Microsoft Wants Infected PCs Booted Offline

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djackson_dba

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Great in theory, but much like medical infections the possibility of false positives is very real. I wonder how Scott Charney would react if his system was booted off the internet on a false positive while he was in the process of last minute updates to a critical board meeting?
 

restatement3dofted

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And how long do they think it'll be before someone figures out a way to write a virus that can get around the mechanism for booting the infected machine, so that it can continue to spread itself around as it pleases?
 

noodlegts

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I agree with djackson. That would be great, except everyone and their 12 year old son would be kicked off the internet and customer support lines would be so backed up that anyone with a false positive wouldn't be able to get back online for days.
 

turbotong

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Hmm I don't think this is possible. In the real world, licensed doctors diagnose illnesses. What would be the equivalent? Your antivirus software? A central PC heath authority? And since some viruses today are still either undetected or can screw with your antivirus, what's to say that the same problem won't persist?
 

sstym

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[citation][nom]restatement3dofted[/nom]And how long do they think it'll be before someone figures out a way to write a virus that can get around the mechanism for booting the infected machine, so that it can continue to spread itself around as it pleases?[/citation]

Or a virus that just takes advantage of this system to kick you offline!

Of course, after this is done, you must connect to another computer to get the latest virus definitions and fix it (and pray that the virus won't infect the thumb drive with the signature files on it as soon as you plug it in)
 

thomaslompton

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Fundamental flaw: If governments are the ones to enforce this then it will never happen because some governments are (ok with , indifferent to, supportive of, not tech saavy enough) to enforce this kind of control. It would only take one government to not support this and it would all be for naught.
 

jomofro39

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How are we supposed to fix our quarantined computers with anti-virus software when we can not connect to the internet to get the update? They are going to mail us USB sticks with the updates on them when we get a virus? Have "Clean" internet stalls where we can dl our updates for our specific AV? Update pigeons? This will never work. Nice concept though, retarded when applied to reality.
 

hokkdawg

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Good lord Microsoft, just write software that isn't full of holes and stop trying to make excuses for why your products suck.

For the record, in the 5+ years I've owned a Windows PC, I have had every layer of protection disabled. I'm 25 and an avid user of the internet, navigating to god-knows-what random sites. Somehow, my PC has never contracted a virus. Why? Because I don't click on random crap, and I don't use anything Microsoft makes to browse the web.

The solution is not decide who can and can't access the internet, the solution is to quit being stupid and write software that is intelligently designed. If Google and Mozilla can do it, so can Microsoft.
 

mavroxur

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We already do this at work, if an infected machine is on the network spewing odd traffic to the rest of the network or internet, we track it down, and disable the physical port on the switch in the building that it's connected to, basically unplugging it from the network until we can get a tech to go look at it.
 

mactruck

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I would much rather see Microsoft put the money they want spent on this idea into plugging security holes in their own OS. It also sounds like this could lead to M$'s true goal of blocking anyone with an older "insecure" OS like XP and forcing them to buy a shiny new license for Windows 7.
 

mlopinto2k1

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[citation][nom]djackson_dba[/nom]Great in theory, but much like medical infections the possibility of false positives is very real. I wonder how Scott Charney would react if his system was booted off the internet on a false positive while he was in the process of last minute updates to a critical board meeting?[/citation]VPN's can take care of that.
 
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I wonder how many Linux, OSX, Solaris machines are "infected". Seems to me that most of the "infected" PC's will be running a Microsoft OS. Funny that an MSFT O/S tends to be the one getting infected. Perhaps the answer is to create an OS that wont get infected so that you dont have the problem to begin with?
 

g00fysmiley

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i'm with mactruck.. sounds liek a way to boot older systems they don't support anymore. not that i use my old 98 se machine anymore or my windows ME machine but i know people who still use these os's seems liek a way fo rhtem to say oh unsupported so unsecure possible infection and boot em from using the internet

intresting concept if nto a transparent attempt to sell more software making people have aniti virus and latest os for corporate profit... err i mean secutiry
 

jellico

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[citation][nom]mlopinto2k1[/nom]VPN's can take care of that.[/citation]
How, exactly, would a VPN take care of that? A VPN creates a secure connection between two systems over an unsecure network (i.e. the Internet). Since the quaruntine process of disconnecting a suspect system will occur, necessarily, at the ISP level, then you would suddenly find yourself without Internet access. A VPN is completely meaningless in that scenario.
 

ender wiggin

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It’ll give virus writers more power, now they can knock you pc off the net... They could target power stations, TV stations, Hospitals… And wait ‘till the government decides that your political views are unhealthy to the current boss, and they have to power to knock you off the net... scary stuff people!
 

nforce4max

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I am tired of their elitist attitude, infects some of their old but still online FTP servers to prove a point. They should however be required to incorporate some basic protection into the OS and actually fix vulnerabilities in their software that is the cause of many of these problems. If it comes down to it I will gladly switch over to Linux as Apple costs a fortune.
 
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