I've come to a conclusion on M$ security

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Originally posted here by nihil
It is like comparing a B-17 to a B-2 or an F-22 to a P-37. Pretty irrelevant, and totally useless if you don't know how to fly!

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Very true, there are just to many Internet pilots out there... without a license.... hehe

If anything should be done, there should be a better tutorial on computers to teach those that do not know much about computers. Or a forum just like this one that everybody has with a bookmark or favorite automatically added to the new persons PC for advice.
Most new PC users "have not a clue" to what is actually out there waiting for them. They purchased the PC for fast graphic games and email, not how well the security is. But once they have problems with their PC, they will have somebody else fix it for them, or eventually start to learn about their PC's.
The person that started this thread probably did not read most the forum yet, or used the "search" and just posted anyway. I'll have to admit, I have done the same thing once or twice here.
I rarely ever post just for the fact everybody else is doing enough posting that I can barely keep up with all the daily new posts.
Keep up the good work guys and continue to help the new guys out. :D

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the #1 difficulty that Microsoft has to deal with, that I don't think has been brought up enough, is the consumer's demand for backward compatibility.

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That is a good point. We can see this on major vendors too, such as IBM Mainframe. On Z/OS for instace, you can still run old OS/MFT programs.

Since MS is the leader and has a huge market, MS needs to maintain crap compatibilities (such some XP compatibilities with WIN9x) to keep the market and "conduce" their clients to the new platform. And with the minimal effort.

On the other hand, on linux platform everything must be reinstalled (most of the times). I would prefer the linux approach, but i cant see the home market will think like me...

I still think the MS (Windows) platform is a very good one and im continuing to deploy it to my clients (and linux too :) )


(p.s. missing pooh ....)

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On the other hand, on linux platform everything must be reinstalled (most of the times). I would prefer the linux approach, but i cant see the home market will think like me...

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I'm sorry. What do you mean "everything must be reinstalled"? I've rarely had to do that and the closest thing to re-installed I've had to do is with upgrades (newer products) or updates. The concept of auto-notification for upgrades/updates in Linux is starting to trickle through (that's actually one feature I like -- makes Patch management a little bit easier to manage).

I do think the industry is getting a little lax however when it comes to testing stuff. I know that time is critical but sometimes it can be annoying (and sometimes not necessarily cost effective) to have a test box to ensure that an update (service pack) doesn't trash a system. One colleague I know had to rebuild his Windows 2000 box (with SQL 2000) after applying a SQL fix. That took him 36 hours. He didn't have a test box for it and it cost him (it was a legit box that was used for a single situation -- at least he backed up the data so he could recover that).

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Originally posted here by JP
[B]Greetings:

IMHO, the #1 difficulty that Microsoft has to deal with, that I don't think has been brought up enough, is the consumer's demand for backward compatibility.

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i am not sure i would agree with you that they (MS) care very much about backward compatability.

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Originally posted here by MsMittens
I'm sorry. What do you mean "everything must be reinstalled"? I've rarely had to do that and the closest thing to re-installed I've had to do is with upgrades (newer products) or updates. The concept of auto-notification for upgrades/updates in Linux is starting to trickle through (that's actually one feature I like -- makes Patch management a little bit easier to manage).

I do think the industry is getting a little lax however when it comes to testing stuff. I know that time is critical but sometimes it can be annoying (and sometimes not necessarily cost effective) to have a test box to ensure that an update (service pack) doesn't trash a system. One colleague I know had to rebuild his Windows 2000 box (with SQL 2000) after applying a SQL fix. That took him 36 hours. He didn't have a test box for it and it cost him (it was a legit box that was used for a single situation -- at least he backed up the data so he could recover that).

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i like linux. i use it. but i do not want to be the one to teach users how to convert from MS to Linux.

your colleague spent 36 hrs re-building a windows box. that says more about your colleague than about windows boxes.

once upon a time, this more senior guy gave me a great piece of advice that i follow to this day:

"always have a fall back!"

he was very open and didn't care what you wanted to patch, install, or tweak on his servers as long as:
a) you have a good case and reason for it and can prove it!
b) you have a fall back plan in case it went wrong

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your colleague spent 36 hrs re-building a windows box. that says more about your colleague than about windows boxes.

