On 7/20/24 16:45, debian-u...@howorth.org.uk wrote:
Andy Smith <a...@strugglers.net> wrote:
Hi,
On Sat, Jul 20, 2024 at 11:54:06AM +0800, hlyg wrote:
crowdstrike makes news headlines, many Windows become blue screens
it is evident that many people around still use Windows
i wonder if linux is more reliable than Windows
For this specific issue, if Linux were used at the same scale and
for the same purposes as these affected Windows machines, then a
similar issue would affect Linux sooner or later.
The reason why this is the case is that the current motivation for
the use of Crowdstrike's software on those Windows machines would
be exactly the same if they were Linux machines, and so these
companies would do the same thing with the same end result.
In fact, Crowdstrike already made a similar mistake earlier this
year with one of their Linux solutions which resulted in end user
machines having a kernel panic. Debian stable end user machines. So
there is no practical difference between Crowdstrike+Windows and
Crowdstrike+Linux.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41005936
So then you might assume that the problem here is Crowdstrike's
incompetence and a better vendor would solve all problems. You would
be wrong, because the world is full to the brim with inept software
vendors and there is no real consequence for software failures.
It seems clear to me that what's needed is a change in the law. At the
moment here in the UK we have national news services explaining that
airline passengers won't be able to get compensation because the
'event' was outside the airline's control. That's clearly nonsense
since some airlines weren't affected so perhaps sense will eventually
prevail and the companies that have had problems will be held liable
for damages to their customers. But it would be better if they could
then sue Crowdstrike for installing the faulty update. (Perhaps they
can? I don't know, IANAL.) That might provide some incentive to improve
the systems and processes so problems like this don't occur again.
.
That bit of legaleze should have been addressed about the time NT3.51
came out. Maybe by now M$ would have been stung in the bank balance
enough to have learned they will get caught out eventually. NT deleted
the main OS library, and of coarse would not boot. I put the drive in
another machine and poked around a bit, finally finding a file that was
apparently part of the drives housekeeping but only called if a call to
rand returned a certain date in the future which turned out to be about
a day in the past. But it contained nothing in the way of a check to see
if the file belonged to the os. I called support, but had no
registration for that copy because it was a bulk purchase by the
network, and all the tv stations got was the machine pre-installed, the
network had not given us the paper work. So I explained to M$ support
and got called a pie rat by support. Screw M$ and the camel that rode in
on them. I packed the drive in a padded box & handed it to the fedex
driver. The network net guru reinstalled and overnighted it back. But
while it was down, the lack of data to program our 7 meter C band dish
cost us about 5k$ a day because we were not airing the commercials we
were contracted to transmit.
So now you know why my hatred of M$ is very long term and incurable.
Cheers, Gene Heskett, CET.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
- Louis D. Brandeis
