Summary: Microsoft's Restrictions Management Service is broken again and Windows XP is again left vulnerable with Microsoft unwilling to address the issue
Microsoft's Restrictions [sic] Management Service (RMS) is brokenyet again, proving -- as always -- that Microsoft cannot handle encryption properly because it is not reusing good code like Free software typically does. From The H we learn that:
An implementation flaw allows attackers to bypass the encryption mechanism used for Microsoft Office documents. Although this isn't news, having been made public in 2005, no (officially acknowledged) attack or tool for exploiting the vulnerability has existed until now. Which probably explains why Microsoft has never fixed the problem with an update for older versions of Office.
French crypto expert Eric Filiol in his presentationPDF at the recent Black Hat security conference emphasised that the situation has now changed. He says his tool can decrypt a document within a few minutes. Filiol said he began working on the statistical analysis of the RC4 algorithm used in Office back in 1994. Talking to heise Security, the expert explained why he has only now published his results: "I was employed by the French military at the time. Everything I did was classified. Now I am free speak about it."
In other news, Microsoft is seemingly blaming users for flaws in Windows that enabled rootkits to be installed. More curiously, "Microsoft refuses to patch infected Windows XP machines," according to PC Pro. [via]
Microsoft has revealed that its latest round of patches won't install on XP machines if they're infected with a rootkit.
Back in February, a security patch left some XP users complaining of endless reboots and Blue Screens of Death. An investigation followed and Microsoft discovered the problems occurred on machines infected with the Alureon rootkit, which interacted badly with patch KB977165 for the Windows kernel.
PCs using file-share sites and publishes the user's net history on a public website before demanding a fee for its removal.
The Japanese trojan virus installs itself on computers using a popular file-share service called Winni, used by up to 200m people.
Suffice to say, this "Japanese trojan virus" would not install itself on anything other than Windows, but the article above is from the MSBBC [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8] and thus it addresses toddlers who equate "computers" with "Windows". it's like stating that cars in general -- not just Toyota cars [1, 2] -- have a fatal flaw. ⬆
All signs indicate that Microsoft wants to "exit" the XBox business (not brand), but it does not want to publicly admit this as it would alarm staff and shareholders
Considering the huge proportion of Web requests that come from LLM bots (more so this past year or two), statCounter may struggle to justify the operating costs
The corporate media is projecting or signalling its own dishonesty when it tells us that Microsoft is a very "valuable" company while the data shows Microsoft is also a "market leader" in layoffs
For those of us who turned down those propositions there was a struggle; we needed to justify not having skinnerboxes or "social" accounts in some site run by a private company
In a lot of ways, so-called 'Vibe Coding' is already considered vapourware or a passing fad promoted in the media by managers who try to justify mass layoffs, especially ridding companies of "very expensive" software engineers
