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Border Security System Left Open 195

Posted by samzenpus from the on-a-need-to-patch-basis dept.
7x7 writes "Wired News is running an article on documents they recovered via the Freedom of Information Act and a lawsuit. From the article:" A computer failure that hobbled border-screening systems at airports across the country last August occurred after Homeland Security officials deliberately held back a security patch that would have protected the sensitive computers from a virus then sweeping the internet, according to documents obtained by Wired News." It looks like Zotob made it in to the supposedly protected network."
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Border Security System Left Open More

Border Security System Left Open

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  • Let me get this straight (Score:5, Funny)

    by pHatidic ( 163975 ) on Wednesday April 12, 2006 @08:19PM (#15117788)
    The government agency in charge of US security runs windows?

    What next, making Ron Jeremy the pornography czar?
    • Billions of dollars available. The agency is building tons of new buildings, hiring so much new staff than congress is looking at what's going on... and they can't afford an extra workstation with the fingerprint scanners, etc, for testing purposes? That 'critical' patch should have been tested within a day or two of Microsoft's release.
      • says Schmidt. Instead of running Windows 2000, "I'd be racing to run the beta of the next generation of operating system ... and not worry about legacy stuff that we know isn't going to be supported too much longer and has had issues."

        It's amazing someone who was in that position thinks the next Windoze won't have the same problems every other version has had. What a total waste of money.

        • What a total waste of money.

          No kidding. Using Windows garbage for any Homeland Security tasks means that every Windows vulnerability (and there are many, many, many of them) becomes a National Security vulnerability. That's a fact, PERIOD. That the clowns responsible for the safety of the citizens of the US think that Windows is suitable for Homeland Security applications shows they are more concerned with protecting Microsoft's profits than protecting our families.

        • Re:Those dollars are earmarked. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by biglig2 ( 89374 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:06AM (#15119265) Homepage Journal
          It's amazing that someone worried about security thinks running a beta of a security system is the way to go.

          This is of course the great counter to the "but FOSS doesn't have any support". "The US Government can't get support for W2K, what makes you think you can?"
      • The patch shouldn't have been needed because they should have had the stations on a VPN with IDS, no way for the worm to get in. I mean it requires port 445 to be open, NO firewall should have that port open from the internet!
        • Certainly that port shouldn't be open to the internet. That goes without saying. But more than one network totally disconnected from the internet has gotten nuked before when a repair technician, etc, plugged an infected laptop into that private LAN. With a network the size if the one we are talking about, it's only a matter of time before something infected from outside gets plugged in somewhere. Patching is still neccessary unless you absolutely know that no infected machine will ever have the possibi
          • Certainly any computer that is any way related to national security shouldn't be connected to the internet at all, nor should any computer that ever touches that network. The police have a private network that's more or less parallel to the internet (presumably on their own fibre though) - that or something like it would be a much smarter choice. If my grandparents can deal with not connecting their computer to the internet (which must be going on ten years old now, and runs like it did out of the box las
            • government-issue tech staff? The examples of this occuring that I've always heard about were always vendor technicians bringing in infected laptops. Not government-issue techs. I think you give way too much credit to hadware/software vendors tech staffs.
              • I forgot that it's not safe to make the assumption that the only people with physical access to secure information are the people that are supposed to have physical access. You know, "clearance". Shouldn't random techies with infected laptops not have the clearance to go close enough to those machines to break them?
                • They have clearance if they're working on it. It's much cheaper to hire outside people and get them clearance than to have your own staff for many things. It's also much harder to make the outside people's life miserable for messing up, so they don't care as much. Homeland Security dosn't really have access to much classified material though anyway. They don't need it, so the systems techs working on the system probably only needed a basic background check to be allowed in.
          • That port doesn't even need to be open between different locations on the same network. It's used for SMB over TCP and they ought to be using firewalls in between departments, as most major corporations do, and blocking it. If people need access to files then they can either make them available via secure intranet or they can rsync (or similar) the files between file servers in different departments. If they're using Win2k they're likely using AD and they should have different servers for different subdomai
    • What next, making Ron Jeremy the pornography czar?

      That would actually make a lot more sense than running mission-critical security-sensitive apps on an unpatched Windows installation. If you like porn, that is.

      Heck, it would make more sense even if you *didn't* like porn, now that I think about it...

