Full Disclosure mailing list archives

Re: Bigger burger roll needed


From: Micheal Espinola Jr <michealespinola () gmail com>
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 08:16:34 -0400

I don't appreciate you changing caps in my name.  I'm not 'spin'ing
anything - I addressed a specific question with an honest real-world
answer.  I did not include propaganda nor did I denounce any alternate
products.  There's no need to be a disrespectful ass.

Absolutely, Win95 was a pain in the ass  So was 98 and Me.  But I
disagree with the sentiment that it was solely due to MS code. 
Without getting into specifics that no longer matter, surely they
could have did their part better to handle malformed input - but who
was malform'ing the input in the first place?

Again, as an administrator having dealt with these issues in very
large numbers, its was commonly an isolated distinguishable issue of
drivers - that not only related to improper handling by the OS but
also with inoperabilities with other drivers and devices.

Properly configured, and not mucked with, I've had 95 boxes run for
years without crashing or having to be rebuilt.  You can call it luck
if you want.  I called it my job.

I didn't bitch about it - I figured it out, got the job done and went
on with life.


On 10/4/05, security curmudgeon <jericho () attrition org> wrote:

: Since its inception, supporting NT 3.0 beta and onward, I have been
: dealing with BSOD's.  In total, there have been comparatively very few
: times were it was a direct fault of MS code.  It has very commonly been
: in relation to 3rd party drivers that needed reworking or updating by
: the 3rd-party manufacturer.
:
: This is not PR spin (of which I don't think you could find any published
: PR spin for either side of this argument either).  This is real world
: experience with the NT+ products across i386 and Alpha hardware
: platforms using peripheral devices from many different major
: manufactures.  There are admins on both sides of the anti-MS fence that
: I communicate with that would agree with this conclusion.

Fine, it isn't PR spin. But, compare this to Unix. How many times do you
run user-land, 3rd party applications, that cause a kernel panic?

Why does Windows *let* third party applications BSOD the core operating
system? Fine, Microsoft didn't code the application causing it, but they
sure coded the operating system that doesn't know how to handle malformed
input.

And the first few years of Windows 95 saw many, *many* BSODs that were due
to Microsoft code. That lead to the general impression and sentiment you
see today.
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