What is Digg?132 Comments
- sardiskan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Hello? Think McFly, Think! If they can run code through their backdoor, what does that mean for the rest of us. Microsoft is saying "All your base are belong to us!" GAH!!
- adidax, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9don't blame them, if i knew my user base was retarted, i'd leave stuff in there to remotely patch their machines too.
- Milamber, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4If MS can do this, how long before THIS needs to patched as well. Surely this is the perfect target for some kind of exploit?
- DrDigg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3They should put the WMF patch in an exploit on their website. So if you have not patched the flaw, then it will get patched for you. It could save the rest of us from getting spam from the zombie machines.
- dongiaconia, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3hmmm...
Run->Services.msc
Right Click Automatic Updates->stop...
That should stop it from doing nasty things until you reboot... Like when it keeps popping up asking if you want to reboot now. - SpaceBass, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I noticed that one of my two 2003 server boxes rebooted itself after installing... happened to by my operations master and exchange server... oh well.
Regarding the comments that windows users are idiots... I think that's pretty pompous of you guys.
Most computer users just want their computer to "run", like an appliance, and most users run windows. Not everyone has the interest that we have in computers or technology to run Linux or OS X or to secure Windows (or to read every stinking EULA). Am I an idiot b/c I cannot rebuild a combustion engine? I just want my car to start in the morning... - butlershouse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2i think this is quite common.
try declining the McAfee AV install process on new Dell Dimension. No matter how much you say no and decline.It installs and runs anyway. So maybe MS just have it written into the EULA that they own the machine no matter what you say . - dawan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Has anyone encountered this problem with Windows 2000 or 2003 Servers? I encountered this issue on all of my XP workstations that were set to "download and notify"
- DivideByZero, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2heh you just know bill gates has a big red button that he will push on his death bed and send the world into chaos
- TentyLinux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I think that this story might have a twist to it. People who have used Windows Update Services (known as WUS) will know that you can configure a machine to look at an update server and still have the usability to give the user choice of whether or not they choose to install/download the patch.
What may have happened (and it's pure speculation) is that this has been configured to point to their corporate WUS, and as a consequence, someone said "This is a critical patch, I'll put a deadline on it to install by X date". Deadlines in WUS override the user's settings.
If this is the case, it's not Microsoft's fault at all, but the 'fault' of the corporation for adding a deadline to the corporate WUS.
after all, I quote "He noticed that one of our XP laptops that was set to simply download updates had restarted... And had the patch."
And if I could underline OUR, i would. - t3hX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Heh... quite funny. They should at least ask before rebooting...
But at least you got the patch though. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If this happened to me while working, I'd be screwed. There are so many critical applications that MUST be open at all times. For the computer to just reboot on me would be quite embarassing not only to myself, but to my co-workers. When you're answering technical calls to professionals you NEED to be able to do your work promptly. Glad this didn't happen tho. The update did download, but surprisingly it hasn't even done its consistent nagging to reboot. I'm very much pleased.
- ceoandpresident, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It happened on my computer as well. Whats really going on here?
- mistshadow2k4, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"No, Firewalls prevent outside traffic from coming in, not this kind of internal traffic from leaving if your computer sends a request for a connection to a remote server and it is answered it will create a connection."
Depends on your firewall. Several will prevent programs, including Windows services, from accessing the internet without your permission - ZoneAlarm, Kerio, Sygate, and probably others. 3rd party firewalls on Windows don't work the same as firewalls on *nix, because on *nix we don't have spyware. - jonesin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If you think that's bad, just wait until you get to Vista. Their security model on that one is to completely remove control from the end-user.
Sure am glad none of my computers run Windows. - sedgemonkey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is certainly alarming if it is not disclosed in the EULA, but it would be more alarming if MS was caught abusing this feature with a superfluous patch/product not a vital patch that plugs a gigantic security hole.
