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See Full StoryI'm an experienced software engineer, not a Microsoft apologist. Moreover, my company makes a living patching the holes in Microsoft operating systems. In a manner of speaking, their lemons are my lemonade. But the pile-on occurring in the press and the software community is neither justified nor smart. The real risk isn't Microsoft's alleged inability to write good software. All software and all technology is inherently vulnerable -- and users must take some responsibility.
Re: Software Insecurity - Don't Blame Microsoft
Posted by: bex 2003-11-07 12:33:08 In reply to: Alex Bakman
But shouldn't that go for all operating systems and third party software?
I know that many other software vendors are just, if not more, suseptable to buggy code but they all play by the same rules: it's partially upto the user. Not entirely though. If windows wasn't so aimed at the average user, the userbase would have to be a little more technically savvy, and would know to upgrade and patch their systems. If it was made clearer on how to go about this then less technical users wouldn't have a problem doing it. As it is though, I doubt most people in my house, for example, would know _what_ to do about a patch, nevermind try and go about it. Until users are educated on basic security issues and how to maintain a certain level of security they wont do it and microsoft in particular will continue to get bad press. It's not nice or fair but it will happen. At least it'll be interesting to see if microsoft manage to resolve this issue.
I know that many other software vendors are just, if not more, suseptable to buggy code but they all play by the same rules: it's partially upto the user. Not entirely though. If windows wasn't so aimed at the average user, the userbase would have to be a little more technically savvy, and would know to upgrade and patch their systems. If it was made clearer on how to go about this then less technical users wouldn't have a problem doing it. As it is though, I doubt most people in my house, for example, would know _what_ to do about a patch, nevermind try and go about it. Until users are educated on basic security issues and how to maintain a certain level of security they wont do it and microsoft in particular will continue to get bad press. It's not nice or fair but it will happen. At least it'll be interesting to see if microsoft manage to resolve this issue.
