To: WSFAlist at keithlynch.net
Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2003 13:21:00 -0400
Subject: [WSFA] Re: A geeky question
From: ronkean at juno.com
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

On Tue, 19 Aug 2003 12:10:54 -0400 "Strong, Lee" <StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL>
writes:
>         One factor is that Microsoft is a bigger target since so
> many
> operating systems are Microsoft products.  And, for Microsoft
> bashers, a
> more emotionally satisfying target.
>

It is said that 95% of the world's computers use a Windows operating
system, and a high percentage of computer users are using other MS
products such as Outlook, MS Word, Excel, etc.  So a virus or worm or DOS
attack which is intended to cause mass disruption would be targeted
against MS products, because there are so many copies in use out there.

But the complaints about MS products are not so much that are they being
attacked by malicious programmers, but that they are vulnerable to
attack, as well as being vulnerable to accidental crashes.

The complaints about MS products fall into two broad areas.  One is that
Windows is not robust against crashing, and the other is that other MS
products such as Outlook for email, Word for word processing, and Excel
for numerical data are rife with security vulnerabilities.

Windows crashing, I think, has to do with the way it handles, or
mishandles, memory allocation in a computer.  A personal computer is
normally running several software programs simultaneously, and the
operating system is supposed to orchestrate the use of memory by those
programs to prevent conflicts.  When conflicts occur, the system may
freeze or crash, and then have to be rebooted, which makes for
inconvenience, waste of time, and loss of some data.  A computer crash
can be disastrous, if the computer is running something important, such
as a bank, or a power plant or power grid system.

The security vulnerabilities of MS products in general are most likely a
consequence of MicroSoft's intent to make its family of products easy to
use, including sharing data between programs and computers on a network,
and making it easy to update software by downloading and installing
software updates via the internet.  That is all very fine so long as no
one with malicious intent tries to exploit the vulnerabilities.

There is another possible cause of security vulnerabilities, that
MicroSoft has secretly conspired with U.S. intelligence agencies to
provide back doors which allow government agencies to access private
computers in various ways, unbeknownst to the computer users.

Ron Kean

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