End of Windows XP Support Era Signals Beginning of Security Nightmare
April 12th, 2012I’m one of the large but dwindling number of XP holdouts, but the clock is definitely ticking down. I’ve been using Windows 7 on other computers and find it to be pretty much ok, so I’ll probably go to that when I have to.
What are you other XP users going to do?
Loading ...Via: Network World:
Microsoft’s recent announcement that it will end support for the Windows XP operating system in two years signals the end of an era for the company, and potentially the beginning of a nightmare for everyone else.
When Microsoft cuts the cord on XP in two years it will effectively leave millions of existing Windows-based computers vulnerable to continued and undeterred cyberattacks, many of which hold the potential to find their way into consumer, enterprise and even industrial systems running the latest software.
Jason Miller, manager of research and development at VMware, says the introduction of Windows XP “was the hey-dey of buying computers,” with markets having become familiar with Windows 95 or 98 and manufacturers like Dell releasing affordable options. With such an influx of new users, it comes as no surprise that Windows XP remains one of the most common operating systems despite the introduction of two entirely new versions in the decade since it hit shelves. In fact, March 2012 statistics from NetMarketShare.com show XP in the lead for operating system market share, at 43.09%.
A Carrington Event or massive solar flares might decide for us.
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National Security Agency builds access into Windows
In 1999 investigative journalist Duncan Campbell* revealed that: “A careless mistake by Microsoft programmers has shown that special access codes for use by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) have been secretly built into all versions of the Windows operating system.” http://cryptome.org/nsakey-ms-dc.htm
More recently in 2007, William Blum noted that “In February 2000, it was disclosed that the Strategic Affairs Delegation (DAS), the intelligence arm of the French Defense Ministry, had prepared a report in 1999 which also asserted that NSA had helped to install secret programs in Microsoft software. According to the DAS report, “it would seem that the creation of Microsoft was largely supported, not least financially, by the NSA, and that IBM was made to accept the [Microsoft] MS-DOS operating system by the same administration.” The report stated that there had been a “strong suspicion of a lack of security fed by insistent rumours about the existence of spy programmes on Microsoft, and by the presence of NSA personnel in Bill Gates’ development teams.” Microsoft categorically denied all the charges and the French Defense Ministry said that it did not necessarily stand by the report, which was written by “outside experts”.
“… the DAS report states that the Pentagon at the time was Microsoft’s biggest client in the world. The Israeli military has also been an important client. In 2002, the company erected enormous billboards in Israel which bore the Microsoft logo under the text “From the depth of our heart — thanks to The Israeli Defense Forces”, with the Israeli national flag in the background.”
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*Duncan Campbell is a British freelance investigative journalist, author and television producer who, since 1975, has specialised in the subjects of intelligence and security services, defence, policing, civil liberties and, latterly, computer forensics. He was a staff writer at the New Statesman from 1978-91 and Associate Editor (Investigations) from 1988-91. He was prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act in the ABC trial in 1978 and made the controversial series Secret Society for the BBC in 1987 (see Zircon affair). In 1988, he revealed the existence of the ECHELON surveillance program. http://www.nsawatch.org/echelonfaq.html
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FINE COLLECTION OF NSA DOCUMENTS FROM CRYPTOME.ORG
These are documents on the National Security Agency, electronic surveillance, communications intelligence (COMINT) and communications security (COMSEC) published by Cryptome from March 1995 to the present.
http://cryptome.org/nsa-cryptome.htm
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I think I’ll end up running an encrypted system with boot options of Windows 7 and Linux and maybe XP.
What can’t be done on Linux will have to be on 7.
In the end it may not matter, when the global iron fist comes down!
tablet interface, cloud apps, can you say browser war won? wasn’t netscape recently purchased?
the war on personal computers was well discoursed upon by cory doctorow at TEDtalks -at least that was the first i even heard of it some time ago.
a cartoonist buddy proposed to me something 6 months ago that i thought odd; marketing cartoons in ‘apps’, for such like tablets et al. i drew a blank, no clue re: apps or tablets. since then what doctorow was saying became clearer. OS interface design driven by business model for the user -or upon the user…
& what LoneWolf said, yeah, that’s been a concern since forever, but i digress. i may add that someday our very processor chips themselves will become suspect.
Win7 has been abysmal for me in many ways, mostly user interface. basic stuff like file open dialogues are snafu. file or content searching likewise. sure, other things working well balance it out but i’m sure i like the trade-off or even *having* to make a trade-off. it’s a MS trademark to screw up *some* aspect. remember offset memory addressing and what necessitated it? WinMe on a 16bit machine is in more ways useable for me, as a programming environment, and i’ve scads of old utils i’d made that were useful to me, so i’m fortunate to still have such a machine. Win2K or XP on a 32bit machine is -was -a good environment for general web/art/writing work, so i’m fortunate still have such a machine. this quadcore 64bit machine’s best attributes are oodles or drivespace and RAM -and that’s it. i don’t play many videos and certainly don’t edit them and that’s what this would be good for.
alternatives? practically speaking? there’s one hell of a market for such. sans OS licenses or activations. i always expected somebody in Russia to surprise us with a good OS…
patches? we don’ need no steenkeeng patches, we need something that doesn’t *need* patches. like my old trash 80 Model 100. or an abacus.
MS pisses us off almost as a matter of course. there’s just something inherently predatory about it. always has been. in a day and age when such is de rigeur for everybody, MS is definitely thinking ahead of the curve to stay king of the hill.
the evolution of personal digital technology is looking Horrible, quite reminiscent of the evolution of modern medicine.
we can only rely on old hardware for so long before it’s simply too decrepit. but if somebody would come along… Rich Hanson kept many a Model 100 alive decades past their time. RIP Rich, and thanks.
we need an underground chip manufacture capability that’s simply not gonna happen.