[Full-Disclosure] Bill Gates blames the victim

From: Richard M. Smith (rms_at_computerbytesman.com)
Date: 08/31/03

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    To: <full-disclosure@lists.netsys.com>
Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2003 10:28:32 -0400

    Hi,

    I just saw this interview with Bill Gates in today's New York Times:

       Virus Aside, Gates Says Reliability Is Greater
       http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/31/technology/31SMIC.html

    Boy, talking about blaming the victim:

       [Gates] "The fact that these attacks are coming out and that
       people's software is not up to date in a way that fully
       prevents an attack on them is something we feel very bad about."

    And ducking questions by blaming the victim:

       Q. "The buffer overrun flaw that made the Blaster worm
       possible was specifically targeted in your code reviews
       last year. Do you understand why the flaw that led to
       Blaster escaped your detection?"

       A. "Understand there have actually been fixes for all of
       these things before the attack took place. The challenge
       is that we've got to get the fixes to be automatically
       applied without our customers having to make a special effort."

    Patching security holes is a poor substitute for avoiding them in the
    first place. If three guys in Poland can find a buffer overflow in DCOM
    without access to Windows source code, why can't Microsoft?

    Richard M. Smith
    http://www.ComputerBytesMan.com

     

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