W32.Swen.A@mm goes ballistic!

java-programmer, W32.Swen.A@mm goes ballistic! "Tim Tyler" <email***@***.com> wrote

> It fills the mailboxes of users with huge numbers of 140K attachments -
> making email practically unusable.

Well, no, it just takes perseverance. Being careful not to junk the
five real messages in 1995 others is a bit tedious, I'll grant from
experience.

> Non-Windows users - and the rest of the internet - are targetted
> as a result of Microsoft's security problem - as mindless zombie
> Windows boxes swarm to spread the virus.

Indeed; in 30 hours so far, I've removed roughly 3500 emails either
containing the virus or saying they were forwarded with the virus
removed. This to my Unix ISP account, where mailx() is my friend and
companion for weeding through the end results of Microsoft's sloppy
coding practices.

Too bad California's refusal to allow the M$ denial of "fitness for
merchantability" cannot be reflected world-wide; a class action lawsuit
for damages would redistribute all of M$'s wealth and capital equipment
to the Internet as a whole.

Meanwhile, 200,000,000+ flawed email clients are trying to find my email
box with their virus copies.

Sigh; it is going to be a long next few days.

xanthian.

--
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java-programmer >> W32.Swen.A@mm goes ballistic! Kent Paul Dolan wrote:

>
> Sigh; it is going to be a long next few days.
not for me, everything with an executable as attachment is moved towards
the garbage bin of my mailclient on my private machine, I'm glad I don't
have a metered account.

But I pity the people with metered accounts and dial ins. The funny thing is
that this virus probably is the first Outlook virus which renders the whole
e-mail system basically useless and what strikes me is the flood of mails
this virus sends.

The positive side effects, spammers currently have a tough time to reach
their target audiences :-)

java-programmer >> W32.Swen.A@mm goes ballistic! "Roedy Green" <email***@***.com> wrote:

> I got 5 gig overnight forcing the shutdown of my account. What is so
> different about this virus that is so much more successful than
> previous ones.

It exploits an M$ security hole that allows it to infect the user's
system without the user ever opening an attachment, but simply
opening the main email body. I don't know the technical details.

Until you know the virus is about and recognize its signature, it is
a very natural impulse to open the mail to see what it contains. Oops.

xanthian, not quite up to a gig last time I looked, around 7000 emails
to discard so far.

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java-programmer >> W32.Swen.A@mm goes ballistic! "Tim Tyler" <email***@***.com> wrote:

> They /did/ fix the problem that's probably doing most of the damage here.

Well, no, they didn't. They performed inadequate design,
implementation, and testing, sold a product with a security hole in it,
and _then_, and appparently _years later_, created a patch which, _if_
it were applied, would have closed the barn door behind the escaped
horse.

As nothing could demonstrate so clearly as Roedy's email box, that did
_not_ fix the problem; that model of software lifecycle is fundamentally
flawed.

Your mechanisms need to work in the real world, and in the real world,
expecting near-perfect patch upkeeping by computer-unsophisticate
customers isn't a working real world mechanism.

In the real world, you have to fix the bugs before you apply the
shrinkwrap, or they don't get fixed.

xanthian.

--
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java-programmer >> W32.Swen.A@mm goes ballistic! "Roedy Green" <email***@***.com> wrote:

> "Kent Paul Dolan" <email***@***.com> wrote or quoted :

>> In the real world, you have to fix the bugs before you apply the
>> shrinkwrap, or they don't get fixed.

> The other approach which MS [...] seem to be moving toward now is
> having automatic updates.
> The customer does not even know they happened.

> This is the logical route for unsophisticated customers.

Well, except that you and I can both design an attack that takes
advantage of the security hole which automatic updates create, so
that isn't a working answer either, it just gives the attackers
a new, fatter target. Think promiscuous routers, spoofed websites; it
isn't even new technology.

Besides which M$ has so blatantly broadcast their desire to wrest
control of the computer back from the end user to the vendor, for
the pure purpose of increasing the revenue they can gouge from the
end user, there is no trust left for them to use to sell such an idea.

It is exactly this intolerable manifest greed, treated by M$ as if it
were the M$ manifest destiny, that has entire nations mandating open
source software.

I stand by my first opinion; fix it before you sell it, or it won't be
fixable.

xanthian.

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java-programmer >> W32.Swen.A@mm goes ballistic! On Sat, 20 Sep 2003 22:40:32 +0000 (UTC), "Kent Paul Dolan"
<email***@***.com> wrote:

>"Tim Tyler" <email***@***.com> wrote:
>
>> They /did/ fix the problem that's probably doing most of the damage here.
>
>Well, no, they didn't. They performed inadequate design,
>implementation, and testing, sold a product with a security hole in it,
>and _then_, and appparently _years later_, created a patch which, _if_
>it were applied, would have closed the barn door behind the escaped
>horse.

Oh please. Then Unix systems (BIND) suck for exactly the same reason.
I'm no great fan of MS products, but this assertion is bs.

>
>As nothing could demonstrate so clearly as Roedy's email box, that did
>_not_ fix the problem; that model of software lifecycle is fundamentally
>flawed.
>
>Your mechanisms need to work in the real world, and in the real world,
>expecting near-perfect patch upkeeping by computer-unsophisticate
>customers isn't a working real world mechanism.
>
>In the real world, you have to fix the bugs before you apply the
>shrinkwrap, or they don't get fixed.
>
>xanthian.

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