      But hey, remember, this is from the administration that brought you Iraq's WMDs and the post-Katrina disaster recovery response. Poor decisions ? Bungling?

      I'm shocked, I tell you, SHOCKED!!

    • Re:Let me get this straight (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      As our enterprising leaders promote mandatory travel checkpoints, screening and recording every citizen who arrogates to move faster than bicycle-pace, I can practically feel myself tingling with safety.

      How dare you joke about their ineptitude? Don't you realize that every dollar spent on Homeland security is a dollar that otherwise would have gone to some terrorist who snuck through the border and stole a job in preparation to launch a dirty nuclear bomb in the middle of a preschool, for God's sake?

      Instea
      • "Instead of criticizing, please, take a moment to say thank you [safetystate.com] next time."

        Thank you for that link.

        It seems that every time I travel, when I get to my destination, I have a little note in my luggage from the TSA saying, "We searched your bag." I've been trying to think of something to do next time I travel.

        This will be perfect. Thank you very much.
    • Running Windows and neglecting the precautions that Windows requires.

      Zotob scanned for systems with port 445 open. In the name of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, why weren't those systems behind a firewall? On a closed network so that someone couldn't just plug in an infected laptop?

      Then comes a vulnerability that Microsoft marks as "critical" and a patch that Microsoft says should be installed immediately. A sane patch management policy *might* delay installations but only if some temporary mitigation were i
      • ...precautions that Windows requires.
        I assume you're talking about Divine Providence, because otherwise Windows is physically impossible to secure because the required precautions don't exist. If that's the case, I thought Bush said something about actually having God on his side, so what's the problem?
    • The government agency in charge of US security runs windows?

      It doesn't matter - it's just security theatre anyway. There are thousands of ways around the current systems.
    • Actually Ron Jeremy is an expert in that area, it would be more like making Ron Jeremy the next pope.

  • Territorial Pissing (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This whole border monitoring and attempt at an omniscient fed is just plain silly. As for the terrorists, wouldn't it just be easier not to invade other countries and invoke the ire of the natives??
     
    And illegal immigrants wouldn't be streaming into the US if the dollar wasn't being artificially propped up. Probably would see the reverse if the free market would be allowed to work its course.

  • Borders (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Thedeviluno ( 903528 )
    The great wall of China was also ineffective at keeping out intruders.In military terms, these walls are more frontier demarcations than defensive fortifications of worth.

    • Re:Borders (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Ohreally_factor ( 593551 ) on Wednesday April 12, 2006 @09:04PM (#15118027) Journal
      Your plagiarism from wikipedia aside, the wall might have served another purpose, i.e., as a great public work, that would help accrue, consolidate, and maintain power for the ruling classes thru the use of "surplus" labor.
      • I thought the point of the wall was to stop raiding parties escaping? Ie some mongols invade, loot and pillage for a bit and then run back to mongolia. But with the wall in the way the chinese millitary could stop them on their way out.

        Is this right?
    • the Great Wall was fine, they weren't intended to absolutely keep an intruder out, but to make difficulty for them, and to provide an elevated position for defense. It's the same philosphy as putting some hairpin turns bordered by barricades in an approach to a security gate.

  • Normal windows operations (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mtenhagen ( 450608 ) on Wednesday April 12, 2006 @08:21PM (#15117803) Homepage
    This sounds like normal windows operations:
      - an exploit (bug) is discoverd
      - the virus is released
      - a patch is relesead by microsoft
      - the administrators dont trust the patch (cant see what it exactly does) so need to test
      - in the mean time the virus is spreading
      - there should be a profit line here, but I gues microsoft already made a profit before all of this started.
    • I'm pretty sure zotob came out after the patch.
    • the administrators dont trust the patch (cant see what it exactly does) so need to test

      I hope that doesn't mean you think OS admins should patch away without testing, just because the code is available.

      First of all, lots of admins aren't programmers. They might know some code, but for most of them, looking at a patch to some arcane TCP/IP code isn't going to be very easy to interpret. If it's a patch to a bug that got by the original coders, there's not that good of likelihood a typical administrator

      • First:
        Some admins can read the patch.
        Some admins will analyse the patch.

        After there can be a discussion;
        Why is there a change to qos when the patch should fix an igmp issue?
        Is this because the two are related are is this patching another issue in the same time?
        Could this qos change have side-effects, should I include qos in my testing?

