For someone to post on a subject that they know very little or nothing about drives me nuts.
Windows XP, finally, after many long years, has come to be a competent OS, but that took many patches, to cover many problems with hardware issues, software conflicts, system vulnerabilities; the list just keeps going on and on. Granted, Crackers (NOT Hackers) have taken advantage of the system flaws, but they didn?t put them there, they just found them.
One case where one virus named blaster took advantage of a system flaw that traced all the way back to Windows 95. That virus infected schools, homes and government offices causing all the computers that were connected to the internet to shutdown and restart. The intent of the original virus was to take down Microsoft?s web site by causing the infected systems to turn into "zombies". Microsoft released a patch after almost a week. Anti-virus companies had a fix and a virus definition quickly but had to prepare for the up-coming v2 viruses. Tech service providers, had lines out their doors to repair infected systems (A lot of tech shops were hit by the virus as well, so the line and wait for a lot of the first systems was over a few days). Now here is where it gets interesting. Starting from the end and tracing back, Microsoft knew of the exploit that the virus was going to take advantage almost a month before it occurred, but described the vulnerability as "Low Priority". (FYI, the exploit was reported to Microsoft by the "idiotic" hacker community, and Microsoft promptly replied with low priority.) In hopes that Microsoft would get on with fixing the security vulnerability, the exploit was posted on major security sites, and tech new sites. Microsoft still sat. One week later, the first cases of Blaster started to post in. Now we are going to jump back a few more years, all the way back to 1994-1995 era. As computers are becoming more widely used in the workplace homes and schools, the internet was becoming a much bigger place. This was a time when you still bought your Internet Browser, Like IE or Netscape. Enter Windows 95, a new operating system, completely different the windows 3.11. You no longer needed program manager, because you had the start button... You also didn?t have to buy your browser, because IE (Internet Explorer) was already built into the OS. Well, Microsoft didn?t like competition (still doesn?t), and they left a way for their systems to remove software from your system that they saw as un-fit. It was in the original EULA for Windows 95, later removed after the second release of the OS. Now, they removed it from the EULA, wouldn?t you think they would have removed the protocol that allowed them access? Nope, that is the system vulnerability that Blaster took advantage of, it was an intentional back door to your system that Microsoft left in their OS since Windows 95, that is why when viruses that can infect Windows XP a lot of times they can infect windows 2k, ME, 98, and 95 because they are backward compatible.
For those out there that think that still think hackers are the bad guys, try again. It?s the crackers and script-kiddies, and angry exs that do the most damage. True elites have a strict code that they follow, kind of guidelines that say what they should and shouldn't do (not can and can't, never tell an elite what they can and can't do).
Here is where one of the BIG differences when it comes down to hacker vs. cracker. A hacker's true purpose is to find knowledge (because knowledge should be free). A cracker has more sinister reasons; Let it be personal gain or any other malicious intent. Script-kiddies are wanna-be hacker/crackers that think they are 'leet' cause they know how to use sub seven...
I?m not even going to touch the easy to use part of Windows, because I think I have ranted enough.
