But it's not intentional.
It's more like you take a device into the factory for an upgrade, but unknown to you, someone swiped it, and installed a spy chip inside. When the factory technician opens it up and tries to install the new parts, the spy chip short circuits the whole thing and the device blows up in his face.
It is intentional. It was not intentional the last time they pused out updates and got burned by Alureon rootkits. The second time around, if they encounter the same number of BSODs it would be intentional at worst, and negligent at best.
While I understand your reasoning, please understand the concepts of morality apply only to humans.
Laws exist to project our sense of morality onto corporations. Please lose the condescending tone next time you post.
Microsoft corporation has no moral duty to do anything.
They don't have the authority to make a decision on the user's behalf about how to proceed (in the event of failing a system integrity check). Who said anything about morals?
Corporations are amoral, they are neither moral nor immoral, and as such they are only obligated to adhere to the rule of law in their pursuit of profit.
That rule of law as I said, is us (humans) projecting our morals onto corporations. If MS were to intentionally BSOD a users system, the user could go to court, and the user would win. MS has no other option here. Where did morals come into this??
I'm just saying it seems rather silly to put MS in the position of walking on egg shells around rootkits to prevent a BSOD that they're not even responsible for causing.
Nobody is putting them in any position. They're not walking on egg shells. They just know what they can and cannot do, and intensionally BSODing a user's system is fairly high on the list of things they cannot do. However it's spun, they're doing the only thing they can/should do.
Microsoft isn't responsible for what a rootkit decides to do.
What kind of crazy logic is this? Their code is downloading the patch and applying it. At this point the ball is in their (MS's) court about how to proceed. It's not the rootkit 'deciding' stuff at this point.
If I were microsoft, I'd update away, and consider malware infections the same way I would unauthorized tampering with system files by the user.
They don't get to make that call. If you were actually in MS's position, you would actually make the same call as them. On a random forum on the internet it's easy to make bold claims about what you would do.
Just update the kernel, and be damned with anything that was played with.
Again - this is a completely cavalier attitude -- and if you were actually in the position to make the call, not only would you not have the stones, you would also pause to think about it for a second and also realize that you don't have the right to do that.
For much the same reason that opening a device is usually grounds for voiding the warranty, since the manufacturer can't reasonably be required to support end user tinkering.
So you're saying the manufacturer gets the right to knowingly brick your system because you've voided your warranty?
The notion that vendors should go out of the way to actually SUPPORT malware is absurd, let alone the notion that black hats should be dictating terms to OS creators.
You managed to twist "we won't knowingly BSOD user's systems" into "we support malware"?? Only on slashdot. God knows what you mean by "black hats dictating terms to OS creators" -- nothing in your post made much sense anyway.
Microsoft can say "sorry dude -- can't install xyz patch 'cos your system's integrity is suspect". What the user does after than is up to them.
It's somehow NOT screwing over the user to let them go on in ignorance doing their banking, tax prep, online investing, online purchasing, etc... from a compromised machine? How do you figure that?
Don't over-complicate the issue. It's just not MS's call to make.
You would rather let an attacker know all your personal information, and have your machine used to compromise other systems, than have your machine blue screen? If you would, I say you have some seriously screwed up priorities.
???
This is not *my* situation. It's the situation of people who know so little about computers that they don't even know what their situation is. Even for them, MS cannot confer upon itself the power to bluescreen their machines to protect them from themselves. As much as you might wish it, you too do not have the power to give them that mandate. Such is life sometimes. Live with it.
What about their malicious software removal tool that supposedly scans on updates
The user may not have MSRT on their system. Alureon (the rootkit that caused the last issue) is detectable by every AV software out there and removable by MSRT (and others). We're talking about ultra-computer-phobic/challenged users here.
To me, that makes it obviously WORTHLESS if it can't remove this root-kit what good is it?
If a tool isn't installed on a machine, I don't expect it to be able to do much:)
What motives do they have to not remove this root-kit?
It's not "this rootkit". It could be any rootkit. They are merely checking if the machine has been compromised, before going ahead with applying the patch. Do you want to include an entire rootkit scanner, removal tool, definition files, etc. with every update you send out on windows update? Do you want to delay the sending of patches (to the rest of the world that keeps their machine clean and healthy and cares about these things) while all this is tested?
