[ale] OT: A funny one from Computerworld on XP SP2

[irvm at ellijay.com (Irv Mullins)]

On Monday 23 August 2004 08:45, Matthew Brown wrote:
> I cut-and-pasted this one from the ComputerWorld site.  It is in the
> middle of the article on Windows XP SP2, discussing the benefits of
> SP2's new networking security:
>
>     * Protection against DoS attacks
>
>       SP2 should help significantly with denial-of-service (DoS) attacks
>       caused by buffer overflows
>      
> <http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,82920,0
>0.html>, when too much data is sent to an application's temporary storage
> area -- sometimes causing that excess data to act as executable code. One
> of the most popular DoS exploits, buffer overflows will now be prevented
> from executing commands and will shut down
>       systems instead. It's an inconvenience that's worth the peace of
>       mind that no code can be launched and the device won't be further
>       damaged.

Typical Microsoft 'solution'. All your work will go bye-bye, but that's a 
small price to pay "to prevent further damage" :)

"ABORT, RETRY, IGNORE" offered two too many options for the average computer 
user, so they went to just plain "ABORT" with Windows. Now they've dropped 
the "ABORT" option as well.  Jeez.

Irv