Vista Security Discussions Get a Rocky Start

narramissic writes "A technical glitch Thursday morning prevented many security vendors from participating in the first online discussion regarding Microsoft's plans for opening up the Vista kernel, ITworld reports. In a blog posting on the subject, Microsoft Senior Product Manager Stephen Toulouse wrote, 'We had a glitch where we sent out a messed up link. ... We're very sorry about that, it certainly was not intentional and we definitely see that was not a good thing for people to experience on such an important topic.'"

Symantec was one of the vendors shut out

[morgan_greywolf]

FTFA:

Most of Symantec's team, for example, was unable to attend. "It turned out that everybody on our team was not able to make the first meeting but one guy," said Cris Paden, a Symantec spokesman.

Symantec and Microsoft have a long history of a love/hate relationship and Microsoft has put more and more things into its operating system products that have closed entire markets for Symantec (and it's predecessors).

There's a hope

[jackharrer]

...they will do it next few times. European Commision is already p*ssed with Microsoft and want to fine them once again for anti-trust practices. And, if you remember, Microsoft few weeks ago said that they want to postpone delivery of Vista to Europe. Because of this.
Good point of that (except no Vista fo Europe) is that it will create market for Open Source Software. Especially that Europe already started their fight with proprietary (actually paid for) software.

Yes, I know it's slightly off-topic...

The real question is....

[Admin_Jason]

Who thought of this? MS wants to keep kernel secret, then capitulates, and schedules conference with security vendors, then admits it screwed up and schedules another one for people to attend. A net meeting?!?! To discuss security of an OS?!?!?! Does this not set off flags in the minds of the security sector? I am sorry but if I want to discuss such sensitive things as OS kernel and API programming and how to avoid, detect and remove malicious apps from infecting the OS, I do this face-to-face with people that are screened, background checked, and sign NDA's specifying to whom they can talk to and consequences if they reveal anything proprietary to anyone w/out express written consent.

Perhaps I am anal that way, but come on, we're talking about an OS that will likely suceed the millions of Windows 98, 2000 and XP in the vast majority of homes and businesses across the planet!

Re:What a relief!

[zoobsolar]

For a bunch of folks that make some of the largest saleries in the entire world's IT industry, they sure do screw up a lot {read very often; too much}. I say the world continues to petition Microsoft. Simply assure Microsoft that we [the public at large] have no plans on buying their new product until they can prove its stability and that it conforms to user demands. This would include the stability and accuracy of information they release regarding said product. Otherwise the public could easily ensure that MS does not continue to "make the big bucks".

tired of pr & media

[sulfur_lad]

File this under 'off-topic rant'.

you know, I think a lot of companies in the world could do a lot better without their pr arms sometimes, and we'd do a whole lot better without reporters. MS is apologizing for a technical glitch here, but why the need for the public apology? I'm sure PR told them to do it and even wrote it. Whoever wanted to be in the meeting should just get a "uh yeah, sorry about that; we'll reschedule the sucker if we can't figure it out in a few minutes." Guess what, it happens! Then you'll get some idiot reporter who'll come around and open an article with "In an embarassing turn of events, no one could attend a seminal meeting about security in the upcoming Vista software release. Microsoft has apologized, but is it enough for the beleaguered software giant? Experts are thumbing there noses at the meager response, saying that it's an excuse to stall. MacAffee and Norton representatives (who spoke on condition of anonymity) were insensed. 'This is just another trick by MS to curtail our efforts to protect their customers. If this kind of stall tactic persists, we will have no choise but to pursue legal recourse.' MS representatives could not be reached for comment..." You get the point, it's not news, it's fabricated spin based on a technical glitch. I'm not gonna send out a press release when my phone's got no signal!

MS doesn't need to apologize for this, and it has nothing to do with Vista security (which I am not stating an opinion on, so don't call me out hehe). Apple doesn't need to blame MS for a Virus landing on the iPod. Sony doesn't need to continually baffle us with ridiculous statements about PS3 vs XBOX vs Wii. I swear, PR teams and patent lawyers suing and countersuing every day are just completely pointless, and the tech and business media is not reporting on any of it: it's a collection of "here's my opinion what's happening and of how this reflects poorly on the company involved" opinion editorials, there are no articles at all.

MS sent a bad link. It's not news, it's just unfortunate. The guy that did it will get a "nice one, dumbass" from his/her coworkers, just I like I would here if I did the same thing. I dunno. Hopefully you all see my point here.

[/end rant]

messed up link ..

[rs232]

Doesn't sound like a messed up link. According to this dozens of users were kicked off the system. How does a messed up link cause them to login as 'presenters'?

Microsoft finally called an online briefing .. Fifteen minutes into the much-anticipated briefing, dozens of the security companies were kicked off [crn.com] line and could not connect again

"There were problems with the audio and video. We could not get back on."

A Microsoft spokesman explained the crash was due to "technical problems" and an extra briefing would be set for Monday

'Alex Eckelberry .. said .. participants signed [theinquirer.net] on as presenters. "Which, if you've ever used Live Meeting, is an invitation to chaos".'

Did the users actually sign on as 'presenters' and how would this crash Live Meeting?

Re:Par for the course

[stubear]

Funny you should bring this up. Apple does have a glaring typo in one of their dashboard wigets. The Dictionary/Thesaurus displays "dictionary thesauru" before it expands when you search for a word. The problem is 'thesauru" doesn't display an "s" at the end after expanding. Ummm...it's a dictionary widget, why not look the word up if you're having trouble spelling it?

Re:"Accidents" happen... all too frequently

[BlueCodeWarrior]

I'd agree, this is a potential huge problem. The reason that I say potential is this: I'm not sure that I'm qualified to judge this. I find the command line to be the most usable, reliable way to do things with my computer. I'm the kinda guy who types 'firefox &' into an xterm, downloads something, then types 'mv ~/Desktop/whatever ~/Documents/whatever'. Yakuake is amazing. But that's the problem. I personally consider Mac OS X to be quite usable. I've been using Macs since the Plus, and I've used a ][ before. I conisder Windows to be reasonably useable, but I've been using it since 3.1.1. I find Linux to be extremely usable, but I've been using that for years, as well. So how can I judge what is correct? I'm tainted from what is truely usable by all of the learning I've been doing. And that's the root of the problem. My generation (I'm almost 21, to give you frame of reference) has grown up with all of this stuff, and even if it's not truely usable, we're used to it. We can use it anyway. So we keep making more bad interfaces from the shitty ones we're used to. How do we get around this? Once all of the GUI designers have grown up using computers, and don't know what it's like to not use one, how do we get that perspective? I'm sure there are some people who will rarely use computers in the future, but they won't get jobs as GUI designers. I'm not sure what the answer is to this problem.