Extremely Critical Flaw' in Windows Discovered, Already Exploited

[Tom Allensworth 1,532]

"I suppose I could have thought of something better, but it's my lack of credentials that did the talkin'"As someone who comes up against "credentials" daily, I appreciate the unannointed, the credentialed challenged, those that would lead in spite of lack of credentials and the will to overcome "paper" everywhere. :-lol I am one with you dude.... Just ask all those geeks and engineers that work for me. :-lol

[Guest enave]

>And I should note, you're asking to prove something you>know full well is unprovable.*sigh* What I said was, if I could establish the following circumstances, then would you accept that as proof. If I could somehow reverse the situation so that Microsoft had a 10% share of the computer market, and an Open Source program had 90%, and if when the tables were turned, there were still more bugs in the Microsoft product, then would you accept that as proof of inferiority.And then you respond with this:>Unless the tables were reversed, and Linux were King and >Microsoft second fiddle,well duh, that's what I just asked. If I could do that, would you accept it as proof? Since you repeat back to me what I just said, apparently without even considering it, I strongly suspect that you cannot be reasonable in a debate. I guess I should thank you for not wasting my time.I'm sorry if you thought I was bragging. That wasn't my intention. I just thought I could save you the trouble of arguing against someone who really does know what he's talking about - but again, that was contingent on your willingness to be reasonable. Since that's out the window, I guess my post was wasted.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

"I'm sorry if you thought I was bragging. That wasn't my intention. I just thought I could save you the trouble of arguing against someone who really does know what he's talking about - but again, that was contingent on your willingness to be reasonable. Since that's out the window, I guess my post was wasted."A debate implies you respect and accept that the person you are debating with may be equally qualified to make an assertion or put forth a premise. I guess by not having the credentials you state, I am not that in your eyes. I agree your post was wasted, as it appears from your response essentially still says, to paraphrase, that you are right and everyone else is wrong....-John

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I should also note in addition to my other response, one's comparing the holes of Linux vs. those of Windows is an apples to oranges comparison. Windows is a lot more complex than the core of Linux, which on its own is not a graphical O/S. I suspect if you compare the number of defects per lines of code, Windows would still come out ahead. But I can't prove it :)-John

[Guest enave]

>A debate implies you respect and accept that the person you>are debating with may be equally qualified to make an>assertion or put forth a premise. I guess by not having the>credentials you state, I am not that in your eyes.You guess wrong. You are free to say why you believe the way you do. I am free to say why I believe the way I do. In my case, it is because of my extensive education and experience. This statement does not diminish you. There's no reason for you to be so defensive.>it appears from your response>essentially still says, to paraphrase, that you are right and>everyone else is wrong....You're having trouble reading my posts. That's ok. I'm very patient.There are two undisputed fact in this debate: A: that a Microsoft program has more serious bugs than a competing program.B: that the Microsoft program has more market-share than the competing program.You and others have drawn the following conclusion:That A is because of B. Or to put that another way:if B then AMy opinion A is not because of B. In my opinion A is true regardless of B.What I have done in four previous posts is just ask what test we might make. Logically, if we can negate B, and then find that A is still true, then the following:if B then ACANNOT be true, and it would then follow that I am correct. On the other hand, if we negate B and find the following:if (not :( then (not A)that would mean that I am wrong, and you are correct.I haven't even gotten to point of trying to negate B. I'm just trying to help you understand the parameters of the debate.This isn't a question of me being right and everyone else being wrong. It could go either way. I'm just trying to help you to understand what we're talking about.It'd be great if you could recognize when someone knows more about a subject than you do, then you could save yourself all this trouble. But it's cool. Like I said, I'm patient.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

"It'd be great if you could recognize when someone knows more about a subject than you do, then you could save yourself all this trouble. But it's cool. Like I said, I'm patient."I've been on the planet long enough to know when I (and I suppose those who believe as I do) am being patronized. Don't waste your time, as you have already said.'Nuff said.-John

[John_Cillis 2,406]

"How cold hearted does one need to be to spend so much time just scanning through code looking for anyway to ruin others lives in as wide-spread a method as possible?"John,I didn't see your reply (and great question) after I opened the thread the other day. I wanted to say that some of these exploits are discovered by third parties trying to warn Microsoft of the loopholes in its code. They try to discover these issues before someone else does, and it's a great service they provide. It's the exploits we don't hear about until after millions of systems are infected which can give one pause.-John

[John_Cillis 2,406]

"I suspect if you compare the number of defects per lines of code, Windows would still come out ahead."I better reply to my own post before someone else does. I suspect it can be argued that Linux code can accomplish in 100 lines what Windows does in a thousand :) -John

[Guest enave]

>I've been on the planet long enough to know when I (and I>suppose those who believe as I do) am being patronized. Don't>waste your time, as you have already said.sure sure, but you deserve it, since you were patronizing me as well when you said:"I never obtained my MCSE, but they still report to me. Wonder why?"Which I take to mean something along the lines of:"ho ho ho, get all the education you want boy, you're still gonna work for me because I'm better than you!!"It's all really kind of ridiculous, isn't it. If we were discussing airplanes, and someone came along said, "actually, here's the way this works... and the reason I know this is that I've been an airline pilot for 30 years."Would it then be appropriate to say, "well I'm not a pilot but they all end up reporting to me - and I say you're wrong"No, I don't think that would be appropriate, I think that would be down-right arrogant.Anyway, getting back to the point, this is a really simple issue. To test the conjecture:if B then AWe just need to find one example where (not :( is true. If A is still true, then the conjecture is false.

[beatle 0]

Hey John,:)>>One of my favorite questions that people ask me when they find out I work for the "evil empire" :-> is how many MSxx certifications I have, or what requirements are there for such and such certification, and I have to tell them I have no idea, I don't have any of em, I'm a programmer, not a system administrator/service tech (which is who those certs are for). I don't believe we have a Microsoft Certified Programmer certificate, other than the blue ID badge in my wallet (blue means full time employee, as opposed to orange for contractors, and some other color for interns, etc) :->The other question they ask is "How do I do X in Microsoft Office?", which I usually have to answer with, "Couldn't tell ya, I've never used that feature" :-> (or, "Go ask my ex-wife, she uses that a lot more than I do" :-> )Tim

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Eric, my first reply to your comments did nothing to belittle you nor did it attack you. You were the one who introduced "credentials" into this conversation in what I feel an attempt to belittle me and everyone else who doesn't share your view. I feel even more strongly about that now. It's funny you saw my comment as "I'm better than you". You called my response "getting defensive". I call placing credentials to qualify your argument "the pot calling the kettle black". If you had confidence in your statements you wouldn't need to bring that into your posts. As this was my thread to start, I see no reason for it to turn into a shouting match between us. I'm not going to serve as your whipping post. People have been warned of this issue which was my thread's intent. You are free to open your own thread if you want to state your case vs. the troubles of Windows further but if it's with the intent of continuing this "discussion" between us, I will delete it.You'll find I generally agree that Windows it has its fair share of issues, but I've not lost one iota of production WAN time on account of it. Does that make me "better" than you? Hardly. But it makes me and my team dang good at what we do. And there's dozen of forum members here with degrees, without, and with certifications, and without, who are my equal and yours. Thread locked.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

It was suggested I post this here--good advice considering the nature of this security risk.-John___________________________Microsoft Corp. has issued a security advisory for what Secunia is deeming an "extremely critical flaw" in Windows Metafile Format (.wmf) that is now being exploited on fully patched systems by malicious attackers. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,180244,00.html