ianbetteridge

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ianbetteridge
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  • Microsoft blames European Commission for global CrowdStrike catastrophe

    ianbetteridgeianbetteridge
    blastdoor said:
    ianbetteridge said:
    blastdoor said:

    This is basically a golden age of competition in computing platforms and the EC is trying to wreck it.

    It's a golden age of competition in computing because the DoJ and EU both took action to rein in Microsoft in the late 90s and early 2000s. Maybe you're not old enough to remember when Microsoft could get away with anything he wanted, but trust me, it wasn't fun. Ask Novell. Or WordPerfect. Or Lotus. All of whom had better products which got steamrollered because Microsoft controlled Windows.
    I am old enough, which is why I made the point -- I remember it very well. 

    It's possible that past anti-trust action -- or the threat of such action -- contributed to the current landscape. I can see an argument that the fear of anti-trust action led MS to continue to support Office on the Mac in the late 90s to early 2000s. If MS had withdrawn Office support, it might have ended the Mac. So that's a potential point in favor of DOJ. 

    But so what? The fact that some anti-trust actions taken by the government are smart and well implemented doesn't mean all actions are smart and well implemented. I think the EC has gone off the rails and is diving into a level of centrally planned micromanaging that is counterproductive. In the US, there are zealots on the left who are inclined to do the same thing, although in general it's anti-government zealots on the right that are the bigger problem in the US. 

    There's absolutely no doubt at all that Microsoft in the late 90s and early 2000s was constrained by antitrust, and not just because of the specific rules. Like all companies subject to antitrust action, it will have pre-emptively ruled out certain activities which, in the past, it would happily have done. Bill Gates has talked about how antitrust limited what they could do in mobile, for example. And yet there are still commentators out there who insist antitrust action had no effect! (Ben Thompson, if you're reading this, I am looking at you).

    As for micro-managing, again, I would encourage you to go look at the actual 2009 agreement, which is about as far from technical micro-managing as it's possible to get. There are *no* technical requirements in it, just requirements that whatever APIs Microsoft's own apps use, they have to allow others to do too. If anything, it's *less* onerous than the 1956 IBM consent decree which basically created the PC market, and which made IBM publish not only software manuals but schematics too.
    muthuk_vanalingamimagladryronnwilliamlondonroundaboutnowctt_zhwatto_cobra

  • Microsoft blames European Commission for global CrowdStrike catastrophe

    ianbetteridgeianbetteridge
    bloggerblog said:
    This blunder will push companies to choose Linux over Windows for their infrastructure 

    This *could* have affected Linux, too. We really got lucky that it didn't, given the amount of infrastructure that runs on it.
    williamlondonctt_zhwatto_cobra

  • Microsoft blames European Commission for global CrowdStrike catastrophe

    ianbetteridgeianbetteridge
    M68000 said:
    This seems to be totally a QA testing issue.  Was any testing done? 

    So the answer to this is, "it's complicated". Some of this is going to be a bit simplified, but it's accurate enough.

    Software on Windows can run in two modes: kernel mode; and user mode. User mode software shouldn't ever be able to cause a BSOD.

    Security software needs to run in kernel mode. There are good reasons for this: malware often hides deep in the OS in places where user mode software can't find it. CrowdStrike Falcon works like a device drive, which allows it to reside in kernel mode and access system data structures and services.

    "Heck," you're thinking, "so can anyone write a device driver and get their software running in kernel mode?" Well, no: Windows will display a warning unless a driver has passed Microsoft's WHQL testing process. In some cases, Windows won't even allow the driver to run.

    Falcon is WHQL certified, so it *should* be pretty robust and not cause a BSOD. But there's a catch: it relies on dynamic definition files, which are deployed to update its configuration. From what I hear, Crowdstrike accidentally deployed one which contained nothing but zeros, which led to a catastrophic error. In other words, they simply deployed the wrong file. No testing will catch that -- it's a file that wasn't meant to be deployed at all.
    imagladrykiltedgreenronnwilliamlondonroundaboutnowctt_zhradarthekatdewmewatto_cobra

  • Microsoft blames European Commission for global CrowdStrike catastrophe

    ianbetteridgeianbetteridge
    blastdoor said:

    This is basically a golden age of competition in computing platforms and the EC is trying to wreck it.

    It's a golden age of competition in computing because the DoJ and EU both took action to rein in Microsoft in the late 90s and early 2000s. Maybe you're not old enough to remember when Microsoft could get away with anything he wanted, but trust me, it wasn't fun. Ask Novell. Or WordPerfect. Or Lotus. All of whom had better products which got steamrollered because Microsoft controlled Windows.
    muthuk_vanalingamkiltedgreenronnwilliamlondonctt_zhradarthekatjidonrg2

  • Microsoft blames European Commission for global CrowdStrike catastrophe

    ianbetteridgeianbetteridge
    mikethemartian said:
    Does Crowdstrike have access to the Linux kernel? If so, has it resulted in any major issues?

    Yes it does. And CrowdStrike Falcon has been linked to kernel panics on Linux in the past. This one didn't affect Linux though.
    muthuk_vanalingamronnwilliamlondonctt_zhradarthekatwatto_cobra