So, um... Patched? Think again.

It seems Microsoft's latest patch batch either missed or created a vulnerability....? I'm having a little trouble deciphering the article, as are many on Slashdot, aparently.

It's just sad.

I mean... Microsoft is basically in the position of a Monopoly (the Parker Brothers game -- ironic, huh?) player, who's managed to get the purples, the oranges, the reds, the yellows, the greens, the railroads and the utilities... has hotels on everything... even on the Water Works... has almost all the money from the bank.. everyone else has to transact with hand-written IOUs... this is a player who would really have to try for a long time to actually lose... they've gone beyond the tipping point of business peril. Although, this makes me think they're trying.

Thank goodness they're looking out for us...

ZD-Net has a rather amusing article about Microsoft's "Windows Genuine Advantage" or "WGA".

...So... First it was "false positives" that were the problem... people with "legitemate" instances of MS Windows being locked out of their systems...

Now, It seems that WGA is also not locking out ACTUAL PIRATES.

*sigh*

This coupled with the US Department of Homeland Security's adamant and unusual exhortation to all MS Windows users, that they immediately implement MS Patch MS06-040 (more here) serves to further diminish my respect for Microsoft.

I mean... Come on. Vista is already a "lipstick on a pig" disappointment. They've been working on it for, like, five years, and it's still six or more months from general public release. IE7 is poised to be the most shunned web browser on the planet, in part because, after... what? 5 year?... Microsoft has decided to abandon it's non-standards-compliant CSS implementation and be a little more standards-complaint. Web developers all around the planet are reaching for their favorite analgesics. MS Windows has never been the shining star of the computer security world. Microsoft has made more money in less time than any other company in the history of business. Prove me wrong! In spite of the fact that Microsoft makes obscene profits, without fail, it still feels there is more coin to be squeezed out of the MS Windows-using public (objective | subjective), and has managed to screw that pooch, too!.

Once again, you MS Windows users have my limited sympathies... I mean... There are alternatives to MS Windows, after all.

By the way, just for grins, I tried to "validate" my FedoraCore 5 (x86_64) install ... hehe... The website just thrashed... It kept coming up with this pop-up:



...huh. Seems the least they could do is check the information provided by my browser in the HTTP-GET [User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060614 Fedora/1.5.0.4-1.2.fc5 Firefox/1.5.0.4pango-text] to see that I'm not even running MS Windows.

I suppose I expect too much.