What kind of brain detects a root-kits presence, but doesn't remove it? And instead wont install the updates? Why cant they hire capable people with Brains who would have this tool remove the root-kit then install the updates ?
You seem to have not applied yourself to the questions you're asking. The answers are plain.
That's good for the world in general but bad for the owner of the machine. You're suggesting MS make the decision to fuck over some individual for the good of many? They don't have that mandate.
"Alright, that right there tells me you don't know what you are talking about."
The kind of TV I have is not relevant because it works perfectly in Ubuntu, Dynex if it matters."
I guess you were just spoiling for a fight it looks like. Will have to mark this down as "my anecdote evidence does not match your anecdote". I already acknowledged my error with the file-format before you spewed venom.
Hmm.. on further reading it looks like FAT *is* standard and not exfat. I can only conclude that your camera is set to (or defaults to) some other format. You should look at the formatting options for your camera. It's unlikely that the camera cannot format the SD card in a format that Win7 (or any Windows OS) cannot read. It's unlikely that Win7 would ship without being able to read SD Cards from pretty much any mainstream camera. For both parties (Microsoft and camera manufactureres) this is too mainstream a scenario. There is 100% something quirky in your setup, and the issue should be solvable.
The hdmi audio output is not selectable in win 7 because it is "not plugged in" unless the tv is tuned to the hdmi channel during boot up of the machine, even if the cable is never unplugged.
What TV do you have? On all three of my Win7 machines my panasoic plasma will show up when I plug it in. Rinse/repeat/plug/unplug, it will appear/disappear on queue. When it's present (by whatever means you're using), set it as default -- and you should be all set.
standard as in fat32, strait from a camera or any other computer. And no, they don't work. Because I have to format every time a card is plugged in, I can only remove files from the computer while in windows.
Fat32 is not standard for SD cards - exfat is. What camera are you using?
In windows 7 I must first turn my TV on and switch it to the apropriate hdmi channel, then reboot my computer or I get no audio
Right click the speaker icon in the system tray, select the HDMI source, set it as default. Just Works(tm).
If I plug an standard formatted SD memory card into my computer? In windows 7 it won't read the card unless it formats it first, even if it had previously formatted the exact same card card.
Define standard? Doesn't sound right - SD cards Just Work.
They don't. They're checking hashes on key platform binaries to check if they're compromised -- that's not the same as detecting the nature of the compromise.
they can fix it...BEFORE running the patch.
Detecting = more code. Fixing = more code. Many varieties of rootkits to allow for, not just one. Needs much more testing before sending out patches -- delays sending updates to the rest of the world that acutally does care, and does maintain their machines in a healthy state. Requires user's approval before making changes to the machine, etc.
It really can't be that hard.
Because you say so? Very well - how about you write the code to detect and fix an Alureon infection in your reply to this post?
Nobody says handwriting is better/faster. The articles / videos about Courier aren't portraying it to be the next evolution in input devices. It's just a different form factor, and a purpose-built device, and for that purpose the pen works better than a keyboard.
If Windows Mobile runs on Windows CE... Windows Mobile IS Windows CE.
I really find amusement at how stupid people can become when they are fans of X product/company.
Child, please...
An OEM (or MS) can take CE, strip it of everything they don't need (for example for their particular device they might not even need a filesystem and related modules), add their own stuff to it, and the result would be something you'd never recognize as Windows CE. There are countless gadgets and gizmos out there running CE that you don't know about (you probably even own a few w/o knowing it).
Windows Mobile (all versions) are built over Windows CE. The Zune HD is built over Windows CE. Is there any fucking similarity between Windows Mobile 6.5 and the Zune HD? No -- because just having the same kernel means nothing. Or if I were to follow your logic, I would come to the conclusion that the Zune HD IS Windows CE.. which is ridiculous..
You are confusing Windows CE and Windows Mobile. They aren't the same thing (not even close in fact). Windows Mobile runs on Windows CE. Windows CE is a kernel + a bunch of modules that you can strip/add depending on your needs for your embedded device.
That's pretty much it. KDawson has got to be one really sick individual.
I mean, when I do a web search all I get is articles talking about how Microsoft is doing everything it can to accelerate the plans for the new bridge -- which can only be good for CO2 emissions, especially considering that the construction has been delayed multiple times over literally a decade. When I read TFA on slashdot, it looks like MS is just getting in the way for absolutely no reason.
