Making corrections. Sorry connections
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Microsoft will roll out a whopper load of patches
THE LATEST confidence building exercise by Microsoft is making all users feel so much better about the company's software with 49 vulnerabilities set to be patched next week.
The fact that this number of vulnerabilities being patched at any one time is the biggest ever, by far, only shows how committed Microsoft is to showing how insecure its software is. Microsoft's Tuesday patches are becoming as notorious as Friday the 13th, not the films but the superstition about the date being doom laden.
And Tuesday 12 October is only going to reinforce that view, with its scheduled 16 updates for security vulnerabilities in just about every piece of Microsoft software you can name. In no particular order of importance or insecurity they are the Windows operating system (OS), the Internet Explorer web browser, the Microsoft Server OS and the Microsoft Office suite of applications software.
Remote code execution seems to be a specific and pervasive problem with four critical updates being required to tackle that for all versions of Windows, not even just the old ones. Remote code execution is also green kryptonite for all Internet Explorer versions - IE6, IE7 and IE8. Obviously red and black kryptonite have entirely different effects. The Microsoft Office applications Word and Excel get just two important patches, how boring.
Now people might wish they were running Windows Vista, because the hackers probably aren't bothering with that. µ
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Welcome back WOW, please stay, the INQ needs you! To correct your point the INQ isn't crap, its 5H1T. 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, 5H1T, and more 5H1T.
That's the whole point.
The INQ staff are weird, disfuctional OS2 WARP users, or Amiga users or even BeOS users who hate the world for not using OS2 Warp or BeOS (actually, I thinks it's the L word).
So there you have it. Get into the spirit of things and slag the INQ for being virginal strokers of beards.
As for me I'm happy as a pig in shit.
Hmmm. I'm orf for a cuppertino. Bye!
So the MS lovers are so easily forgiving of past mistakes like causing all of the botnets that the world still has to contend with, the requirement of all Windows machines to need anti-virus software and anti-malware software for protection - nobody else does, all the anti-competition practices over the years, the successful lobbying of congress to increase the number of jobs they can ship overseas, all the garbage software and bugs associated with their software... the list goes on and on. Add the Kin and Windows Phone 7 to the list as halfassed products. But when Apple, or someone else makes even the slightest mistake you jump all over them. It's easy to tell hypocrites like yourselves. Yes, there's a reason why their reputation is a bit of a joke. They did it to themselves.
Yes, Microsoft is trying the best they can to plug all the holes, but we're tired of wishing they would do better. I've experienced first hand their lack of response for software problems over the years, like their tech support's lack of experience and ultimately they ignore problems until they're embarrassed by them. Then they do a complete 180 and tell the world that they're committed to making the best products.
All they have to do is do is stop releasing junk before it's ready. Their gaming division seems to be the only one that gets it. Maybe they should fire Balmer and promote him. But I doubt it. I hear it's like working for government in there now.
They battled against IBM to become leaders in IT. Now they're just like IBM. If Google or Apple wants a blueprint of what NOT to do, just look at MS.
It would be nice if they could just fire the deadwood and hire better people, becoming a better company that responds quickly, but I highly doubt it. In the last 10 years they've become a big dinosaur.
Microsucks is downloading 49 "patches", any one of which could wreck havoc on your PC and that of millions of people world wide. You get this no cost "feature" at least once a month and sometimes even more often. What a gift!
Odd, it always struck me that they were being pretty nice towards MS at the inq, with the jocular stabs, but overall nice compared to some companies they let have both barrels.
As for the hooker and STD comments, I think that analogy is a bit too far out there, all it does is show you have some weird dislike for hookers, and will probably be arrested at some time for violence towards one, but it's not quite germane to the subject of MS.
' What amazes me... is that Microsucks gets to sell products with tens of thousands of confirmed product defects and reap billions of dollars per year for selling defective goods. If this isn't insanity (and consumer fraud), I don't know what the definition is.'
Sadly enough, it's not (just) insanity and consumer fraud: it's free market capitalism. I wrote about enterprise software products for many years, and was forced to the conclusion that the companies that cared most about quality, innovation, and their customers went out of business; while those that hit exactly the right balance between cheap, buggy software and expensive "services" flowered like green bay trees.
Microsucks O/S's have so many bugs that it's a miracle they function at all. If this is considered blindful bashing, I'd suspect some folks need to seek professional help for their denial issues. Denial has never changed reality. Daily BSODs were invented by Microsucks, no one else.
wow... I came back to see if the quality of articles on the inquirer had improved over the 2 years I stopped checking the site and if the blind MS bashing had stopped.
