VISTA Security?

LAS VEGAS -- Two security researchers have developed a new technique that essentially bypasses all of the memory protection safeguards in the Windows Vista operating system, an advance that many in the security community say will have far-reaching implications not only for Microsoft, but also on how the entire technology industry thinks about attacks.
In a presentation at the Black Hat briefings, Mark Dowd of IBM Internet Security Systems (ISS) and Alexander Sotirov, of VMware Inc. will discuss the new methods they've found to get around Vista protections such as Address Space Layout Randomization(ASLR), Data Execution Prevention (DEP) and others by using Java, ActiveX controls and .NET objects to load arbitrary content into Web browsers.
By taking advantage of the way that browsers, specifically Internet Explorer, handle active scripting and .NET objects, the pair have been able to load essentially whatever content they want into a location of their choice on a user's machine.
Researchers who have read the paper that Dowd and Sotirov wrote on the techniques say their work is a major breakthrough and there is little that Microsoft can do to address the problems. The attacks themselves are not based on any new vulnerabilities in IE or Vista, but instead take advantage of Vista's fundamental architecture and the ways in which Microsoft chose to protect it.
"The genius of this is that it's completely reusable," said Dino Dai Zovi, a well-known security researcher and author. "They have attacks that let them load chosen content to a chosen location with chosen permissions. That's completely game over.
"What this means is that almost any vulnerability in the browser is trivially exploitable," Dai Zovi added. "A lot of exploit defenses are rendered useless by browsers. ASLR and hardware DEP are completely useless against these attacks."
Many of the defenses that Microsoft added to Vista and Windows Server 2008 are designed to stop host-based attacks. ASLR, for example, is meant to prevent attackers from predicting target memory addresses by randomly moving things such as a process's stack, heap and libraries. That technique is useful against memory-corruption attacks, but Dai Zovi said that against Dowd's and Sotirov's methods, it would be of no use.
"This stuff just takes a knife to a large part of the security mesh Microsoft built into Vista," Dai Zovi said. "If you think about the fact that .NET loads DLLs into the browser itself and then Microsoft assumes they're safe because they're .NET objects, you see that Microsoft didn't think about the idea that these could be used as stepping stones for other attacks. This is a real tour de force."
Microsoft officials have not responded to Dowd's and Sotirov's findings, but Mike Reavey, group manager of the Microsoft Security Response Center, said Wednesday that the company is aware of the research and is interested to see it once it becomes public.
Dai Zovi stressed that the techniques Dowd and Sotirov use do not rely on specific vulnerabilities. As a result, he said, there may soon be similar techniques applied to other platforms or environments.
"This is not insanely technical. These two guys are capable of the really low-level technical attacks, but this is simple and reusable," Dai Zovi said. "I definitely think this will get reused soon, sort of like heap spraying was."

New laptop

I bought a new Toshiba laptop Friday, April 4,'08. It is an intel dual processor, 2gig ram, 200 gig SATA hard drive, 128 meg video memory. It came with VIRUS, I mean VISTA, but that was gone in 2 days. I downloaded PCLinuxOS 2008 Gnome and wiped windoze completely. It runs much faster with Linux, uses less resources, and has a better 3D desktop than the aero interface. It found all the exotic hardware, set it up, and is running happily along. I tried to get the salesman to remove VISTA and sell it without an OS, but he said he couldn't because they were locked in with Micro$oft, had a contract with the devil. It's a shame you are forced to pay for an OS you don't intend to use, and it also counts as a sale for windoze, even though it isn't running windoze now. News has come out that VISTA is less secure than XP, of course the company says the opposite. Vista also comes loaded with DRM, which controls how you can use it, and how you can't. I can use my Linux OS any way I want, I have the option of re-mastering the distro to personalize it, give it away to both my friends, install it on as many computers as I care,make as many copies as I want, and not have to worry that it is NOT reporting back to the company, or sending any info concerning my use of the system.

Microsoft

Whats up with Microsoft's updates? I use XP for games, but make sure to keep it updated for the latest security patches, with it being a "swiss cheese" OS. After the last update my start page will come up with no icons, and no taskbar. Have to do a reboot. BSOD's are more common, and I get a message that windows explorer has encountered a problem and must close. Never had any of these problems before the last update. Computer is about 6 months old and does get a lot of use, but I could run 98SE for about a year before doing a format and re-install. Looks like I may have to do it with XP after 6 months. start up and shut down have slowed to a crawl and a lot of applications take a long time to open. My Linux partition is the same age and it is still as fast as the day it was installed. Of course I realize we are comparing apples and oranges here, a quality OS against a Microsoft product.

