[ale] OT: A funny one from Computerworld on XP SP2

[Jonathan Rickman]

> http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/story/0,10801,9
> 5390,00.html

Thanks. Now if I could just figure out when buffer overflows became the most
popular DoS attack, or when they became a DoS attack at all for that matter,
I'd be all set. Any denial of service caused by a buffer overflow is either
due to a poorly written exploit or is a mere side effect. If we surmise that
a buffer overflow is by definition a DoS attack, then EVERY attack is a DoS
attack and the water is now completely mud choked. The article is pretty
misleading, and it's overall theme is factually inaccurate from the
beginning. A buffer overflow is nothing more than a vehicle for attack. It
is my understanding that the MS solution misrepresented here works by simply
killing the attacking process, not shutting down the entire system. This may
be an exercise in semantics, but details are important when discussing
technical matters. Based on their misguided ideas of how things work, I
wouldn't pay these two "consultants" to clean my windows (pun intended) for
fear of them painting them instead.

--
Jonathan "semantics curmudgeon" Rickman