I can see that the quality of articles on this site hasn't changed. It's still a pile of crap.
all Microsucks O/S's are defective products fraudulently marketed to naive consumers for extreme profit.
You can argue over how many product defects exist, how many will cause a loss of data, BSOD, and financial losses but it's like arguing over if a hooker that charges $50 is more of a hooker than one that charges $300. IMO Micorsucks is a slut at any price.
Reality has shown this to be true. Once you're a whore you can't un-become a whore. Ask Dollar Bill and load up on those "patches". They are a lot like STDs.
If you are a software engineer you should know that there are some basics to cover, basics that get even more important with big projects, and one of those basics is sanity checking on input and preventing buffer overruns.
What is also clear is that only one in ten people at MS bothered with doing that, and that means you CAN be snide, because yes bugs can pop up anywhere with anything, but bugs caused by blatant consistent incompetence are another story.
So it's not the number but the nature that should raise an eyebrow.
But fortunately for MS they have automatic updates and you need to follow 3 links to get to the details of each individual patch so they nicely avoid that eyebrow from 99.5% of the people, and 99.999% of the journalist
Find me a secure OS and I'll show you a useless OS. There are no "secure" OS's. The only way to make one secure is to not allow 3rd party software on it.
Oracle's Critical Patch Update for October, which will land on the same day as Microsoft's, will address a whooping 81 security issues.
The company has provided this list of affected products:
· Oracle Sun Product Suite
· Agile PLM, version 9.3.0.0
· Siebel Core, versions 7.7, 7.8, 8.0 and 8.1
· Oracle Database 11g Release 2, version 11.2.0.1
· Oracle Database 11g Release 1, version 11.1.0.7
· Oracle Database 10g Release 2, versions 10.2.0.3 and 10.2.0.4
· Oracle Database 10g, Release 1, version 10.1.0.5
· Oracle Fusion Middleware, 11gR1, versions 11.1.1.1.0 and 11.1.1.2.0
· Oracle Application Server, 10gR3, version 10.1.3.5.0
· Oracle Application Server, 10gR2, version 10.1.2.3.0
· Oracle BI Publisher, versions 10.1.3.3.2, 10.1.3.4.0 and 10.1.3.4.1
· Oracle Identity Management 10g, versions 10.1.4.0.1 and 10.1.4.3
· Oracle Transportation Management, versions 5.5, 6.0, and 6.1
· Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12, versions 12.0.4, 12.0.5, 12.0.6, 12.1.1 and 12.1.2
· Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i, versions 11.5.10 and 11.5.10.2
· PeopleSoft Enterprise EPM, Campus Solutions, versions 8.9 and 9.0
· PeopleSoft Enterprise PeopleTools, versions 8.49 and 8.50
· PeopleSoft Enterprise CRM, FMS, HCM and SCM (Supply Chain), versions 8.9, 9.0 and 9.1
· Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management, versions 6.21.3.0 and 7.0.1.0
Thirty-one vulnerabilities are located in the Oracle Sun Products Suite alone and some are common to multiple products.
That's 81. and it's not even the largest patch day they've had. ROFL!!
I have no desire to defend all of MS antics over the years, but some of the comments here are a result of negative sentiments about MS marketing tactics, and reflect expectations that are simply unrealistic.
Having had a successful decades-long career as an independent software technician (mainframes), I feel reasonably qualified to say that creating something as massive as Windows is no easy task, especially since one has to allow for zillions of 3rd party software and hardware components. The mind boggles at the thought of having to write such an OS. IBM never had to concern itself with such a huge variety of 3rd party gear, nor did it have to support hundreds of millions of users, each doing things somewhat differently from the other.
So how is MS supposed to test every piece of code? Acquire every 3rd party product in existence and then test? Even without this factor, it is not possible to foresee all user actions, in all possible permutations and combinations. Programmers test their code to see if what they've allowed for works. As they cannot predict every possible set of actions a user may perform, they cannot test what they did not foresee. There's only so much the human brain can accomplish.
Just so that y'all know.
To everyone posting here comparing their cars to Microsoft software, I think you need to find another comparison...
When you buy your car, you look after it. You maintain it, replacing the essential fluids - oil, gas and failing parts - brakes, lights, exhaust etc.
You almost always pay a professional mechanic to look after the more complicated parts that you can't deal with yourself and you most certainly don't have hundreds or even thousands of people trying to break it every second of every minute of every day.
If you did, you'd love the manufacturer to help and give you fixes for as long as you use it, and you'd want to prosecute anyone who did try and cut your brake lines!
Microsoft do a great job in looking after their software, although I do agree they do sometimes try to get their products to market too quickly so they can beat the competition... and then fix the bugs once they've sold a few million copies.
