FilePro Happy faces

[Bill Campbell]

On Tue, Aug 10, 2004, Bob Rasmussen wrote:
>On Tue, 10 Aug 2004, Anthony Terrible wrote:
>
>> Well my take on these things is if it isn't broke, don't fix it. I have
>> several machines that don't even have SP1. Why? They run just fine. I
>> recently bought a new machine (coming into the 21st century) and against my
>> wishes I had to load SP1 because the USB ports wouldn't work without it. I
>> don't upgrade my software, I don't upgrade my OS's, heck I don't even
>> upgrade my machines, the one just replaced was a 233mhz. It ran just fine in
>> fact in some instances it runs better then the one I'm using now a 3gig mhz.
>> It's kind of like chasing your tail, what are you going to do when you catch
>> it?
>
>If you study the list of things fixed in Windows updates, you will find
>that well over half of them are security fixes. That is, Microsoft finds
>or hears about holes, and fixes them. Often when a hole is reported, and
>exploit appears in VERY short order.
>
>By not installing security updates, you leave yourself vulnerable to
>hacks, virii, worms, etc., that might a) damage your own systems, and/or
>coopt your system into an attack on other sites.
>
>If your machine is isolated from the world, I could condone an attitude
>such as you express, but if it's connected, I don't think it's wise or
>helpful.

And applying the patches does anything useful?  You sure can't tell it from
the numbers of owned Windows machines being used to propagate spam, and
more worms.

Windows XP came out three years ago this month, and was supposed to be the
answer to all Microsoft's security problems.  If I remember correctly, the
first major exploit of XP came out within a week or so of that release.
New exploits of Windows, of ever increasing severity, come out almost
weekly.  I've often wondered (a) why people continue to use Windows given
it's security history, and (b) why the land sharks haven't gone after
Microsoft or the managers and directors of public companies who endanger
their company's assets by putting critical data on Windows.

Bill
--
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``...I'm not one of those who think Bill Gates is the devil.  I simply
suspect that if Microsoft ever met up with the devil, it wouldn't need an
interpreter.'' -- Nick Petreley