Pathetic, kdawson -- absolutely pathetic. You are a really sorry excuse for a person.
Zeroing pages is done for free memory for allocations, for security reasons -- yes. It's not the same thing as paging-in, where you're about to overwrite the entire contents of the page -- so there's no need to zero it out first.
Your conclusions are incorrect - you seem to not get a few things about how caching works.
Primary among them - when you page-fault, and then page-in, you do not need to zero-out that page. This is why I said your calculation for the time required to zero out 2GB of memory has no relevance to the topic at hand.
I'd say it's relevant, because understanding what's going on lets us make more educated decisions as technology changes.
I'm not trying to be snarky -- I didn't get the relevance because I couldn't understand why on earth you're calculating the time to zero out 2GB of memory. Understanding what's going on is certainly important -- I suggest some reading up on page faults and superfetch. I don't know about this OCZ article (link would be nice) but I am very very skeptical. Turning off ReadyBoost when you have an SSD makes sense. Turning off SuperFetch when you have an SSD, makes zero sense. SSDs are fast. They're still very very slow compared to RAM.
Err.. what is more like 100ms? Where are you getting these numbers from?
The time to zero out 2GB of memory?
I still don't get it -- what operation/action/circumstance does this represent? Why calculate the time to zero out memory, and why 2GB of it? It has nothing (absolutely nothing) to do with the topic at hand (superfetch, page-faults, page-ins etc.).
To state it again. This is not RAM memory you need, use or have purpose for. IF you do need it, it is zeroed-out and free'd to application in like 30ms (one frame in usual FPS games).
It's more like 100ms on an average PC, but yes, you are correct.
Err.. what is more like 100ms? Where are you getting these numbers from?
Superfetch is a crutch. A handy one, but it shouldn't actually be necessary to use it have great startup performance for your favourite apps.
By design, your favorite apps would be precisely the ones to benefit from SuperFetch.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm a dumbass. I just realized you were replying to the other poster -- not to me. In the correct context, I understand what you were saying.
But it's not intentional. It's more like you take a device into the factory for an upgrade, but unknown to you, someone swiped it, and installed a spy chip inside. When the factory technician opens it up and tries to install the new parts, the spy chip short circuits the whole thing and the device blows up in his face.
It is intentional. It was not intentional the last time they pused out updates and got burned by Alureon rootkits. The second time around, if they encounter the same number of BSODs it would be intentional at worst, and negligent at best.
While I understand your reasoning, please understand the concepts of morality apply only to humans.
Laws exist to project our sense of morality onto corporations. Please lose the condescending tone next time you post.
Microsoft corporation has no moral duty to do anything.
They don't have the authority to make a decision on the user's behalf about how to proceed (in the event of failing a system integrity check). Who said anything about morals?
Corporations are amoral, they are neither moral nor immoral, and as such they are only obligated to adhere to the rule of law in their pursuit of profit.
That rule of law as I said, is us (humans) projecting our morals onto corporations. If MS were to intentionally BSOD a users system, the user could go to court, and the user would win. MS has no other option here. Where did morals come into this??
I'm just saying it seems rather silly to put MS in the position of walking on egg shells around rootkits to prevent a BSOD that they're not even responsible for causing.
Nobody is putting them in any position. They're not walking on egg shells. They just know what they can and cannot do, and intensionally BSODing a user's system is fairly high on the list of things they cannot do. However it's spun, they're doing the only thing they can/should do.
Microsoft isn't responsible for what a rootkit decides to do.
What kind of crazy logic is this? Their code is downloading the patch and applying it. At this point the ball is in their (MS's) court about how to proceed. It's not the rootkit 'deciding' stuff at this point.
If I were microsoft, I'd update away, and consider malware infections the same way I would unauthorized tampering with system files by the user.
They don't get to make that call. If you were actually in MS's position, you would actually make the same call as them. On a random forum on the internet it's easy to make bold claims about what you would do.
Just update the kernel, and be damned with anything that was played with.
Again - this is a completely cavalier attitude -- and if you were actually in the position to make the call, not only would you not have the stones, you would also pause to think about it for a second and also realize that you don't have the right to do that.
For much the same reason that opening a device is usually grounds for voiding the warranty, since the manufacturer can't reasonably be required to support end user tinkering.
So you're saying the manufacturer gets the right to knowingly brick your system because you've voided your warranty?