If you've ever developed any software, you'll know how hard it is to please each and every user. I think it's the only way to succeed. Create, evolve and move on to the next level.
That's just how life works... deal with it.
How about INQ staff start an invetigative project and investigate how MS patches some OS's module how many times it had been patched before. what are styles of patching, what was the class of patching applied via that patch, i.e. is it just cat and mouse game of re-obfuscating the code to escape disassemblers or indeed this patch is fixing something. Are there any supercomputers applied at MS HQs for similating breaches. If an exploit is found in some module is there some AI developed to track similar behaviour in other modules. To avoid similar breach again, are the programming guidlines changed/updated for MS's programmers or they keep writing their yanky code and MS keep following with traditional patchwork to keep that dept's bread n butter running.
Microsoft has defrauded people for so long many actually think selling a bug ridden O/S or software is acceptable. If the brakes on you new car didn't work, the trans was missing three gears, the wheels fell off when you went around a corner, the engine threw a rod every time your started the it, would you consider this an acceptable product?
Well that's basically how any Microsoft O/S functions. Using bubble gum to temporarily stop an oil leak doesn't fix the basic defects.
The fact that Microsoft actually has a monthly "patch Tuesday" shows the career opportunity that exists in placing bubble gum on Windoze defects.
At least they care enough to fix the problems. And don't try much to hide them. Unlike our friends at the fruit company who like to claim "There is no problem". Y'all keep hiding in your measly little 5% market share that no respectable hacker will waste his/her time on.
One thing we have to remember to ask.
Just how many of these fixes are only necessary due to 3rd party application problems? (Flash, Java, Quicktime... the list goes on)Yes... Remember A LOT of the IE patches are due to the above listed third party "items" having big holes in them.
Yes, Linux is constantly being updated. Being open source helps speed fixes along. Linux devs don't deny the problems. They don't make a big deal about them, They don't shell them out in one big chunk once a month. They just fix them and all is good in the world. All while Apple is still in the background going "What Problem?" Here have a rubber-band. Yea! That'll fix it. ROFL!
I tried to use FB Share to post an piece by Inquirer to Facebook and it was blocked. The url is http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1741397/microsoft-roll-whopper-load-patches FB Share wouldn't let me post that to Facebook. I got around it and posted it anyway along with a good piece of my mind about censorship. Maybe Steve Balmer has a relative at FB. Maybe he pays them to keep criticism off their pages. Who knows? I only know that this kind of stupid censorship stinks.
Reply to ""Let's Bring Some Balance"
Some things you don't equally seem to understand, about balance in this instance.
1) Linux is open source, and there are fixes, developed by the community, quickly, for any problems that may be around, for thousands of smaller programs, routines, and such, AND for the OS (Linux) and the DISTRO (such as Ubuntu.)
Microsoft, is Closed source, may or may not fix, depending in part on is there is a loud enough bitch about the problem, (Not the severity).
Their 'fixes' are often just chewing gum in the tube of a Semi truck, and NOT fixes. They are at best 'Patches'
The media, (usually well funded by Microsoft) makes really big to do's any time Linux or Distros have a security error. Not necessarily so with the thousands Microsoft has had, unless they were 'really big' and could not blame them on Firefox (which was not entirely close to the truth).
Microsoft CHOSE to make the 'patch' Tuesday' event, when they kept blowing systems out of the water, with the less frequent patches (One of the reasons I went to Linux... and have no intention of going back to windows failware.)
When Microsoft makes a secure system (and please... all you diners at microsoft's tables... I don't need to know what you say... The Black Hats say you are sooooooooooo wrong...)
Microsoft intended that the Patch Tuesday's be covered in the media, to show that they were getting better.
Now, you seem to feel an injustice has been done...
Meh....
Let's get things a little better balanced here. I use both Microsoft and Linux (Ubuntu) and I can tell you that there is a constant stream of fixes coming to Linux every day and the byte size of these things is considerable. While these package updates bring improvements, they also bring bug fixes. Don't you think it's a little unfair to point the finger just at Microsoft when they release their fixes and improvements and then class their software as insecure? This is hardly a professional attitude. Seriously, you guys need to run something like Ubuntu to get what I'm talking about. I'm no Microsoft lover but this unbalance is just crazy!
...is that Microsucks gets to sell products with tens of thousands of confirmed product defects and reap billions of dollars per year for selling defective goods. If this isn't insanity (and consumer fraud), I don't know what the definition is.
Just imagine the psychology of someone who thinks he deserves billions of dollars for producing the world's buggiest software. Conscience broke long ago in Gate's head. Let's just hope that he doesn't start thinking there's too many of the rest of us cluttering up his planet.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6350303.ece
Is it for .NET?