One more downside to being closed source - if Microsoft won't fix vulnerabilities, no one else can for any sane price.

At work I'm still migrating our last two 2003 servers, one migration nearing completion the end of this month, and the next not even started yet but expecting to take 9-12 months.

Exchange server was our primary risk because by its nature it has to handle SMTP, and while you can't poke that server directly from the Internet (a postfix relay server is the only one with direct internet exposed ports) but those emails still flow through it, and it sends outgoing mail directly so has to connect to other MTAs and everything involved with that like DNS queries... A pretty big risk footprint on that one, so no argument from me that it needs upgraded.

The last 2003 server however doesn't technically require being replaced, the risk is very small and mostly controlled for even then. It would likely run fine until enough hardware failures make keeping the server up cost prohibitive, which is really the biggest reason (though a fairly justified one) to upgrade.

The vulnerability risk footprint is limited to the LAN, and then only really to windows file sharing (that and SQL server are the only exposed services)
Not zero for sure, but taken alone not enough of a reason to justify the cost of an upgrade. Only everything taken together combined with a string of purchase approvals to upgrade everything else that demands it, is why it ultimately will be.

If only another big player could release continued security updates, or ideally more than one to help both competition on price and a choice of whom to trust for such a thing.
There is definitely a market for very long term support, which you have to look no further than IBM to see.

In fact many would trust IBM to fill such a role if they were to do so. Others may trust Google. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples as well.
But I don't see "long term windows support" being in many of those companies interests, nor see microsoft going along with such a plan even if they were.
Microsoft wants you to buy their latest shiney instead, Google would prefer you didn't use Windows at all, and IBM doesn't seem to be as big on the support thing these days even for their own products let alone microsofts.

All of those facts factor in to the cost of providing security updates, and does raise the bar quite a bit higher than it would appear at first glance.

Only a few hundred millions of people...
https://www.youtube.com/result...

Only idiots that think and insist those two things are exclusive and that you can't do both.

I bet you my slashdot password vs your slashdot password that the passwords are protecting crap.

I called my mail order pharmacy today to deal with two separate issues:

1)My prescription had not arrived. When I asked why, they said my insurance company told them my service was 'term" as in terminated. I have no idea why the customer service person felt it was important to tell me the status code for terminated was "term", but she did. But I wasn't terminated. Had to call up the insurance company and get them to tell the pharmacy division (same company, but they can't talk to each other) that I had insurances. Apparently there was some kind of major problem and lots of people had the same issue, but most were fixed before they realized the problem existed.

2) I owed them $7. Apparently my insurance back in August only paid them partially for a prescription. But when they sent me a bill, they just said I owed them $7, rather than telling me what it was for. As I am not an idiot, I don't send money to people unless they tell me why I owe them. They promised to send me an itemized bill.

Clearly, the insurance industry (and the pharmacy division) are run by extremely competent monkeys. Or by extremely incompetent people. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference.

Until you can name all hundred thousand of the "planets" in our solar system, we won't be using your definition of planet.

Why do you insist 3rd graders should be able to recite all hundred thousand planets from memory yet refuse to do so yourself even with the Internet as your reference?

That sounds like a clear abuse of power.

"Yes, you called the terrorists evil, damn, evil S.O.B.S. But you paused before you said evil. Take him away BOYS."

It's bad enough to punish those that use their freedom of speech to praise criminals, but to go that far pushes you beyond the bar of reason and into tyranny.

If we used this in America, I think Obama could arrest the entire cast of Fox News for praising Putin. That is just plain wrong. Fox news should be laughed at, not arrested.

Chief among them are the Dish washer and laundry machine.

But to be honest, 90% of the time, a simple mechanical clock works better than the crap they suggest.

Yes, you can save a small percentage by setting certain equipment, including your heater and refrigerator to switch to low power mode when power is expensive. Basically this expands the range by a couple of degrees. But the amount of money saved is not worth the HUGE invasion of privacy.

Especially not when simply improving your insulation will save your more money.

Yes, that is an excellent reason to add even more vulnerability vectors!

At least when it comes to the kernel and networking, I have iptables in between.
With SystemD starting the network stack before starting anything else (including iptables), I can no longer even firewall off potential exploitable services.

Too bad they didn't bother to include a functional services manager inside the systemd "service manager" that could bring up iptables before the network stack, perhaps using some dependency based system.

But I fully understand how no mere mortal can wrap their head around the concept of renaming a symlink so iptables rules are prefixed with a lower number than your network services and thus load in a plain clear obvious order.

Maybe one day computers will be able to know "10" comes before "20" without 250 megs of additional software. One can dream at least.

1) Watching your whole world die is not that bad. People come out it mentally intact all the time. Talk to Holocaust survivors. Survival is not a psychosis, it is the natural state of all living creatures. 2) Anyone that get's trapped by a horde of zombie is a fool. Zombies are easy to kill. All you have to do is arrange the environment so that they come at you one at a time. See every single anti-zombie plan ever created by any geek. In the wild with an appropriate number of zombies for a no building situation? Build a spear and climb a tree. When zombies get too close spear their brains out. Repeat until none are left. If it takes you more than day, you don't know how to use a spear. Similar plans work for all but the most ridiculous situations. But that's assuming the zombies get a start. Ever notice how the zombie movies tend to skip over the point from one zombie to millions? Because any single adult human being that is aware of them should be able to kill at least 3 zombies, and humans should become aware of zombies before they outnumber you. End results, humans should always outnumber the zombies.

Yes, instead of realizing that we went WAY WAY overboard on sex crime laws - lets hide the evidence. That will solve the problem.

1) Most actual offenses are committed by kids being kids.

2) Most arrested for sex crimes do NOT re-offend (while people arrested for theft, drug related or violent crimes DO re-offend).

3) Most places have huge double standards punishing men more than women, boys more than girls.

4) States do their best to ensure that anyone that committed one sex crime gets screwed over entirely - no job, no place to live, no friends, all under the banner of "protect the children", when in reality they endanger the children by encouraging the offenders to break ridiculous laws instead of getting involved in normal social activity like attending church.

5) The rules are set up to the worst first time offenders - family and close friends - while making everyone else paranoid about strangers.

1) They can themselves create a wifi account with that name, and should be able to boost it it's strength. They can do this without blocking ALL wifi signals.

2) Send Hotel Security to track them down using a directional wifi sniffer. Then either disconnect the device and give it to the cops, or if they are quick enough to catch the person, hold them and call the police. That's what you do when you find someone committing a crime on your hotel property.

It was my mistake, not theirs. Put the blame where it belongs.

No there does not need to be iphone software that tweaks the car. That itself would be a stupid idea.

I predict that the cars in question will have no wireless connection from the controlling computer. There will be a wired plug, just like in current cars.

Because adding wireless capacity to the part of the car that controls fuel injection is a moronic idea - as you pointed out.