Is XP SP2 Just a Placebo?
Friday, September 3rd, 2004 Posted in Computers/Internet | No Comments »I thought I ought to post this link in light of my recent post about WinXP SP2 news coverage.
Via OSNews comes WinXP SP2 = security placebo?
The Register did an analysis of the security features in Service Pack 2 and concluded that it just plain wasn’t enough. Lots of services are still on by default, and as others have pointed out, the firewall only checks incoming connections, meaning once the spyware gets on your machine, the firewall won’t do you any good.
It’s an interesting read, and it approaches the issue from a completely different perspective. Rather than “It breaks stuff (which probably shouldn’t have worked in the first place),” it’s “It doesn’t do enough to fix stuff.”
To be fair, even the Register concludes that it is at least better than XP SP1, so the security isn’t all in your head. But there is the risk that people will think installing it is enough, when they still need to practice safe computing and make some effort to harden the system.
Maybe they should just call it Windows 2005
Thursday, August 5th, 2004 Posted in Computers/Internet | No Comments »CNet reports that Windows XP SP2 has been delayed again.
- Schedule for June
- Postpone until July
- Postpone until August
- Postpone until some unspecified probably-still-August (we hope)
Y’know, maybe the Linux kernel-style “when it’s done” schedule is a better way to plan it. It might not be concrete, but at least they wouldn’t get “delayed again!” headlines every few weeks.
Update Aug. 6: That was faster than I expected: they’ve decided it’s ready.
