New IE Holes Discovered

joelt49 writes "Yahoo! News is reporting that 7 new security holes for Internet Explorer have been discovered by a Chinese researcher; however, there apparantly aren't any attacks on IE yet." The part about this story that gets to me is that the researcher didn't alert Microsoft before posting to a public mailing list. Sure, a lot of people don't like Microsoft, but that's no reason to make it worse for the millions of people who are forced to use Microsoft products, especially for security holes which have yet to be exploited.

New Rival to Internet Explorer...

[xirtam_work]

Microsoft are about to announce a replacement for Internet Explorer called 'MS String Vest'.

A spokesman was quoted as saying, "It's the only way we can release a product with more holes than IE".

It is unconfirmed if StringVest will be integrated into Windows XP SP2 or if we will have to wait until LongHorn is released.

Re:It's hardly bad...

[PickyH3D]

On a weekend/holiday?

At least do it on a Monday thru Thursday.

Re:This has gone on long enough!

[thenextpresident]

"Using Microsoft products is not genetics or how we were raised. It's a choice and we're damn proud of it."

Actually, it wasn't a choice. MS had a monopoly, and therefore, you really had no choice.

Re:Immediate full disclosure is best security prac

[azzy]

MS Windows and IE are insecure and full of bugs. They will compromise your security. I suggest you stop using them now. ;)

Re:This has gone on long enough!

[bj8rn]

If you're an unhappy Microsoft user, the only bonds keeping you down are in your own mind.

So you do admit that Windows users are not free in their choice?!

Truly innovative thinking at Microsoft

[YouHaveSnail]

Programmer 1: "Hey, guys, we've really got to do something about the security problems we've been having with IE lately. Any ideas?"

Programmer 2: "I've got an idea! My CS prof used to joke that you could solve any problem by adding one more layer of abstraction. In this case, it's true. Imagine how totally cool it would be if IE was just a regular application. Right now we've got it tangled up in the OS, but if you think about it, there's really no good reason for that. I mean, why does IE need special priviledges just to load files and render some HTML? If we pull it out of the OS, it'll still work fine, and it'll just naturally be subject to all the OS-level protection mechanisms we've got."

Programmer 1: "What?! You're talking madness, man! Are you saying that we should subject one of our own applications to the same forces we use to prevent third parties from gaining too much market share? Egads, that's brilliant! I'll bet we can even patent that..."

Programmer 3: "Guys, the idea certainly sounds cool, but it won't work. Bill said it's impossible. Don't you remember that Netscape trial thing? I know we're not supposed to ever talk about it, but he said it was impossible during his taped deposition. If Bill says it's impossible..."

Programmer 2: "...then it must be impossible. You're right."

Porgrammer 1: "Damn, you're right. Seemed like such a good idea."

Re:No Exploit, eh?

[Geek of Tech]

Great. Crackers work faster than Microsoft. Great. Maybe if they were to start hiring the crackers...

Re:Incident response times

[toddler99]

uhm yeah so what was your point? can we talk about linux some more?

Re:No Exploit, eh?

[The Real Chrisjc]

Don't you mean 'cracking'?

Re:I've been trying my best to switch people away

[Artifakt]

I put Firebird 0.7 on the wife's PC, and convinced her to try it. She's not a techie type, but she is just about computer literate enough to know most programs can be adjusted some way or other, and to look for a preferences tab on the menus. (If the tab names don't seem self descriptive in normal english, she hollers for me, if they do she tries it on her own). After giving her about a week to get used to the interface, I suggested she try to pick a skin she liked better than the default. She set a few things, asked about some others, and then called me to see a tab that went to a developer's message (which read something like "in the finished version, this will do foo.") I explained to her that Firebird wasn't up to version 1.0 yet, just "point seven". She asked me what IE was up to ("About 6.0, honey"). Then she said, "So Microsoft multiplies all theirs by 10?"