more on Microsoft's festive advice: Don't plug our PCs into the Web

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2003 11:23:50 -0800
From: Carl Page <carlp () cpsr org>
Subject: Re: [IP] Microsoft's festive advice: Don't plug our PCs into the Web
To: "Dave Farber (by way of Bernard A. Galler)" <dave () farber net>

Microsoft has also implicitly banned Dial Up internet
internet access.

The list of required downloads for a new WinXP
or Win2000 install has exceeded 50 MB.
The number of hours required to
download the patches successfully on a
modem with a typical dial up connection
exceeds the time that most people are willing
sacrifice their phone line.  And since most dial ups
keep hanging up halfway-thru they cannot just
be left to run overnight successfully.

My very sharp witted octogenarian great-cousin
lost his PC to the same MS-Blast32 worm invasion
that accompanied the NE Power grid failure.
It is remotely possible that it was his computer
that infected the Davis-Besse nuclear plants
monitoring system.   (Nobody really cared because
it has a big hole in its head anyway.)  The power system
monitoring software used the same broken
windows RPC port the worm took advantage of.
Of course we haven't heard of any other power facilities
that had trouble because their monitoring software
crashed.  Could it be because someone would have
to get fired?   For more on how "We Almost Lost
Toledo" check UCSUSA.org's reports on Davis-Besse.

Anyway, it is as you say.  His computer was infected
before he could download the required patches,
despite being aware of the issue and attempting to
complete the patch.

He begged for a patch CD ROM but was told that
none was available.   (The current manufacturing cost
of a CDROM is $0.22.)

    (arl

<<From: Claudio Gutierrez <cgutierrez () improvement cl> >>
Subject: Microsoft's festive advice: Don't plug our PCs into the Web
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>

Its slogan is "where do you want to go today?" But Microsoft asks
that if you get a Windows computer for Christmas,don't take it to one
particular place: the internet.

<snip> 

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