OT more MS Windows flaws discovered

"dirtylitterboxofferingstospammers" <[email hidden]> wrote in
message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In the UK press (Daily Telegraph) "Microsoft flaw causes panic over hackers By Simon English in
New York (Filed: 11/02/2004)

Microsoft caused panic last night with a sudden admission that "critical"

flaws

Quoted message said:

in its operating system would allow hackers to break into personal

computers

Quoted message said:

across the world.

The company warned that all current versions of its Windows operating

system

Quoted message said:

were at risk.

Computer security experts reacted with anger to the announcement from executives at the world's
biggest software company, saying they had

alerted

Quoted message said:

them months ago. They said computer systems that control critically

important

Quoted message said:

power or water utilities were vulnerable..." and it goes on.

Cheers, helen s

I thought they were just getting rid of a swastika in a font. I think the 'panic' is
journalist panic.

"dirtylitterboxofferingstospammers" <[email hidden]> wrote in
message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Microsoft caused panic last night with a sudden admission that "critical"

flaws

Quoted message said:

in its operating system would allow hackers to break into personal

computers

Quoted message said:

across the world.

I wonder if they have a "Critical Security Flaw Press Release" in the standard set of Word
templates?

--
Guy
===

WARNING: may contain traces of irony. Contents may settle after posting.
chapmancentral.co.ukchapmancentral.co.ukOpen ↗

(dirtylitterboxofferingstospammers) said:

In the UK press (Daily Telegraph) "Microsoft flaw causes panic over hackers By Simon English in New
York (Filed: 11/02/2004)

Quoted message said:

Microsoft caused panic last night with a sudden admission that "critical" flaws in its operating
system would allow hackers to break into personal computers across the world.

What's the panic? Micros**t systems have suffered from that for as long as I can remember. It's
a feature.

--
Chris Malcolm [email hidden] +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
["]http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

I don't understand this one. MS releases critical security patches practically every week. All
addressing similar flaws -- sometimes more serious than this one.

Slow news day?

Simon

Simonb said:

I don't understand this one. MS releases critical security patches practically every week. All
addressing similar flaws -- sometimes more serious than this one.

Well, I think they've said they're only going to do it once a month now, haven't they? I'll admit I
don't pay much attention - the machines I'm preofessionally responsible for don't run microsoft -
but I think I've seen something along those lines fairly recently.

Quoted message said:

Slow news day?

Presumably. Certainly, it didn't look to me to be any bigger issue than most other critical security
flaws in MS.

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|

On Wed, 11 Feb 2004 19:34:36 -0000, "Simonb"
<[email hidden]> wrote in message
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

I don't understand this one. MS releases critical security patches practically every week. All
addressing similar flaws -- sometimes more serious than this one.

Er, not much more serious. This one was said to be one of the most widespread and easily
exploited ever.

Guy
===
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
chapmancentral.demon.co.ukchapmancentral.demon.co.ukOpen ↗

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at the University of Washington.

Simonb said:

I don't understand this one. MS releases critical security patches practically every week. All
addressing similar flaws -- sometimes more serious than this one.

The amazing thing is that people use it for commercial purposes - that strikes me as criminally
irresponsible. I run it only on my games machine.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) jasmine.org.uk~simonOpen ↗

;; in faecibus sapiens rheum propagabit

Chris Malcolm said:

(dirtylitterboxofferingstospammers) said:

In the UK press (Daily Telegraph) "Microsoft flaw causes panic over hackers By Simon English in
New York (Filed: 11/02/2004)

Quoted message said:

Microsoft caused panic last night with a sudden admission that "critical" flaws in its operating
system would allow hackers to break into personal computers across the world.

What's the panic? Micros**t systems have suffered from that for as long as I can remember. It's a
feature.

And it ain't anything to do with cycling.

John B

JohnB <[email hidden]> wrote in :"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

And it ain't anything to do with cycling.

Hence the "OT" (Off Topic) in the subject line. Feel free to ignore OT posts rather than complain
that they are OT.

Graeme

dirtylitterboxofferingstospammers said:

Quoted message said:

And it ain't anything to do with cycling.

John B

Hence the OT in the title - means "Off Topic"

That's fair enough but its also the point. I always wonder why people post OT topics. Isn't there a
separate ng for such postings?

