08.18.14
Gartner Group Advocates Using Defective Software With Back Doors
Summary: Despite strong evidence that Microsoft has been complicit in illegal surveillance, Gartner continues to recommend the use of Windows and other espionage-ready Microsoft software
One might think that the Gartner Group paid attention to revelations about Microsoft complicity and active collaboration with the NSA’s crimes. Apparently, however, being a rogue marketing operation (disguised PR), Gartner is seemingly unable to learn what a lot of the public (and CIOs, CTOs etc.) already know. Let’s face it. Bill Gates’ ‘investments’ in Gartner and Microsoft’s payments to this marketing (‘analyst’) firm did not fail to cloud its judgment. In world of Gartner, even though Vista 8 is a total disaster and the future of Windows is quite uncertain, the only choice one has is between versions of Windows, not between operating systems. To Gartner, anything other than Windows is not even an option. Back doors are here to stay and defects too are “necessary evil”, apparently.
Why is it that so many people continue to treat Gartner with respect? Any morsel of credibility should have been long gone, even by checking who subsidises this firm. It’s like a think tank or a collective lobbying group (for its corporate client who seek to sell, not to buy); that’s not what analysts are supposed to do.
John C. Dvorak published this column the other day, highlighting the fact that Windows is defective and remains defective even decades down the line. He wrote: “You would think that after 30 years of Windows, many of the obvious and consistent flaws would be fixed. Are they unfixable? Or are the people at Microsoft who can fix them uninterested?
“There is a belief within the tech community that Microsoft lost control of Windows years ago as the company turned over personnel—including the programmers who actually knew the base code of Windows itself. It has long since become what people call spaghetti code—a tangle impossible to unravel. Every patch has to be run through a regimen of tests to see if anything breaks. One thing is fixed and soon something else does not work right.”
Incidentally, see this new report about Microsoft bricking Windows with the latest patches. To quote:
Since Patch Tuesday this past week, Microsoft has been receiving reports of severe system errors caused by one or more of the updates.
Yes, that’s Microsoft ‘quality’. This spaghetti code is impossible to manage, apparently. Simon Phipps, the OSI’s President, also wrote quite recently for “Linux Voice“. He wrote about Microsoft’s inherently defective software, inadvertently echoing some of Dvorak’s observations:
The action law enforcement services have taken against the GameOver-Zeus malware syndicate is great news for a change. In the UK, this was communicated with typical tabloid alarmism, framed as “two weeks to save the world” instead of “unusually effective action by law enforcement”. As a result, UK publications have been posting self-preservation information for their readers.
This is a Windows-only issue and since Microsoft does facilitate back doors (bug doors to be precise), Microsoft deserves at least some of the blame here. As Phipps concludes:
So actually it’s somewhat appropriate to blame Windows versions prior to Windows 8 for being vulnerable to many viruses which exploited bugs in this way. The existence of the vulnerability was a conscious choice and a marketing decision; in OS/2, which had no legacy to accommodate, the ring 0 separation was enforced.
Yes, Windows also offers a larger attack “surface” because of its wide adoption, and yes, there are other exploit mechanisms. But this tolerated technical vulnerability is the root cause of a large number of exploits. So while it’s true that malware authors are directly to blame for malware, there’s also a culpability for Microsoft that can’t be ignored.
For Gartner to be advocating the use of such rubbish spaghetti code (in binary form) is worse than incompetent; it’s utterly irresponsible. Why will any serious CIO or CTO ever listen to Gartner again?
Based on publicly-available evidence, even BIOS cracks require Windows. To give “BULLDOZER” as an example: “The technique supports any desktop PC system that contains at least one PCI connector (slot) and uses Microsoft Windows 9x, 2000, 2003 server, XP, or Vista. The PCI slot is required for the BULLDOZER hardware implant installation.”
To give “DEITYBOUNCE” as an example: “DEITYBOUNCE supports multiprocessor systems with RAID hardware and Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, and 2003 Server.”
No wonder China and Russia are banning x86 and/or Microsoft Windows. It’s not because they’re “anti-American” but because Microsoft Windows and some US-made hardware are anti-users. In Germany, for example, ‘secure’ boot was banned for similar reasons. Perhaps they have not been taking Garner’s advice then. In Munich, Gartner notably tried to derail (with words) the migration to GNU/Linux, as we demonstrated some years ago. █
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