Lump of Coal for M$’s Customers at Robert Pogson

Lump of Coal for M$’s Customers

Published by Robert Pogson December 10th, 2010 in technology. 4 Comments

It is said that Santa Claus leaves a lump of coal in the stockings of naughty children. I wonder what M$’s customers have done to deserve software running their IT systems with 40 vulnerabilities like “remote code execution” or “privilege escalation”? Is it that they did not choose better software such as GNU/Linux? Is it that they did not rebel at the lack of choice offered in retail markets?

see December 2010 Patch Tuesday will come with most bulletins ever

Most people in that category are still using XP. In 10 years, shouldn’t they have fixed those vulnerabilities by now???

- Robert Pogson

4 Responses to “Lump of Coal for M$’s Customers”

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1 Ray Dec 10th, 2010 at 3:53 pm

Well, you know what they say, no one’s program is 100% bug free, no exceptions.
2 Robert Pogson Dec 10th, 2010 at 6:14 pm

“Hello, World!” is often bug-free after a few revisions…

The problem with M$ is that they do not create software with an eye to making it reliable/bug-free. Their top priority is to add features that no one else can so they can claim their software is “better”. They provide themselves all kinds of links to things third parties cannot reach. Then a bug somewhere can bring the whole thing down. The sane way to do things is to keep everything modular and isolated so that any bug has limited consequences. M$ has the whole world afraid to read their e-mail for fear malware gets in.

The reason “7″ is so bulky is that M$ has added so much stuff to it and it gives hardly more functionality than XP and they still have not debugged XP. How will they every get “7″ clean? The world wants to run debugged code, not to debug M$’s stuff with the additional handicap of not being able to see the source code.
3 Richard Chapman Dec 11th, 2010 at 8:43 am

There’s a nasty bit of false logic running around, it goes something like this: The more users a given software has, the more it will be exploited. Every time an article is written about the latest failure in Microsoft’s security, at least one comment will appear that alludes to that faulty and misleading logic.

My statement here can be considered a challenge to anybody who makes such a statement to detail exactly how that “logic” works.

“…no one’s program is 100% bug free, no exceptions.” So all programs are just as likely to get compromised? So all programs are equal in security? If no program is 100% bug free then why bother with security, whether by design or by ad-on? Microsoft’s software does not require more security because it’s more popular. It requires more security because security was not designed into it, it was an afterthought… far aft.
4 ray Dec 11th, 2010 at 9:11 am

pog:

Not always. The ‘Hello world’ program can be bug free on one computer, yet crashes on another computer.

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My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.