NEWS: Old code in Windows - a security threat

Old code in Windows is a security threat. Microsoft is attempting to quickly retire old code in its Windows operating system and other software as a result of the company's four-month-old "trustworthy computing" initiative. The revelation follows last week's warning that a serious vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer occurred in the software supporting a decade-old protocol that has rarely been used since the World Wide Web became popular. The company is rushing to eliminate old code as a result of criticism that Microsoft's security initiative has been slow to show results. The Company has reported more than 30 vulnerabilities since the initiative began.

Saw this on Yahoo!, was going to post it but decided not to.

To see article go to Yahoo!, type in "hacking news" and it should come up.

i got this tru an e-mail.

though i dont find any reason why MS keeps using the old codes..

just about everybody keeps using something if it works, problem is theirs dosn't.

Think it's something called "legacy support" - the bane of all support. Unfortunately, MS makes updates to keep up with new hardware but still has to support that stupid hercules video driver that joe schmore dummkoff is still running, etc. Not keeping legacy code is generally one of the best ways to make sure that your old-time users will have the worst time continuing to support you, etc...

Code:

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just about everybody keeps using something if it works, problem is theirs dosn't.

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Exactly. Shitty code is shitty code whether it's 10 years old or 10 minutes old.

Yeah "legacy support", its just patches on top of more patches which obviously tends to create problems.

Quote:

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The revelation follows last week's warning that a serious vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer occurred in the software supporting a decade-old protocol that has rarely been used since the World Wide Web became popular. The company is rushing to eliminate old code as a result of criticism that Microsoft's security initiative has been slow to show results

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Aw man. Does this mean I cant gopher to well.com using IE anymore? Dammit. Better stick to lynx then. ;)

I think Microsoft deserves some credit though, for the effort if nothing else.