VISTA is not an option.

Being a Linux user for 6 years, I was curious about VISTA. I signed up as an official tester for RC1 and RC2. My hardware consisted of an Epyx motherboard, 512 meg of DDR memory, AMD Athlon XP 2000 processor, Linksys NIC card, Sound Blaster audio board, NVIDIA FX 5200, 256 meg video card, Iomega 100 ZIP drive, 1.44 floppy, and a 80gig Western Digital IDE hard drive. I ran the tester to see if I met all the requirements of the OS. It said I could run any version, which turned out to be false. RC1 and RC2 failed to detect my NIC card, sound board, ZIP drive and my USB ports. I ran my Linksys disk and installed the driver for XP, and it worked. Got on the internet and started looking for drivers on the manufacturer's web sites. No one had drivers ready yet and most were not sure when they would be ready. Not a very good start for what is supposed to be the latest and greatest. I tried out all the apps and programs that came with the download and was very displeased with the speed. Very sluggish and unresponsive. Boot up time was around 2 minutes. There was no way I was going to downgrade from Linux to VISTA.
It has been a year now and Microsoft says VISTA is being adopted faster than XP was. But, in the real world people are buying new computers, preloaded with VISTA( you have no choice on branded units), removing VISTA and loading XP. Companies are not upgrading as fast as Redmond thinks, with new hardware requirements, increased license fees, training costs, and memory upgrades. There is no way I am going to downgrade from Linux to VISTA.
My Linux distribution, PCLinuxOS, is faster, more secure, needs less memory, is easier to install, and does everything VISTA does except get viruses, adware, malware, and trojans. The 3D desktop makes VISTA's aero look lame and only requires 32meg of video memory. Plus I am not tied down to the whims of the vendor, nor can they access my machine at will. Last, but not least, did I mention that it is all free?

M$ protection racket

The following was written by Mr. Vaughn-Nichols.

Steve Ballmer, the Sopranos and the protection racket.
I was walking down the street when a limo pulled up beside me and Big Steve Ballmer emerged. "I need to talk to you Vaughan-Nichols," he said, as two large men in expensive, but badly fitting suits, followed him out. ADVERTISEMENT "Hey, anything the Redmond Mafia wants to say to me, they can call me about. You know the number." "Listen to me," Ballmer said. "The only reason I'm doing this is because you're well-known. If it were anybody else, they would've gotten this intervention through the back of their head. Capiche?" I sighed. "OK, speak your piece." "Why are you making so much trouble about me talking about how open source and Linux owes us money?" "Because they don't, Tony. Er, I mean, Steve. What you're doing is trying to set up an extortion racket." "Oh, yeah? Who knows more about extortion, me or you?" In this case, I think it's me. Microsoft isn't just spreading FUD—albeit they're doing that as well. The explicit message is that Linux companies owe money to Microsoft because of patent violations. The only problem is that even when Ballmer first started making these claims in 2004, the only authority he has every cited for his claims said Ballmer had gotten it all wrong. Every time Ballmer makes these increasingly vague claims—this makes the fourth go-around in the last four years by my count—open source and legal experts jump all over him. He ignores them and life continues. To read more about Ballmer's patent threats against Linux and open source, click here. Ballmer is sending two other hidden messages though. Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical, Ubuntu's corporate Linux backer, pointed them out to me in a recent conversation. The first is that there's something unsavory about Linux and open source. Ballmer starts his accusations against Linux with the assumption that everyone agrees with him that there's something illegal going on with Linux. He implies, without any proof at all, that the patents, or whatever he's talking about that day, are only the tip of the open-source IP (intellectual property) iceberg. Never mind that Microsoft refuses to ever give a specific example, or that after years of claims SCO has completely failed to show any evidence that Linux has stolen any copyrighted material from Linux. Ballmer keeps talking as if there's something dirty in Linux's closet. This connects directly with Ballmer's other unquestioned assumption: that there is no innovation or creation in open source. If you argue with Ballmer on his grounds, you must also assume that open source is just a way of copying the ideas of proprietary developers. What nonsense! Just look at the name "open" source. It's all there. I can look at it. You can look it. It there's something illegal in the code, I think it'd be pretty easy to point it out, don't you? As for new ideas, open source is the new idea of the 21st century. After decades of thinking that only way software can be valuable is if it's hidden and proprietary, open source has shown that you can create new things faster and better. It's an idea that's so radical people are still trying to get their heads around the notion that you can make money by giving something away. Nevertheless, we must continue to challenge Ballmer on both his explicit and implicit attacks on Linux and open source. If we don't, we end up in a situation where his arguments that Linux and open-source software buyers should pay protection, excuse me, buy a Microsoft patent covenant begin to sound like the sensible, prudent thing to do. It's not. "So, with all due respect Steve, until you're willing to start talking sense, and stop making empty threats, I won't pay. I know too much about extortion." Check out eWEEK.com's Linux & Open Source Center for the latest open-source news, reviews and analysis.

