Kill Switch enabled.

The water is starting to boil and the frog will be dead soon.
 
redrumloa said:
Just wait until it kills your P2P client.
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Microsoft have had the option of remotely killing windows installs since the introduction of windows genuine advantage back on XP sp2.

The one thing I would say is if Microsoft do start killing apps, it'll only take one mistaken false positive to cause the business sector to dump them for something else. The article is correct also when it says that its a security nightmare. Can't imagine 8 being popular with businesses if they know someone outside their company could kill off their entire infrastructure remotely.

On the other hand, having large percentages of net going computers infested with who knows what cannot continue. The idea of it being repeated on handsets is enough to make me queesy, quite frankly.
 
the_leander said:
Microsoft have had the option of remotely killing windows installs since the introduction of windows genuine advantage back on XP sp2.

The one thing I would say is if Microsoft do start killing apps, it'll only take one mistaken false positive to cause the business sector to dump them for something else. The article is correct also when it says that its a security nightmare. Can't imagine 8 being popular with businesses if they know someone outside their company could kill off their entire infrastructure remotely.

On the other hand, having large percentages of net going computers infested with who knows what cannot continue. The idea of it being repeated on handsets is enough to make me queesy, quite frankly.
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Soon enough it'll be the case regarding 'cloud'-computing. If the internet goes down, nobody can work.
 
The App store is key here. I'm guessing what they are doing is revoking a license or key. Since each app is digitally signed, the "kill switch" could target a specific piece of software with great accuracy. Won't be useful at all for anything not downloaded through the app store/market.

This is probably a good compromise. I know I've wasted days and weeks cleaning computers that my friends and relatives keep re-infecting. I'd love to somehow make it impossible for them to install anything that isn't signed (a white-list only install). But at the same time, I'd like that freedom for myself. And that's how Android works. If you stick to Google's market you have some expectations that you're safe, where as downloading Android apps off bit torrent and you're really playing with fire. The kill switch is of coarse a retro-active safety net, because even Apple's app store has had some shady apps made available that were later pulled for security reasons.

So I'm all for it. I'm also all for turning decapitated botnets on themselves, but so far they've been holding off for some reason.
 
Am in the same boat as you regarding having to unfuck friends computers. It gets old after a while.

I had one computer come by where the browser had so many extra tool bars on it that it effectively took up half of his screen.

And that was only the beginning of the horror story.

Three weeks after fixing it, it was in an almost identical state at which point I gave him a leaflet to a computer maintenance course and wished him luck.
 
Glaucus said:
The App store is key here. I'm guessing what they are doing is revoking a license or key. Since each app is digitally signed, the "kill switch" could target a specific piece of software with great accuracy. Won't be useful at all for anything not downloaded through the app store/market.

This is probably a good compromise. I know I've wasted days and weeks cleaning computers that my friends and relatives keep re-infecting. I'd love to somehow make it impossible for them to install anything that isn't signed (a white-list only install). But at the same time, I'd like that freedom for myself. And that's how Android works. If you stick to Google's market you have some expectations that you're safe, where as downloading Android apps off bit torrent and you're really playing with fire. The kill switch is of coarse a retro-active safety net, because even Apple's app store has had some shady apps made available that were later pulled for security reasons.

So I'm all for it. I'm also all for turning decapitated botnets on themselves, but so far they've been holding off for some reason.
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When have you downloaded an application to your Windows based PC from the Microsoft App Store?
 
redrumloa said:
When have you downloaded an application to your Windows based PC from the Microsoft App Store?
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Prior to quite recently, the same question could be asked of Mac users. Walled gardens are the industry's response to millions of wilfully ignorant users who click at anything the screen tells them to.
 
the_leander said:
Prior to quite recently, the same question could be asked of Mac users. Walled gardens are the industry's response to millions of wilfully ignorant users who click at anything the screen tells them to.
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I thought after the death of AOL, computer users in general got a little more sophisticated. I guess I was wrong :-(
 
redrumloa said:
I thought after the death of AOL, computer users in general got a little more sophisticated. I guess I was wrong :-(
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I recently ran across someone with an @aol.com email. They kept it and continue to pay $20 a month. He said it was okay because everyone pays for email. I decided my time was more valuably spent else where.

redrumloa said:
When have you downloaded an application to your Windows based PC from the Microsoft App Store?
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Consoles and phones are commoditized PCs.
 
faethor said:
Consoles and phones are commoditized PCs.
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Understood, but the kill switch is coming to your desktop PC if you get Windows 8. I do not use my phone for general computing. I do not use my console for general computing. Generally speaking, I don't use app stores. If the kill switch is there, it won't be long before it is used for things other than what they claim it is for. All this talk of malware is a misnomer.
 
redrumloa said:
If the kill switch is there, it won't be long before it is used for things other than what they claim it is for. All this talk of malware is a misnomer.
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Absolutely it'll likely get used on the basis of anti piracy at some point, and I agree this has all the hallmarks of a slippery slope attached to it.

But what do you do when large sections of the net going world not only don't understand basic computer security and maintenance but talk with pride about their ignorance on the subject?

I was in a computer shop the other day when a guy came in about a laptop he'd brought in a few days prior. This was a low end coreduo running XP, a slightly earlier vintage to my own system. From power on to desktop took over an hour.

That's not a typo, it took an hour to boot up it was that infested.

Clean install was the order of the day but the owner was adamant that it couldn't be that bad. Right up until he was presented with a print out of all the viruses on the thing, 12pt, four columns and it took six pages.

According to the shop owner, that wasn't even the worst system he'd seen that day. I'd love to believe that malware was simply a misnomer, but first hand experience at the sharp end tells me otherwise.

You can't teach people when they don't want to learn.
 
redrumloa said:
Understood, but the kill switch is coming to your desktop PC if you get Windows 8. I do not use my phone for general computing. I do not use my console for general computing. Generally speaking, I don't use app stores. If the kill switch is there, it won't be long before it is used for things other than what they claim it is for. All this talk of malware is a misnomer.
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Increasing phones are being used for general computing. I have made spreadsheets, documentation, coded HTML, and used the image editing. In an ever connected world of in secure OSes accepting the possible technical slippery slope and legislating their minimal impacting use is probably the best of the bad choices.
 
redrumloa said:
When have you downloaded an application to your Windows based PC from the Microsoft App Store?
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Never of course, but that's in large part because such an app store doesn't exist. Yet. This article is about the future, and in the future there will be such an app store.

The feature was publicized in a widely cited Computerworld article in December when Microsoft posted the terms of use for its new application store, a feature in Windows 8 that will allow users to download software from a Microsoft-controlled portal.
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Notice that is says it will "allow" users to download from the app store, not "force" them. Microsoft isn't Apple.
 
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