- interiot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Surely this feature must be turned off for corporate and government users, particular CIA/NSA computers. (presumably it's turned off if people take their laptops home and connect outside the corporate firewall)
But yeah, this still seems like a prime target for exploits. Presuambly MS went to some steps to secure the backdoor from hackers, but you're still giving complete trust to MS that this contains no holes. Yet another reason to firewall everything off externally. - panic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm pretty sure that "backdoor" is called Windows Update.
- wraithemail, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I had better not find them on any of my systems.
I'm hoping that our IDS and Firewall wont allow this, but I doubt there would be anyway to stop anything these guys want to do. If m$ has left a backdoor to run code on our machine, I wonder how long it will take "someone" to use this vulnerability for other purposes.
SWITCH TO MAC PEOPLE! (I wish) - ELWOOD_BLUES, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hence, I don't run Automatic Updates. Didn't you see iRobot!
- SupaDawg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"I'd say that Microsoft has gotten tot he point that they know they can easily skirt illegal tampering with people's computers and get away with it"
I'm sure there's something about it in the EULA. Remember. windows never belongs to you, you just license to use it. Microsoft can make changes to their property at any time they like. Not illegal in the least. - mistshadow2k4, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"I'm sure there's something about it in the EULA. Remember. windows never belongs to you, you just license to use it. Microsoft can make changes to their property at any time they like. Not illegal in the least."
I've read the EULA. It doesn't say they can change installation of the OS on your computer without your permission (if that is what's happening - it's a bit unclear at this stage) or download any data to your computer without permission. That's still computer tampering. - hotwaterham, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The article is down so I can't read it...but I can say that this didn't happen on any of the three computers I use that run XP.
Automatic Update showed that there were updates, but didn't install them or reboot my computer until I choose to initiate the download. - CoolSilver, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If your really paranoid about stoping further updates like this?
Disabling Automatic update service is a start
Disable "Background Intelligent Transfer Service"
Transfers data between clients and servers in the background. If BITS is disabled, features such as Windows Update will not work correctly. - beandog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well, tough noogies.
Havent you people ever looked at the EULA? They can do pretty much anything without your permission on your computer. - mercury81, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1given what I know about the average computer user I don't really think this is a bad idea, it is called saving people from themselves.
- Bound4Doom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Silly boys, this is a setting. The setting can be set by a policy if it is set by a policy from a network admin then no matter what the user changes it will not overwrite the policy set by a network admin. Also this is set to force installation of patches, when this occurs though after you log in from the restart there is a windows that pops up and says windows was restarted automatically from windows update. These are all settings, I would suggest reading a book like Windows internals or something before you start spoting off about Microsoft forcing you to install and reboot and microsoft forcing it on you. If I were you I would check with your network admin. And young kids. Your parents can force this on you as well remotely all they need to know is your admin password, probably most of you just have the blank admin password anyway.
- weesee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1and if they didnt do it thy would b accused of NOT takng action!
you people are jerks. If you have a problem with windows go outside and play!
honestly...
some peoples' children - aerospace, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1nice use of a ren and stimpy quote in the blurb
- jimbo92107, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1What did you expect from a closed-source operating system, privacy???
Hey, if you don't want the government (thru MS) to have a backdoor to your computer, then give Uncle Bill the boot and load up Ubuntu Linux. Otherwise, say hello to Big Brother Bill. - SuperMunchkin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1What i hate is that damn popup after the updates saying i need to reboot. It pops up at the most inoppertune moments and won't go away, and if you walk away from your computer, it'll reboot your computer, closing any apps you may have open and all. A "yeah, i know, i'll reboot when i'm damn well ready for it" checkbox would be nice.
- Cmain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I went to bed and apparently in the middle of the night the patch was downloaded at restarted my pc. I wouldn't have been angry but it happens that I had a project open that I forgot to save that I was working on for a few hours and lost it. Unfortunate.
- Thujone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well I for one was quite upset to see that a monitoring server was reset do to this.
- MikeCampo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I had my pc downloading some stuff and this patch restarted it :( I had to start over...
