of some of the new features.
Flip 3d is just eye candy. I personally think it's a bit silly... just there for the 'wow' factor.
But the classic alt-tab also has live previews of the applications, as does hovering the mouse over the window's taskbar area. The thing that is missed in the captures is that as you tab through the apps all windows are showing their current content (i.e. - movies still play in the alt-tab/flip-3d versions of the windows). Definitely eye candy, but the live preview can be useful when you have lots of windows open.
Meh. So a stranger's technique was 'confirmed' by a group of other strangers on a webpage I don't frequent. Until they post the steps and this starts getting a large 'worked for me' in the community, excuse me if I remain skeptical.
Sorry for my ignorance, but is the ACID2 test page static, or does it dynamically change for each render attempt? If it's the former, then can you really translate passing the test to being fully standards compliant? Can't the browser simply have been tweaked to correctly render that specific combination of html/css/etc..?
Even as an MS employee I've always considered the MSN group to be pretty lame, and produce lame products. But I gotta tell you, they have a fire in them right now that is palpable. They suddenly have an influx of real talent, tons of research resources, and a determination to outshine Google. Some of the stuff they have on the pipeline is geniunely interesting. Anyway, take that for what it's worth. They may still come out with lame products and fail spectacularly. But MSN '05-'06 is definitely not classic MSN, which is good for everyone.
Uhm, shouldn't you be pissed off with your SATA controller's manufacturer's for not providing a quality driver to be placed in-box?
No, the security hole is that gmail will execute javascript in e-mail. You can't assume that all clients on the web will filter out javascript before sending them gmail's way.
Opening a port for the video network traffic shouldn't open you up to viruses, even on Windows. If these machines are 'virus hubs' then they are certainly being used for other purposes. First, restrict access to the servers so that they are only used for their intended purpose of capturing video, and not, say, surfing the web. If you are really concerned, you should run the capture process under a non-administrator account, so that even if the application consuming and generating network traffic is insecure, it cannot own the system.
... can get you only so far. You need to have parallelism in mind when you write the high-level code, otherwise it may end up with needless dependence on serial execution that a compiler may not be able to break, reducing the benefits of such an architecture. It will be interesting to see how well games are suited for concurrent execution. Logically there are lots of computations that can be performed independently (AI, physics) but all of it has inherent interaction with a central data source (the game world).
If it's the game that everyone is expecting then, yes.
Meaning: They could release a Halo 3 that meets consumer expectations soon (i.e. - simply better graphics, better gameplay). Instead, they are working on a game that will 'defy' expectations, so it will take as long as it needs to.
In the end it's all marketspeak. My hope is that they are sitting on the game while manufacturing gets up to speed. BillG said they'd release it opposite PS3, but I can't imagine why they wouldn't rather come in to the PS3 launch with a strong post-Halo 3 market presence, instead of trying to boost it once the ps3 is out.
I'm seriously not trolling -- where has google succeeded outside of search (& advertising behind the searches)? It seems to me like every other one of their services has done decently well, but none have become leaders in their market.
You are right. And Vista is the first MS OS to be doing just that. Which is why this headline is so confusing... Vista will be more secure... It's the first MS OS that's really designed for security, sometimes *gasp* at the price of user friendliness. XP SP2 was just hacked on to XP too late in the game. Win2k3 has many less vulnerabilities thanks to the improvements in dev practices, but it still has the fundamental priviledge problem you mention (priviledges are there, but everyone runs as admin). Vista is build off of the win2k3 codebase, with full LUA support. Honestly, if you are forced to run Windows, Vista would be the best option just because of LUA.
What's the difference between running IE as Administrator, and running any other application as Administrator? There's no difference, so the point is moot. Last I checked IE doesn't run in the kernel. Everything that IE does, IE does from the confines of the process. The real problem is that everyone is Administrator.
What they've effectively done is told their employees: We care about the company
Make that cared about the company. They've cashed out 1.5 billion dollars in stock. Money is no longer an object for them. From now on they're keeping the company afloat only because of good faith.
It would be different if they could only cash in, say, $100,000 worth of stock every year. Only then the argument could stand.