Another flaw comes to light
By MIKE BERMAN
Scripps Howard News Service
February 05, 2003

I had a dream (with apologies to Martin Luther King).

I dreamed that I would, one day, wake up without fear of a malicious nemesis that awaited me when I logged onto my computer.

I dreamed of a world where the words worm and virus only related to fish bait and a bad cold.

I dreamed of a pure cyber universe where everything was beautiful and everything I tried to do worked perfectly.

Then I woke up and became slammed, klezed and attacked by bugs that had invaded my perfect world via the Internet or through the installation of software I thought I could trust.

Well, I’m not going to take it any more! This is war!

I dare any malicious misanthrope to get through my maze of firewalls, virus scanners and security alerts! I’m protected!!!!

Of course, now it takes me several hours to log onto my system and my firewalls block everything from the installation of new programs to new network connections. But I’m safe from those nasty cyber intruders that would invade my PC.

Now I could make my life simpler by switching to Linux (which has security problems of its own) or Apple-based operating systems. But then I wouldn’t be part of the majority. I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the benefits of being part of Uncle Bill’s grand scheme of every entertainment center, computer and digital phone being linked by a Microsoft operating system.

And, why should I be forced to give all this up? Why am I being subjected to a future of paranoia, just because I want to be part of the majority? It’s not fair!

I find myself constantly going to the Windows update site to check for the latest patches and security fixes from Redmond. I scour the Net, fearing that someone might know of a vulnerability that may still exist, unpatched and open to intruders.

And what’s my reward? Patches that either don’t work properly or cause more problems.

A good case in point is Uncle Bill’s revelation that a patch that was supposed to fix a flaw in the WM_TIMER function on PCs running Windows NT 4.0 has resulted in random crashed and reboots. In fact, one user reported that he was still reported as being logged on using Terminal Service Administrator after logging off the system. All of these problems were “cured” when the patch was removed.

Although, there weren’t any problems with computers running Windows 2000 or XP, this is still a major flaw, causing constant migraines for system administrators.

So another flaw comes to light, destroying my dream.

Please, Uncle Bill, I implore you to make my dreams a reality. I still want to be part of the majority!

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