- aldenhg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1While it's not good that they can install and run code as they see fit on the machine that I payed for using an operating system that I bought a license for, this is probably better than leaving it up to the average end user. I routinely repair a meathead's computer and operating system and half the time the problem originates from his system being unpatched. Considering the number of shady porn sites that are usually in his history, I'm glad he won't have a malicious WMF destroy his masturbatory fantasies and a few hours of my time.
- graemee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Pissed me off last night, I fired up the old spare PC I use for archiving to get a file copied of it, part way through the copy the PC reboots. Since I'm remoting the PC and have the window minimized, I didn't any warning. The first install I did for my regular use PC did not force the reboot just a pop up every 5 or ten mins.
- wired4u, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1happened to me, I was wondering why my iis server was not working I remote desktop in and saw that it rebooted because of the patch.
- bryanpcola, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"I'm sure there's something about it in the EULA. Remember. windows never belongs to you, you just license to use it. Microsoft can make changes to their property at any time they like. Not illegal in the least."
Sure they (M$) own the OS, but MY computer is MINE! Period. They don't own my motherboard, memory, drives, graphics board or anything else. - JiMiThInG, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1hmm I remember seeing that the patch had downloaded and was on my toolbar ready to install. I put it off b/c I didn't want to have to reboot since I was doing somethings. I forgot to do it before going to bed that night. I as always left the PC running. I woke up the next morning noticing the PC had been rebooted. I didn't think much of it at the time. I also notice that some seemingly knowledgeable folks are saying this isn't possible. However seeing this story makes me think twice about it..
- deadkenny, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Total rubbish. WMF patch is being asked to be installed on all machines I've seen that are set to ask.
This is typical of digg. Of course no one reads the comments and the lies spread further. People need to report the digg. - hotwaterham, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"General consensus in the thread I was discussing this in seems to suggest that Windows DOES ask you whether to install the software, but has a timer so if you dont reject the install then it will execute it after 5 minutes."
Almost correct. If you have automatic downloading of updates turned on then the items will install without prompting you and, once they have installed, will pop-up with a "You need to reboot" dialogue. If you ignore the dialogue and do not press "Restart Later" then it will restart the computer on its own after about 5-10min.
There is no backdoor or any other such nonsense. Automatic downloading is a feature and failure to respond to the dialogue initiates the reboot. FUD is no fun! - Otto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Umm.. If this is true, why did it ask me to download the patch and then ask me again to install it? And *then* ask me to reboot afterwards?
No digg because it's simply paranoia and not at all true. - SpaceBass, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1radicand - FYI there are a lot of MCSEs floating around (myself included...boy was that a waste of time) ... I was not logged into the console or term services on my 2003 box, it was set to notify and it rebooted after the install.
- slorocks, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This is what happened to me also. I have my system set to only notify me of updates, and this update box poped up, download in progress and told me that when it was finished that I needed to restart my system. I knew that the patch was there, I had the third party patch installed and wanted to look at the MS patch more closely before downloading. I thought that was wrong that they didn't follow what option I chose.
- SniperGX1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I don't unserstand all the fus. My windows computer doesn't even have SP1 or any security updates installed. Ohhhhhh yeeeeeeah its behind a linux box I use for a firewall. No worries.
- pcgeek101, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Wow, I agree with the comment above. You people complain that Microsoft doesn't release patches quickly enough, and now you're pissed that Microsoft is forcing security on all the computer nooblets (no insult, just fact) out there? I don't get you at all ... they're trying to make sure that machines are properly patched, not take over the world. I too, manage about 200 desktop machines, and we've not had any problems. Grow up, and and quit acting like the 12 year old that you are.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0How much more before you will say this is too much?
- multifaceted, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Considering I installed the patch as soon as it came out, thanks to digg I haven't had the problem.
You can set automatic update to ask you before restarting.
Even I know that, and I'm an idiot. - orabox, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I would be an idiot if I did not care about Microsoft updating or doing anything on on my PC's with out consent. Another reason MS is going down hard.
I type this from my last Windows boxe. Work PC, otherwise 90% MS free - matsiescruff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@gr8fuldane
thanks for that info. i appreciate it.
@sub-seven
i should have been more clear in my original statement, but i've already been refuted. -
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