John B

Simon Brooke <[email hidden]> wrote:

: The amazing thing is that people use it for commercial purposes - that strikes me as criminally
: irresponsible. I run it only on my games machine.

Sigh. Most of us out there have to accept that the world is a big place and you end up with a
mixture of systems.

However, I'm with the "how is this news" crowd. The last few MS security advisories have all had
a "critical, could lead to a worm" type hole in them [RPC, Wins, this crypto one, messenger
service etc].

But this is work for me, so I'm bowing out there.

Arthur

--
Arthur Clune clune.orgclune.orgOpen ↗ "Technolibertarians make a philosophy out of a personality defect"
- Paulina Borsook

Graeme said:

JohnB <[email hidden]> wrote in :"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

And it ain't anything to do with cycling.

Hence the "OT" (Off Topic) in the subject line. Feel free to ignore OT posts rather than complain
that they are OT.

Fair enough. But it begs the question why some feel it necessary to clutter ngs with OT posts.

John B (who's cross because his Brommie threw him again.)

"Just zis Guy, you know?" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

"dirtylitterboxofferingstospammers" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:20040211091224.04082.00000879@mb-
m05.aol.com...

Quoted message said:

Microsoft caused panic last night with a sudden admission that "critical"

flaws

Quoted message said:

in its operating system would allow hackers to break into personal

computers

Quoted message said:

across the world.

Quoted message said:

I wonder if they have a "Critical Security Flaw Press Release" in the standard set of Word
templates?

see google.comsearchOpen ↗

(yes, I nicked it from NTK)

best wishes james

mae <[email hidden]> wedi ysgrifennu:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Hence the OT in the title - means "Off Topic"

That's fair enough but its also the point. I always wonder why people post OT topics. Isn't there
a separate ng for such postings?

If there was a newsgroup for off topic postings then they wouldn't be off topic, would they?

There is, however, a group called alt.off-topic which appears to be for children who are very tired
and have drunk too much fizzy pop with tartrazine in.

--
Rob

dirtylitterboxofferingstospammers said:

Microsoft caused panic last night with a sudden admission that "critical" flaws in its operating
system would allow hackers to break into personal computers across the world.

In further news, the sun rose in the east and water is wet.

Simonb said:

I don't understand this one. MS releases critical security patches practically every week. All
addressing similar flaws -- sometimes more serious than this one.

Slow news day?

Simon

No, I think that using the national news is quite a responsible thing to do. Microsoft have been
harshly critisised in the past for

1 Not publicising the availability of software patches.

2 Denying that a problem exists

3 Finding a problem and not patching it quickly

For the people who administer networks professionally or run alternative operating systems checking
for and applying updates is part of everyday procedure. However, for the majority of people this is
not the case and the national news is probably one of the best ways of disemminating the
availability of a patch very quickly.

Also, without reading too much of the background behind this my understanding of the problem is that
the flaw was so fundamental that there wasn't even an announcement that the vulnerability existed so
that hackers (who didn't already know about it) couldn't exploit it while a patch was made.

ScrumpyJoe said:

No, I think that using the national news is quite a responsible thing to do.

That's true, I'm all for national publicity every time a critical security flaw is found in
Microsoft products. After a couple of weeks of daily admissions that they've found another one,
perhaps the general populace would start to notice just how apalling MS software is.

Perhaps the best solution for all these anti-competitive-practises law suits would be to require MS
to talke out full-page adverts notifying users every time an exploit is found. Two birds with one
stone - MS is penalised for each bug, and the world at large gets an inkling of just how many
'undocumented features' the software has.

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|

JohnB <[email hidden]> wrote in :"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Fair enough. But it begs the question why some feel it necessary to clutter ngs with OT posts.

Good question. Perhaps regular posters feel a sense of community and wish to share their thoughts
on other subjects with others in the community. Personally I think it's no bad thing that people
feel like this and the occasional OT post can often prompt some interesting discussions, often *on*
topic ones.

Quoted message said:

John B (who's cross because his Brommie threw him again.)

You've not been lusting over other bikes again have you? Brommies get very jealous you know.

...See, I told you it can get back on topic eventually :-)

elyob thought it would be good to say:

Quoted message said:

I thought they were just getting rid of a swastika in a font.

And, just to show they're an equal opportunitites company, they got rid of the Star of
David as well.

Pip