        When you get a binary patch you should run all you tests, which will probably take way too long. Instead of just testing the relevant parts.
    • Normal operations also include stuff
      1. Microsoft knows about but does not fix.
      2. No one knows about.
      3. That does it's job without you ever knowing.

    • Re:Normal windows operations (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mrchaotica ( 681592 ) on Wednesday April 12, 2006 @10:32PM (#15118415)
      the administrators dont trust the patch (cant see what it exactly does) so need to test
      So what? It's not as if they can see exactly what Windows itself does either!

      If they're going to run proprietary software, they might as well have blind faith that everything the vendor does is right, 'cause they have no choice anyway -- they've already chosen to trust it with the existing system. (This is why foreign governments are switching to Free Software, by the way -- they'd have to be run by morons to trust Microsoft.)

  • Failures are routine apparently (Score:5, Funny)

    by frdmfghtr ( 603968 ) on Wednesday April 12, 2006 @08:22PM (#15117810)
    Publicly, officials initially attributed the failure to a virus, but later reversed themselves and claimed the incident was a routine system failure.


    I guess when you run Windows, failures are routine...

    • Re:Failures are routine apparently (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TubeSteak ( 669689 ) on Wednesday April 12, 2006 @08:33PM (#15117891) Journal
      But two CBP reports obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that the virulent Zotob internet worm infiltrated agency computers the day of the outage, prompting a hurried effort to patch hundreds of Windows-based US-VISIT workstations installed at nearly 300 airports, seaports and land border crossings around the country.
      If there wasn't a Freedom of Information Act, would the public ever really know what had happened?

      I'm surprised the information wasn't classified as relevant to National Security. Weaknesses in computer security are just as bad as weaknesses in physical security.
      • >If there wasn't a Freedom of Information Act, would the public ever really know what had happened?

        Even with the FOIA it took a lawsuit to get hold of these records, and they still have some unjustifiable omissions: "A public Microsoft security bulletin is included, but with the bulletin number (MS05-039) blacked out"
    • Former White House cybersecurity adviser Howard Schmidt says the incident is typical ...

      Yow-ser, yow-ser, it just does that.

    • If you're suffering routine failures, check to make sure you aren't running Windows.

  • Beta stuff? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TubeSteak ( 669689 ) on Wednesday April 12, 2006 @08:38PM (#15117908) Journal
    "Replacement of these systems and improved biometric systems will be required."

    [Former White House cybersecurity adviser Howard] Schmidt agrees, though he says the problem is hardly limited to US-VISIT. "We have to start moving at industry speed, not government speed, when it comes to the deployment of new technologies," says Schmidt. Instead of running Windows 2000, "I'd be racing to run the beta of the next generation of operating system ... and not worry about legacy stuff that we know isn't going to be supported too much longer and has had issues."
    I'm glad this guy is "Former" and not current. Why does he think a beta OS is going to be any more secure than 'legacy' OSes?
    • I bet they are talking about running Vista in a testing enviroment, so they can roll them out near release date (say 9 months after) as opposed to the normal government roll out of say 3 years later.
    • Why does he think a beta OS is going to be any more secure than 'legacy' OSes?

      Because someone lied to him.

      How many times M$ can get away with the same lie? "This OS is totally new and improved and does not have the problems our last one did." It's sickening to hear the head of a US government agency buy such stuff while perfectly usable and secure free software is available.

      • "'This OS is totally new and improved and does not have the problems our last one did.'"

        Nope, it has a whole new set of problems!

        Fine print: it also has all the problems of the last one.
      • How many times M$ can get away with the same lie? "This OS is totally new and improved and does not have the problems our last one did."

        no... never... /sarcasm_tag = "on" what was the very first security patch for Vista then??? it was for the WMF hole... legacy code dating back to win 3

    • Why does he think a beta OS is going to be any more secure than 'legacy' OSes?

      Easy, because he is an average user, not a power user or programmer etc. People think newer is better.

      For example I have a friend who insisted I upgrade her computer to XP from win2k. Instead of just doing that I asked her why. The response: "It'll be faster." I querried some more and the general idea for her was, "It's newer so it should run better."

      It took me half an hour to explain that it wouldn't be faster, and if th
    • I'm glad this guy is "Former" and not current. Why does he think a beta OS is going to be any more secure than 'legacy' OSes?