It appears as though the first patent suit against Linux — targeting Red Hat and Novell — is now official. According to Groklaw’s Pamela Jones:

IP Innovation LLC has just filed a patent infringement claim against Red Hat and Novell. It was filed October 9, case no. 2:2007cv00447, IP Innovation, LLC et al v. Red Hat Inc. et al, in Texas. Where else? The patent troll magnet state…… [this is] The first ever patent infringement litigation involving Linux. Here’s the patent, for those who can look at it without risk. If in doubt, don’t. Here’s the complaint [PDF]….The plaintiff is asking for an injunction, along with damages.

Jones goes on to cite some relevant points of the complaint but then, like the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, unearths a potential connection to Microsoft. According to a story posted by Patent Troll Tracker well before this lawsuit turned up, IP Innovation LLC is a subsidiary of Acacia Research Corporation which the site classifies as a patent troll. This past July Acacia hired Jonathan Taub away from his job as Director, Strategic Alliances for the Mobile and Embedded Devices (MED) division at Microsoft and then, just last week, it hired Brad Brunell away from his job at Microsoft where, among other jobs, he served as General Manager, Intellectual Property Licensing.

The blogosphere is likely to have a field day with this connection and I suspect that dumpsters will be dived in hopes of finding a less tenuous connection to Microsoft. The timing of the suit seems rather serendipitous given both the timing of Brunell’s move as well as the threats that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer issued last week — ones that specifically mentioned patents (vs. the other form of intellectual property; copyrights). Even so,

Is there a connection? Well, there’s no smoking gun at this point. And if there was such a connection, you can’t help but wonder why Novell would be named in the suit since Microsoft and Novell are now working together to better integrate Windows with Novell’s Suse Linux and the arrangement includes patent protection for Novell. So, you’ll have to judge for yourself what’s going on here.

This is from David Berlind, writing for ZDNET.

Ballmer mouths off, again.

Tom Sanders is reporting that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave a talk at a company event in the UK last week saying that Red Hat customers need to pay Microsoft for its beloved IP, whatever it may consist of:

Users of the Red Hat Linux distribution will have to pay Microsoft for its intellectual property, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has cautioned. "People who use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to compensate us," Ballmer said at a company event discussing online services in the UK last week. A video report of Ballmer's speech was posted online over the weekend.

The link doesn't work for me. Maybe it's been taken down? Anyone of you attend that event? I know. It's a long shot. Or if anyone finds the video, please post the url. So, if the report is true, we have an "obligation" to pay. OK. How about this? How about Microsoft has an obligation to reveal its patents or whatever its "intelletual property" is first? How's that? "Intellectual property" doesn't mean anything under the law, unless you specify. So, patents? Copyrights? What? That was SCO's downfall, the refusal or inability to specify. He reportedly said also that he hopes that when reforming patent law people don't throw out the baby with the bathwater and get rid of software patents altogether. Actually, that sounds like a great idea. Let's do.

Microsoft updating without permission?

Microsoft Corp. has started updating files on computers running Windows XP and Vista, even when users have explicitly disabled the operating systems’ automatic update feature, researchers said today.
Article
Can you believe this? Looks like your home computer running windoze is not yours, it belongs to Microsoft. If they can do this, then what other information are they grabbing from your hard drive? With this "swiss cheese" OS, they are able to roam your drive at will. How far do you trust these folks?