Please run windows update now

Mon May 15 16:36:46 UTC 2017

You, sir, are to be congratulated!  I have been on this list for many years
- mainly to keep in the loop.  Up until today the list went to a catch-all
account as I have never felt the need to post.  Today, though, I felt the
need to create the mailbox just so I could reply since your posts have been
the most irritating I have ever seen on this list.  The complete ineptness
in any of the points you shared was astonishing.  If you are on this list
you are most likely in some business associated with the Internet so if you
are like some of those that "just want to get some regular work done" let me
remind you that this _is_ regular work.  Get it done.  Microsoft isn't to
blame here.  It's the people who refuse to upgrade their Operating Systems
or patch religiously who are (read: IT departments here too).  A lot more of
the world use Microsoft products than you seem to think - it is the dominant
and it's not going away.  If this causes you more work than the random
scripts you google on the Internet to run on your *nix boxes perhaps your
time in the business is up.  I too prefer and enjoy running all sorts of
flavors of unix/Linux and sometimes you will find that I bash the occasional
Windows user for being less than diligent but there is a limit to this
bashing and you, Rich, have well exceeded that IMO.

For those of you on this list that feel that this post was not necessary, I
am sorry and would normally agree with you and I hardly think it will happen
again.

Phillip White

-----Original Message-----
From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-bounces at nanog.org] On Behalf Of Rich Kulawiec
Sent: Monday, May 15, 2017 4:37 AM
To: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: Re: Please run windows update now

You make some excellent points: but I grow very, very tired of having to
spend my time and my energy -- note timestamp on my message -- dealing with
the fallout.  It should be painfully clear to everyone that there is no such
thing as a secure Windows system.  [1]  It should have been painfully clear
after Code Red, after the rise of bots, and after a hundred other incidents
before/since of varying severity and duration.
But apparently it's not and so despite the impact of this current one --
including large-scale disruption of healthcare in the UK -- this will keep
happening over and over again.  And even those of us who have the good
judgment to never use Microsoft products have to pay the price for the poor
decision-making of others.  Again.  And again.

It's getting old.  Just like all the other things that people do (many of
which have been discussed here at great length) that cause problems for
others who are making an earnest attempt to do things right.
How bad do things have to get before the people who are stubbornly
clinging to this finally let go?   Does someone have to die?  Because --
again, see healthcare provider impact in the UK -- we're not that far from
it.

---rsk

[1] There may be no such thing as a secure system, period.  But it would be
better to deploy things that may have a fighting chance instead of things
that have long since proven to have none at all.