      I dunno, he may be on to something. But if next gen betas are good, bleeding edge alphas must be even better! Or better yet, he should build a Linux distro that monitors the source control repositories of all the software on the system and automatically fetches and builds any check-ins, to make sure you stay in the avant garde of security.

  • Windows? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Cthefuture ( 665326 ) on Wednesday April 12, 2006 @08:40PM (#15117913)
    Instead of running Windows 2000, "I'd be racing to run the beta of the next generation of operating system ... and not worry about legacy stuff that we know isn't going to be supported too much longer and has had issues."

    Or how about this: Run a secure operating system that is stable and still maintained. Linux, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, anything other than Windows. No forced upgrade required since many of the old Linux distros are still maintained.

    I mean it's Microsoft forcing them to upgrade even though Windows 2000 is still a perfectly fine OS.

  • Non-computer Q about US Visit (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12, 2006 @08:48PM (#15117942)
    Except for really dumb criminals, how does US Visit actually improve security? The terminals are away from the gates, you don't need to pass special check points between the domestic and international terminals and ID doesn't get rechecked at the gate. So unless I am gravely mistaken an easy way around it would be

    -subject A buys international ticket
    -subject B buys domestic ticket
    -both pass security
    -A checks out at US Visit terminal
    -A and B swap tickets
    -B gets on international flight
    -A gets on domestic flight or leaves the terminal
    -B gets off the plane outside the country and uses his or her own passport to pass the border control. IIRC, most countries including the US don't feed back who passes passport controls back to the airlines or country of origination. But even if, B could just take a fake passport to a third world country without scanners or live database hookup instead of Europe, Japan or the like.
    • Except for really dumb criminals, how does US Visit actually improve security?

      Well, I have the feeling that if the government had simply deployed a bunch of dumb terminals instead of Windows machines, they'd have had a much easier time catching dumb criminals. Sometimes you really don't need a fancy-ass GUI to get the job done.
    • Except for really dumb criminals, how does US Visit actually improve security? The terminals are away from the gates, you don't need to pass special check points between the domestic and international terminals and ID doesn't get rechecked at the gate. So unless I am gravely mistaken an easy way around it would be

      -subject A buys international ticket
      -subject B buys domestic ticket
      -both pass security
      -A checks out at US Visit terminal
      -A and B swap tickets
      -B gets on international flight
      -A gets on domestic fligh
    • Uh, except that, at least in the US, the carrier checks your ID when you board the plane. Haven't flown internationally since 9/11 so I can't comment there.
    • Who needs 2 people? It's been well established that all you need to do is:

      - subject A buys international ticket
      - A photoshops and prints an electronic boarding pass for another flight under a different name.
      - A uses the boarding pass to get past security
      - A throws the pass in the bin and uses the real ticket to get on the plane
    • As a person who has suffered this proceedure, I think I can shed some insight.

      As the people above have suggested, its not about keeping their eye on Americans (of the North sort, not the United States sort), but keeping their eye on Foreigners in general.

      When I flew in from London last summer, my flight was routed to go through a "Port of Entry" which is a location where they have installed the US-Visit fingerprint scanners and such. Lucky me, I got to go to Detroit as my first port of call into the US on

  • 42 (Score:2, Funny)

    by Wayne247 ( 183933 )
    If anyone is surprised by the incompetence of governmental bureaucracy, please email me about my new perpetual motion machine that taps the unlimited energy of herbal pills.
  • The reasons they give in the article for not pushing the patch make sense. If you have a plug and play patch that you need to push to that many workstations with plug and play devices to immediately push the patch would be gross folly.

    The mention the real problem in the article, why is there a connection to this network from the public internet? They are just inviting problems like this. At the very least there should be some perimeter security with an IDS of some kind. Even a $40 linksys router with th

    • Re:Patch Cycle (Score:2, Insightful)

      by LiquidCoooled ( 634315 )
      No it wouldn't.

      With a border router nothing stops an infected laptop from attacking on the inside.
      • No it wouldn't.

        With a border router nothing stops an infected laptop from attacking on the inside.

        True enough but I would think that a laptop would automatically not be a trusted device in that kind of network.

      • What they should do is first, have a public policy of no outside storage devices or media, including laptops, CDs, memory sticks, etc., then have a clause in the employment contract that states very clearly that anyone who brings in outside media and then infects the internal network will be considered a threat to national security and will be treated as such. I think that might have the required effect.
        • Until a maanger just HAS to plug in his laptop.
        • You know, there's a real difference between incompetence and just not giving a rat's ass. I think we're dealing with the latter at the DHS.

