Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Cost -- and Cause -- for Security Failure, Data Breaches

Windows Vista is not a secure operating system and Vista 7 is the same. The ramifications can be very serious and no level of censorship can hide it. According to this report from the Identity Theft Resource Center, the leaking of sensitive data is rising sharply due to inappropriate means of securing it.



More than 35 million data records were breached in 2008 in the U.S., a figure that underscores continuing difficulties in securing information, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC).


Each and every one of us pays for the damage, as costs are collective and our data is centralised not only on our personal computers*. Even our medical records can be compromised.

“Each and every one of us pays for the damage, as costs are collective and our data is centralised not only on our personal computers.”What is responsible for this and who is to blame? Well, based on empirical evidence, it's Microsoft that has failed. It failed not because it's an impossible task to secure software but because, as the manager of Windows said a few years ago, "our products just aren't engineered for security."

Let's consider GNU/Linux for a second. The platform runs in an environment that's highly connected; it runs on a very large number of boxes endlessly. In September 2008, said Steve Ballmer: “Forty percent of servers run Windows, 60 percent run Linux..."**

If GNU/Linux was not secure, wouldn't many of the Web servers out there be compromised? Evidently, they rarely do. Software that's installed on them with uploaders is a vector of weakness, but that too has not caused much harm.

On the other hand we have Windows, which is once again under a worm attack, according to this new report.

Business systems are being attacked by a worm exploiting a known Microsoft vulnerability, IT security experts have warned.


Sam Varghese, a GNU/Linux user, wrote about "worms, worms, worms" a few days ago. Security troubles under Windows have more of his computers migrated to GNU/Linux right now.

It would have been good to have some equivalent of Delilah on Windows to negate the role of this browser, but, sadly there is none. There are some third-party applications like XPlite , developed by Australian Shane Brooks, which do remove most of IE but then which browser do you use to update Windows? Only IE supports ActiveX.

You can, of course, move from XP to Vista where the updates are done through the control panel but that would be the equivalent of offering a man a choice between arsenic and cyanide for breakfast.


Sam mentions ActiveX, which was probably designed and implemented for anti-competitive reasons (making Web sites operating system-dependent), despite it's obvious dangers. As Bill Gates put it on numerous occasions, they needed to leverage standards-hostile extensions. In this one E-mail [PDF] he wrote: "Another suggestion In this mail was that we can’t make our own unilateral extensions to HTML I was going to say this was wrong and correct this also."

Where do Windows users end up because of this? Well, merely visiting a Web site can be dangerous because it gives the site great control over the entire operating system (access to local files even). At the moment, there are reports about Windows-only features in LinkedIn... malicious 'features'

[T]he sort of social media trouble quotient appears to have risen a bit as fake LinkedIn profiles are trying to send users towards malware.


We all reap what they sow.

"In one piece of mail people were suggesting that Office had to work equally well with all browsers and that we shouldn’t force Office users to use our browser. This Is wrong and I wanted to correct this."

--Bill Gates [PDF]



XHTML
Hostility towards (X)HTML came from the top



___ * Where else are they centralised? Well, a lot of people don't know where or how their medical records are kept or how susceptible those records might be to data theft. Are medical records kept only on private networks? or are they reachable by the outside world (Chinese or Russian crackers, for example). Ordinary people pay more attention once they realise exactly how this situation can cause them harm in a very personal way.

** This is an important point, and it should probably be made even stronger. If GNU/Linux was not more secure, wouldn't its 60 percent of the Web servers be compromised at least as often as Windows 40 percent? Yet evidence shows that they rarely are.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Techrights' Statement on Code of Censorship (CoC) and Kent Overstreet: This Was the Real Purpose of Censorship Agreements All Along
Bombing people is OK (if you sponsor the key organisations), opposing bombings is not (a CoC in a nutshell)
 
GNU/Linux Reaches All-Time High in Europe (at 6%)
many in Europe chose to explore something else, something freedom-respecting
Patents Against Energy Sources That Reduce Pollution
this EV space (not just charging) is a patent mine field and it has long been that way
DARPA’s Information Innovation Office, Howard Shrobe, Values Compartmentalisation But Loses the Opportunity to Promote GNU/Linux and BSDs
All in all, he misses an opportunity
Wayland is an Alternative to X
the alternative to X (as in Twitter) isn't social control media but something like IRC
BetaNews, Desperate for Clicks, is Pushing Donald Trump Spam Created by LLMs (Slop)
Big clap to Brian Fagioli for stuffing a "tech" site with Trump spam (not the first time he uses LLMs to do this)
[Meme] Social Control Media Bliss
"My tree is bigger than yours"
Links 24/11/2024: More IMF Bailouts and Net Client Freedom
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/11/2024: Being a Student and Digital Downsizing
Links for the day
[Meme] The Most Liberal Company
"Insurrection? What insurrection?"
apple.com Traffic Down Over 7%, Says One Spyware Firm; Apple's Liabilities Increased Over 6% to $308,030,000,000
Apple is also about 120 billion dollars in debt
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, November 23, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, November 23, 2024
[Meme] GAFAMfox
Mozilla Firefox in a state of extreme distress
Google Can Kill Mozilla Any Time It Wants
That gives Google far too much power over its rival... There are already many sites that refuse to work with Firefox or explicitly say Firefox isn't supported
Free (as in Freedom) Software Helps Tackle the Software Liability Issue, It Lets Users Exercise Greater Control Over Programs
Microsofters have been trying to ban or exclude Free software
In the US, Patent Laws Are Up for Sale
This problem is a lot bigger than just patents
ESET Finds Rootkits, Does Not Explain How They Get Installed, Media Says It Means "Previously Unknown Linux Backdoors" (Useful Distraction From CALEA and CALEA2)
FUD watch
Techdirt Loses Its Objectivity in Pursuit of Money
The more concerning aspects are coverage of GAFAM and Microsoft in particular
Links 23/11/2024: Press Sold to Vultures, New LLM Blunders
Links for the day
Links 23/11/2024: "Relationship with Oneself" and Yretek.com is Back
Links for the day
Links 23/11/2024: "Real World" Cracked and UK Online Safety Act is Law
Links for the day
Links 23/11/2024: Celebrating Proprietary Bluesky (False Choice, Same Issues) and Software Patents Squashed
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, November 22, 2024
IRC logs for Friday, November 22, 2024
Gemini Links 23/11/2024: 150 Day Streak in Duolingo and ICBMs
Links for the day
Links 22/11/2024: Dynamic Pricing Practice and Monopoly Abuses
Links for the day
Topics We Lacked Time to Cover
Due to a Microsoft event (an annual malware fest for lobbying and marketing purposes) there was also a lot of Microsoft propaganda
Microsofters Try to Defund the Free Software Foundation (by Attacking Its Founder This Week) and They Tell People to Instead Give Money to Microsoft Front Groups
Microsoft people try to outspend their critics and harass them
[Meme] EPO for the Kids' Future (or Lack of It)
Patents can last two decades and grow with (or catch up with) the kids
EPO Education: Workers Resort to Legal Actions (Many Cases) Against the Administration
At the moment the casualties of EPO corruption include the EPO's own staff
Gemini Links 22/11/2024: ChromeOS, Search Engines, Regular Expressions
Links for the day
This Month is the 11th Month of This Year With Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (So Far It's Happening Every Month This Year, More Announced Hours Ago)
Now they even admit it
Links 22/11/2024: Software Patents Squashed, Russia Starts Using ICBMs
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, November 21, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, November 21, 2024