[Full-Disclosure] Gates: 'You don't need perfect code' for good security

Sat Nov 1 01:35:34 UTC 2003

You guys missed it, Gates is utterly right.  There is no such thing as perfect code.  Where he errs is that his code is utter and unremarkable crap based on poorly conceived designs based on a percieved difficulty of use problem.  The simple solution was to design it for the average person and then tell anyone who couldn't figure it out to get stuffed.
Sadly that didn't happen here, or when dcom came out, or when activex sucked, or when dcom came out again, or every time they release Outlook (Express).

On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 17:43:16 -0500
"Brian Bruns" <bruns at 2mbit.com> wrote:

> 
> http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=Xns94258238F273Cbruns2mbitcom%40130.133.1.4
> 
> >From my post to the NANAE newsgroup...
> 
> 
> My favorite quote is...
> 
> BG: Until we had this concept of Web services, software on the Internet
> couldn't talk to other software on the Internet. The only thing that worked
> was you could move bits - that's TCP/IP - or you could put up screens -
> that's HTML - but software couldn't talk to software.
> 
> 
> Its good to know my Putty application can't talk to my OpenSSH server, or
> that my EXIM mail server can't actually talk to other mail servers.
> 
> 
> :-)
> 
> --------------------------
> Brian Bruns
> The Summit Open Source Development Group
> Open Solutions For A Closed World / Anti-Spam Resources
> http://www.sosdg.org
> 
> The AHBL - http://www.ahbl.org
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "james" <hackerwacker at cybermesa.com>
> To: <nanog at nanog.org>
> Sent: Friday, October 31, 2003 5:00 PM
> Subject: Fw: [Full-Disclosure] Gates: 'You don't need perfect code' for good
> security
> 
> 
> >
> > One word.... HA !
> >
> > james
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "Jeremiah Cornelius" <>
> > To: <full-disclosure at lists.netsys.com>
> > Sent: Friday, October 31, 2003 11:32 AM
> > Subject: [Full-Disclosure] Gates: 'You don't need perfect code' for good
> security
> >
> >
> > : -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > : Hash: SHA1
> > :
> > : FLAME ON!
> > :
> > : http://www.itbusiness.ca/index.asp?theaction=61&sid=53897
> > :
> > : "But there are two other techniques: one is called firewalling and the
> other
> > : is called keeping the software up to date. None of these problems
> (viruses
> > : and worms) happened to people who did either one of those things. If you
> had
> > : your firewall set up the right way - and when I say firewall I include
> > : scanning e-mail and scanning file transfer -- you wouldn't have had a
> > : problem. But did we have the tools that made that easy and automatic and
> that
> > : you could really audit that you had done it? No. Microsoft in particular
> and
> > : the industry in general didn't have it."
> > :
> > : "The second is just the updating thing. Anybody who kept their software
> up to
> > : date didn't run into any of those problems, because the fixes preceded
> the
> > : exploit. Now the times between when the vulnerability was published and
> when
> > : somebody has exploited it, those have been going down, but in every case
> at
> > : this stage we've had the fix out before the exploit. So next is making
> it
> > : easy to do the updating, not for general features but just for the very
> few
> > : critical security things, and then reducing the size of those patches,
> and
> > : reducing the frequency of the patches, which gets you back to the code
> > : quality issues. We have to bring these things to bear, and the very
> dramatic
> > : things that we can do in the short term have to do with the firewalls
> and the
> > : updating infrastructure. "
> > : -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > : Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux)
> > :
> > : iD8DBQE/oqq3Ji2cv3XsiSARAlkdAJ0aGkBViYkoE193iZycTmQZohzwbQCg1KDA
> > : SjPLY1EEzamQCtIGKwJT1Vk=
> > : =mIsY
> > : -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > :
> > : _______________________________________________
> > : Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
> > : Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html
> >
> >
> > James Edwards
> > Routing and Security Administrator
> > jamesh at cybermesa.com
> > At the Santa Fe Office: Internet at Cyber Mesa
> > Store hours: 9-6 Monday through Friday
> > 505-988-9200 SIP:1(747)669-1965
> >
> 

-- 

Andrew D Kirch  |	    trelane at 2mbit.com            | 
Security Admin  |  Summit Open Source Development Group  | www.sosdg.org