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Actually, he was applying the patch and it trashed the box. This meant a complete rebuild of the box, all the patches, services packs, etc. It was a rather long process that is sort of built up over time.

Greetings:

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Originally posted here by secure_lockdown
i am not sure i would agree with you that they (MS) care very much about backward compatability.

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Sure they do, and they care a little bit TOO much if you ask me. One perfect example? WinFS

Microsoft has to worry about backward compatibility for a reason that Linux does not: Third Party Software Vendors. Here's an interesting article about the topic by Dvorak. Contrast this to Linux, where the "3rd party software developers" don't have to worry about "selling" software in the short term, or about short term profits. Why not? Because they're designing, programming, and releasing their software for free.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scite...ag_040909.html

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Originally posted here by JP
Microsoft has to worry about backward compatibility for a reason that Linux does not: Third Party Software Vendors. Here's an interesting article about the topic by Dvorak. Contrast this to Linux, where the "3rd party software developers" don't have to worry about "selling" software in the short term, or about short term profits. Why not? Because they're designing, programming, and releasing their software for free.

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That's not entirely accurate. There are plenty of third party developers that have no problems with developing on linux, and charging for it. Some of them pretty hefty contenders in the server market, like Oracle, IBM, even the littler guys like Kaspersky, MySQL, and so on. The support and willingness to spend money to run on a free OS is there, otherwise Oracle, IBM, and so forth wouldn't bother.
As for backwards compatibility, I think Microsoft has rather clearly stated with XP SP2 that they WILL sacrifice useability and app functionality for security if it will dredge their name out of the mud. If not, why go out of your way to break so many apps so that they need patches?

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You know, it's interesting that people only view MS as having issues of Monopoly when it comes to entirely MS networks. The question I have is: what kind of effect would occur if a serious flaw was found in ALL versions of BIND? Last time I checked they were a bit of a monopoly on many of the DNS servers that exist. What about CISCO? Don't they claim that the Internet runs on them (ie., they represent the majority of network devices). I'd hate to see what might have occurred if they had a serious flaw found.

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Umm.. They have.. There was an snmp flaw last year that affected almost all cisco routers. Cisco kept it quiet and silently released the patch to all of the major networking and telephone companies so that they could patch themselves before the general public knew about it. Once all of those companies were patched, they released the information about the exploit.

There has also been major flaws in BIND. Atleast two that I can think of over the last couple of years...

As for taking 36 hours to rebuild a windows machine... I have to wonder about how well your colleague had documented how his machine was configured, and what skill level does he/she have? I have rebuilt entire servers in less than 8 hours, and that is including restoring SQL and Exchange databases along with reinstalling. When we stage a new server we plan for it to take 1 week, that is five eight hour days, or 40 hours. The first three days are spent configuring and doing a second programmer check. The second programmer check basically consists of double checking every critical setting on the machine, which usually takes the better part of 12 hours. The initial build is usually done in the first day, and then the last two days are a burn in to make sure that there are not any hardware issues before going production. This is for Exchange, IIS, and SQL servers. So at most 24 hours to build and double check the configuration.

In a production environment where two days of downtime can equal thousands or millions of dollars in lost productivity there is no excuse for not testing first. We had a 5 hour outage the other day because of a hardware failure and we calculated the cost to the company in lost productivity to be approximately 180k dollars.

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Originally posted here by chsh
That's not entirely accurate. There are plenty of third party developers that have no problems with developing on linux, and charging for it. Some of them pretty hefty contenders in the server market, like Oracle, IBM, even the littler guys like Kaspersky, MySQL, and so on. The support and willingness to spend money to run on a free OS is there, otherwise Oracle, IBM, and so forth wouldn't bother.
As for backwards compatibility, I think Microsoft has rather clearly stated with XP SP2 that they WILL sacrifice useability and app functionality for security if it will dredge their name out of the mud. If not, why go out of your way to break so many apps so that they need patches?

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i agree. there is *the potential* for tons & tons of money to be made from linux. note *the potential* in pervious sentence. ibm, novell, et la all know it.

right now - too much hot air being blown around. very hard to know the truth. i am pretty sure unix shops are very willing to spend money on linux and convert. unix is probably f*&ked in near future!

but MS shops?? not so sure about that one.