Well, You Can't Say M$ Isn't Trying With Security

Even though some of you folks may already know about this, I just couldn't pass it up. Made me laugh, although, I don't know if it was a funny ha-ha laugh or a nervous oh **** laugh....

From :"Users Peeved at Microsoft Security Effort" - eWeek

Apparently, Microsoft's recent patch of a critical vulnerability in IE 5.5 shuts down the vulnerability alright... and every other vulnerability in Windows to boot. Or, to be more specific, booting is the problem. Reportedly, when some users installed the fix on Win98 boxes, the PCs failed to reboot and gave a Scandisk error instead. When they tried to bring them up in Safe Mode, they froze completely.

Amusingly, some people may have been spared this aggravating problem because of another aggravating problem in Windows Update Service. Apparently, several users have reported that after making Microsoft recommended IE tweaks to eliminate vulnerabilities in the browser, they have been unable to download patches without first undoing those tweaks to set IE back to it's previously prone state... does this mean that Microsoft is admitting that they don't trust themselves and their patches?

Finally, some users who didn't experience either of these problems may wish they had. The Microsoft marketing giant, big hunk of burning money-love that it is (yea.. that sounds good..), has apparently decided that an upgrade to IE 6.0 is a "critical update" worthy of being broadcast on the Windows Critical Update Notification utility.

According to one user:
"Their description [of IE 6.0] is rife with sales copy and general ease-of-use-type stuff, but I saw nothing specifically about security, privacy protection or such." eWeek goes on to note that "The user didn't download the upgrade and continued to receive 'critical' alerts about it. As a result, he now ignores all the alerts, missing some legitimate notifications, he said".

Oh well... people always warned me to be careful what I wished for...

Well, maybe they're smarter than I thought. After all, by creating unusable systems, they remove one of the weakest elements in security (especially for Windows systems) - the user.

The problem isn't with Microsoft. The problem is with the users. They're trying to install the fix on a Win98 box. If they had bought the upgrade to Windows ME, then to Windows NT, then to Windows 2000, then Windows XP, they wouldn't be having this problem.

Its the user's fault that they're in this dilema. If they had sent Microsoft more money, everything would be fine.

LOL - It's unanimous then, users are the cause of every computing problem in known history.

Deep Thought Of The Day:
If there's an exploit in the program, and no users around to expose it, is it really there?