          Incompetence would install the most insecure OS available, but surround it with other measures. Apathy just plops down desktops and moves on to the next meeting. What could possibly go wrong?**

          **Unofficial motto of the Bush Administration.

  • Interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nawcom ( 941663 ) on Wednesday April 12, 2006 @09:03PM (#15118022) Homepage
    An interesting question is to the Administrators:

    If you don't trust the patch that software developer provides for its product, then why trust to use the product at all?

    It sounds like someone saying, "Our OS has security holes in it, but we don't trust the fixes because they will just open up more holed until we verify for sure.. .. but since 90% of the world use this "hole-y" OS we'll just do what works. Like reporting a planned virus infection. *all hail bill*"

    -nawcom

    • Configuration Control (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Detritus ( 11846 ) on Wednesday April 12, 2006 @09:38PM (#15118192) Homepage
      Because in large and complex systems, you don't install patches until they have been tested for unintended side effects. That may mean scheduling, running and evaluating some very complex tests. This can take weeks or months, depending on budgets, priorities, and operational commitments.
      • If it's border security we're talking about, I'd sure as hell rather have a *broken* system than an *insecure* and *vulnerable* system.

        These people don't know what they're doing.
        • If it's border security we're talking about, I'd sure as hell rather have a *broken* system than an *insecure* and *vulnerable* system.

          These people don't know what they're doing.

          How do you know that the just-released patch doesn't break something in a way that opens a new vulnerability?

          Is the border more or less secure if border officials have to do things 'by hand' because their computer system is brought down by a troublesome patch? Overworked officials are going to be less thorough that usual, and

    • Re:Interesting... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Jose ( 15075 )
      If you don't trust the patch that software developer provides for its product, then why trust to use the product at all?

      good admins..heck, even half decent admins don't trust any new software, including patches. Not neccessarily because they will introduce holes, but because they might break something. Even if it is not security patches, they still need to be tested to make sure they don't break anything in their particular environment.

      I'd wager that at least 90% of admins do not test patches for new securi
      • good admins..heck, even half decent admins don't trust any new software, including patches.
        But if it's closed-source, you can't trust the old software either!
  • The failure here was not that the Windows boxes weren't patched. It's stupid to be patching thousands of systems that are in use w/o serious testing first. Full testing of patches in a world where new viruses/security holes appear every day is effectively impossible. Untested patches may cause new problems for the systems that could actually be worse than a problem caused by a virus.

    No, the problem here is that these systems are even on the Internet to begin with. Shouldn't such a network exist in an air

  • This shouldn't come as a surprise (Score:5, Interesting)

    by i_want_you_to_throw_ ( 559379 ) on Wednesday April 12, 2006 @09:31PM (#15118152) Journal
    I spent ten years as a government contractor and this shouldn't surprise anyone. First Homeland Security runs Windows which in itself isn't bad if it's properly patched and maintained.
    The danger comes from the the people in government who control the money who have no technical knowledge. This is positively RAMPANT in government. Many times agencies just go with the cheapest bid and contractors give cheaper bids by hiring fairly inexperienced and not so knowledgable techs.

    Many government agencies can get by with using Windows but really important agencies whose security cannot be left to chance should not be using Windows....period. Sadly Homeland Security and NSA are both starting to deploy more Windows units and that's only going to be bad for everyone.

    Biggest reason why? Strong security requires techs that actually have technical knowledge and can do more than just set up insecure boxes by pointing and clicking. Big difference between *nix and Windows?
    *nix needs techs with a decent amount of computer aptitude.
    Windows does not
    The person attacking you, or entity, or rogue state will not be using script kiddies. This only gets worse from here. "Homeland Security" is fast becoming an oxymoron.
    • First Homeland Security runs Windows which in itself isn't bad if it's properly patched and maintained.

      ...

      Big difference between *nix and Windows?
      *nix needs techs with a decent amount of computer aptitude.

      Well now wait a minute. Windows is OK if it is properly maintained, but those who run Windows are generally less capable of doing so, because they don't have to? That doesn't make any sense.

