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Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Thursday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In computer news this week 9/8/2004: A day in the
life ... of Microsoft |
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With excuses to the Beatles for their
classic song A day in the life, here’s my computer version
.. I read
the computer news today, oh boy, 10,000 holes in Internet Explorer, And
though the holes seem rather small, they just can’t fix them all, And
we’ll never know how many holes it takes to fill the Alpert Hall ..... For the past couple years at
least we’ve been hearing about all the problems with Microsoft software
products, particularly Internet Explorer. The primary reason for this is that
Microsoft’s browser – which is built into windows – is the
predominant browser on the marketplace today. This means that the majority of
people using the web use it. It also means that the majority of hackers
spreading spyware, computer viruses, and other malware, and hackers attempting to break into computers
and networks,
attack it primarily. From Microsoft’s
perspective. It seems that they think of these problems as
“holes” and not “bugs”; so what’s the
difference? The term “bug” in
the computer goes all the way back to the very first computer – the
ENIAC – a huge vacuum tube powered electronic computer, and one day a
moth actually flew into an exposed part of the circuitry and caused a short,
which caused a computer crash, and thus the term “bug” became
assigned to any problem with a computer It may surprise you to learn
that many commercial software programs go out the door with hundreds and
thousands of known bugs in them.
Usually the software vendors figure that just not enough customers are
going to run into those particular bugs, and those that do will have to wait
for a future version of the software that corrects those bugs, if enough
people are having a problem. But the term “hole”
is a newer term that is unique to networking and to the internet. It implies
that a hole in a program like Internet Explorer is not a bug, but that it is a
function in the program- which if used improperly- can allow an unauthorized
person to access a network or a computer and possibly steal information or do
damage. So as to it being a problem
inside the software, it only becomes a problem if someone on the outside
misuses the feature. Clear as mud, right? The end result of all this is
that you can spend a great deal of your time now constantly updating windows
to get the latest software patches which fix known vulnerabilities which
hackers exploit. But let’s not single out
Microsoft, because there are hundreds of other programs which have the same
problems, and everyday I get security bulletins talking about known security
holes in common everyday used programs in the pc world, and how users of
those programs can download the latest security patches for them. And this all stems from
everyone using the internet today, and from noone
owning the internet, and so problems like security holes and spam come with
the unowned territory. The lastest
Microsoft temporary fix to the problem in Windows XP is their Service Pack
Release 2, which you can either do online, or order a free CD, which I did.
They adamantly warn you that you should back up your computer when you
install this or any patch, and I doubt that less than 1% of users heed this
warning. When will it ever end? I really don’t know. For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2004 MTA Micro
Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html (509)624-7230 |
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