View From the Balcony

Writers Block

2005-08-27

LongHorn Is Now Vista

After much hemming and hawing followed by years of
delays,  Microsoft has renamed Longhorn to Windows
Vista.  They finally released a beta version of Vista to
some testers during the last week of July.

It will be a while before you can get your hands on
this new Windows Vista software, as the original
release went out to some 10,000 testers to be followed
by a release to 500,000 people who are members of
MicroSoft's MSDN developer program or its Technet
program for corporate technology workers.

All of this great promise takes place August 3rd and
at the same time that was the official Microsoft
announcement of the renamed Longhorn to Vista.

The reason you cannot have a copy yet, is they are
testing the works to make sure it lives up to the long
awaited promises and if it holds up, you can put it on
your Christmas wish list for next year.

Vista is Hacker Heaven

Microsoft is including a tool called Monad that is set to
ship as part of the next echange e-mail sever release.
Monad, also known as MSH, is the replacement for the
simple command shell in the current versions of
Windows.  A shell, also called a command line
interface, allows a user to give a computer textual
commands either from a keyboard or from a script.

And therein lies the problem.  Already virus writers
have published the first examples of malicious code
that targets the upcoming command-line shell.

In Microsoft's haste to provide this tool or feature as it
will be packaged as, if enabled by default could open
the door to an outbreak of scripting virus.

Now whether they choose to release it as a part of
Windows Vista or offer it to you as an add on, it does
not much change the picture for vunerability. This 
new tool could allow the creation of both classic
viruses as well as e-mail worms.

Of course, you can always rely on the adage  already
being posted that the guidance on shell script viruses is
the same as it is for all viruses and malware - simply
protect yourself againt the point of entry.  That way
you can protect the amount of damage that the
malicious code can do.

Does not sound all that enthralling to me.   Linux is
looking better all the time.

I'm so excited over this release that I think I will take
a cup of coffee, go sit on the balcony and see if I can
count the number of rain drops that fall in a two
minute period.  Now that is something neither
Microsoft nor virus writers can alter.