The notion that vendors should go out of the way to actually SUPPORT malware is absurd, let alone the notion that black hats should be dictating terms to OS creators.
You managed to twist "we won't knowingly BSOD user's systems" into "we support malware"?? Only on slashdot. God knows what you mean by "black hats dictating terms to OS creators" -- nothing in your post made much sense anyway.
Strange. I thought rational discourse was more important than dogma.
It's somehow NOT screwing over the user to let them go on in ignorance doing their banking, tax prep, online investing, online purchasing, etc... from a compromised machine? How do you figure that?
Don't over-complicate the issue. It's just not MS's call to make.
You would rather let an attacker know all your personal information, and have your machine used to compromise other systems, than have your machine blue screen? If you would, I say you have some seriously screwed up priorities.
???
This is not *my* situation. It's the situation of people who know so little about computers that they don't even know what their situation is. Even for them, MS cannot confer upon itself the power to bluescreen their machines to protect them from themselves. As much as you might wish it, you too do not have the power to give them that mandate. Such is life sometimes. Live with it.
To do nothing? They need a mandate to not touch a system they don't own?
What about their malicious software removal tool that supposedly scans on updates
The user may not have MSRT on their system. Alureon (the rootkit that caused the last issue) is detectable by every AV software out there and removable by MSRT (and others). We're talking about ultra-computer-phobic/challenged users here.
To me, that makes it obviously WORTHLESS if it can't remove this root-kit what good is it?
If a tool isn't installed on a machine, I don't expect it to be able to do much :)
What motives do they have to not remove this root-kit?
It's not "this rootkit". It could be any rootkit. They are merely checking if the machine has been compromised, before going ahead with applying the patch. Do you want to include an entire rootkit scanner, removal tool, definition files, etc. with every update you send out on windows update? Do you want to delay the sending of patches (to the rest of the world that keeps their machine clean and healthy and cares about these things) while all this is tested?
What kind of brain detects a root-kits presence, but doesn't remove it? And instead wont install the updates? Why cant they hire capable people with Brains who would have this tool remove the root-kit then install the updates ?
You seem to have not applied yourself to the questions you're asking. The answers are plain.
Well, by refusing to patch an already compromised system they open that system up to getting further malware infections...
They're not 'opening up' the system -- they're just leaving it open. It was already like that when they found it.
If the system breaks at least it's now offline and will cease sending spam or whatever other malicious things its doing.
Good for us. Bad for the owner. MS cannot fuck the owner on our behalf.
That's good for the world in general but bad for the owner of the machine. You're suggesting MS make the decision to fuck over some individual for the good of many? They don't have that mandate.
"Alright, that right there tells me you don't know what you are talking about."
The kind of TV I have is not relevant because it works perfectly in Ubuntu, Dynex if it matters."
I guess you were just spoiling for a fight it looks like. Will have to mark this down as "my anecdote evidence does not match your anecdote". I already acknowledged my error with the file-format before you spewed venom.
Hmm.. on further reading it looks like FAT *is* standard and not exfat. I can only conclude that your camera is set to (or defaults to) some other format. You should look at the formatting options for your camera. It's unlikely that the camera cannot format the SD card in a format that Win7 (or any Windows OS) cannot read. It's unlikely that Win7 would ship without being able to read SD Cards from pretty much any mainstream camera. For both parties (Microsoft and camera manufactureres) this is too mainstream a scenario. There is 100% something quirky in your setup, and the issue should be solvable.
absolutely wrong.
Easy there. I'm trying to help you.
The hdmi audio output is not selectable in win 7 because it is "not plugged in" unless the tv is tuned to the hdmi channel during boot up of the machine, even if the cable is never unplugged.
What TV do you have? On all three of my Win7 machines my panasoic plasma will show up when I plug it in. Rinse/repeat/plug/unplug, it will appear/disappear on queue. When it's present (by whatever means you're using), set it as default -- and you should be all set.
standard as in fat32, strait from a camera or any other computer. And no, they don't work. Because I have to format every time a card is plugged in, I can only remove files from the computer while in windows.
Fat32 is not standard for SD cards - exfat is. What camera are you using?
In windows 7 I must first turn my TV on and switch it to the apropriate hdmi channel, then reboot my computer or I get no audio
Right click the speaker icon in the system tray, select the HDMI source, set it as default. Just Works(tm).