      Rather than trying to figure out which is the chicken and which is the egg in your causality loop there, why don't

  • Irony with a 60lb mallet (Score:5, Informative)

    by caudron ( 466327 ) on Wednesday April 12, 2006 @09:58PM (#15118304) Homepage
    It looks like Zotob made it in to the supposedly protected network.

    I'm supposed to be surprised that the department that is there to "protect" us from attack fell to an easily preventable virus?

    Not when that same agency appoints Gator (now Claria) executive, D. Reed Freeman, to their Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee or when that very same agency hired its own Chief Privacy Officer from Doubleclick [digitalelite.com].

    No, I couldn't muster less shock at the irony if my nutsack depended on it.

    Tom Caudron
    http://tom.digitalelite.com/politics.html [digitalelite.com]
  • "Perhaps most significantly, the pages do not reveal how the Zotob virus made its way onto the private CBP network -- an ominous migration that demonstrates that computers used in protecting U.S. borders are accessible, via some path, from the public internet, and could be subject to tampering."
    You know, that might be a problem, too ...
  • You know, when you think about, wouldn't you want government agencies that need tight security to run a propritairy OS? Maybe base it off Linux, so you still have app availablity, but change enough that its guts work different from Linux itself, and only use it within the government itself (Perhaps call it LinUS, though Torvalds may get a little cheesed.) Use dumb terminals when possible. Restrict access to the servers to a select few.

    After all, it would be much harder to create a virus for a system that fe
    • Think of it as security through obscurity. Not necessarily the best option. And when one of the people using the computer has to run something only available on Windows, what do you do? The problem is far more basic than the security decisions made by individual administrators: the problem is the monoculture that makes using Windows necessary.

  • It's about test automation, not MS (Score:3, Informative)

    by Precipitous ( 586992 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @12:46AM (#15118939) Journal
    While stating "deliberately held back a security patch" might be factually correct and a good catch line, I think it's highly misleading: it directs the reader towards many of the wrong conclusions.

    Later in the article: "Officials -- not unreasonably, say security experts -- wanted to test the patch before installing it." Well, duh. This is the interesting story. They couldn't get through the tests that they SHOULD do fast enough.

    The problem is agility and testability of the systems and deployment. The easiest solution has nothing to do with MS, nothing to do with windows, and everything to do with giving your test group more respect and resources.

    This is not a problem inherently Microsoft's making. You can argue up and down that patches should be faster, product more secure etc. In the end, it's plausible that discovery, patch, exploit can come with bad timing in any system. System admins and project managers that don't plan for this are asking for trouble.

    Elaboration: I push very hard to ensure that all my products have automated tests. My company's Desktop Engineering department requires automated tests of all its myriad apps (DE is not my department, won't take credit). I force redesign if a product can't be tested cheaply. The benefit is: I need new feature x tomorrow (maybe some suprise regulation) or company needs patch y tomorrow (e.g. Zotob worm). Where we've achieved our test automation goals (haven't in all cases, but our coverage is good enough), we can hit a few buttons, run our tests. Repeat on all 20 configurations / platforms. 90% of the time, we find no problems, and can deploy. If it's critical, you take the risk and deploy. If not, you go on to slower manual testing to complete coverage.

    Had this US-VISIT program implemented adequate and automated tests, they could have deployed in a few days, not a few weeks. The methods and tools to do so have nothing to do with Microsoft. They don't even make the type of test automation tool required for this - although I know they have one for internal use.

  • So that would make this (Score:3, Funny)

    by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) <teamhasnoi AT yahoo DOT com> on Thursday April 13, 2006 @12:54AM (#15118966) Journal
    the first undoucumented Mexican virus?

    I'm confused. Who will clean my Walmart now?

  • These are kiosk systems. Why are they running any general-purpose Microsoft services?

    If they insist on running Microsoft software on kiosks, they should be running XP Embedded, where you only configure in the stuff you need, not the kitchen-sink approach Microsoft uses in their desktop distros.

  • Spellcheckers do not catch all misspellings. (Score:3, Funny)

    by lifebouy ( 115193 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @02:29AM (#15119171) Journal
    I guess all those boarders better make a run for the border.

    border
    1 : an outer part or edge.

    boarder
    one that boards.
  • "Homeland Security officials deliberately held back a security patch that would have protected the sensitive computers from a virus then sweeping the internet, according to documents obtained by Wired News."

    They actually were collecting incriminating evidence against the virus.

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