If I plug an standard formatted SD memory card into my computer? In windows 7 it won't read the card unless it formats it first, even if it had previously formatted the exact same card card.
Define standard? Doesn't sound right - SD cards Just Work.
If Microsoft can detect the rootkit
They don't. They're checking hashes on key platform binaries to check if they're compromised -- that's not the same as detecting the nature of the compromise.
they can fix it...BEFORE running the patch.
Detecting = more code. Fixing = more code. Many varieties of rootkits to allow for, not just one. Needs much more testing before sending out patches -- delays sending updates to the rest of the world that acutally does care, and does maintain their machines in a healthy state. Requires user's approval before making changes to the machine, etc.
It really can't be that hard.
Because you say so? Very well - how about you write the code to detect and fix an Alureon infection in your reply to this post?
Man.. what a long and pointless rant.
Nobody says handwriting is better/faster. The articles / videos about Courier aren't portraying it to be the next evolution in input devices. It's just a different form factor, and a purpose-built device, and for that purpose the pen works better than a keyboard.
Relax a bit...
If Windows Mobile runs on Windows CE ... Windows Mobile IS Windows CE.
I really find amusement at how stupid people can become when they are fans of X product/company.
Child, please...
An OEM (or MS) can take CE, strip it of everything they don't need (for example for their particular device they might not even need a filesystem and related modules), add their own stuff to it, and the result would be something you'd never recognize as Windows CE. There are countless gadgets and gizmos out there running CE that you don't know about (you probably even own a few w/o knowing it).
Windows Mobile (all versions) are built over Windows CE. The Zune HD is built over Windows CE. Is there any fucking similarity between Windows Mobile 6.5 and the Zune HD? No -- because just having the same kernel means nothing. Or if I were to follow your logic, I would come to the conclusion that the Zune HD IS Windows CE.. which is ridiculous..
You are confusing Windows CE and Windows Mobile. They aren't the same thing (not even close in fact). Windows Mobile runs on Windows CE. Windows CE is a kernel + a bunch of modules that you can strip/add depending on your needs for your embedded device.
That's pretty much it. KDawson has got to be one really sick individual.
I mean, when I do a web search all I get is articles talking about how Microsoft is doing everything it can to accelerate the plans for the new bridge -- which can only be good for CO2 emissions, especially considering that the construction has been delayed multiple times over literally a decade. When I read TFA on slashdot, it looks like MS is just getting in the way for absolutely no reason.
Pathetic, kdawson -- absolutely pathetic. You are a really sorry excuse for a person.
Zeroing pages is done for free memory for allocations, for security reasons -- yes. It's not the same thing as paging-in, where you're about to overwrite the entire contents of the page -- so there's no need to zero it out first.
Your conclusions are incorrect - you seem to not get a few things about how caching works.
Primary among them - when you page-fault, and then page-in, you do not need to zero-out that page. This is why I said your calculation for the time required to zero out 2GB of memory has no relevance to the topic at hand.
I'd say it's relevant, because understanding what's going on lets us make more educated decisions as technology changes.
I'm not trying to be snarky -- I didn't get the relevance because I couldn't understand why on earth you're calculating the time to zero out 2GB of memory. Understanding what's going on is certainly important -- I suggest some reading up on page faults and superfetch. I don't know about this OCZ article (link would be nice) but I am very very skeptical. Turning off ReadyBoost when you have an SSD makes sense. Turning off SuperFetch when you have an SSD, makes zero sense. SSDs are fast. They're still very very slow compared to RAM.
Err.. what is more like 100ms? Where are you getting these numbers from?
The time to zero out 2GB of memory?
I still don't get it -- what operation/action/circumstance does this represent? Why calculate the time to zero out memory, and why 2GB of it? It has nothing (absolutely nothing) to do with the topic at hand (superfetch, page-faults, page-ins etc.).
To state it again. This is not RAM memory you need, use or have purpose for. IF you do need it, it is zeroed-out and free'd to application in like 30ms (one frame in usual FPS games).
It's more like 100ms on an average PC, but yes, you are correct.
Err.. what is more like 100ms? Where are you getting these numbers from?
Superfetch is a crutch. A handy one, but it shouldn't actually be necessary to use it have great startup performance for your favourite apps.
By design, your favorite apps would be precisely the ones to benefit from SuperFetch.
*Note the site ownership (instead of "not").