At 08:54 PM 8/16/2011 -0400, Ken Dibble wrote: > > >I have never seen Windows 2000, XP, or 7 experience a "forced update" when > > >automatic updates is turned completely off (I've never seen Vista do > >... > > > >http://windowssecrets.com/top-story/microsoft-updates-windows-without-use > rs-consent/ > >What's being described here isn't quite what I had in mind when I said, >"forced update". If you had automatic updates turned completely off, you >had to voluntarily and manually visit the Windows update site to have this >happen. No visit, no "forced update". ...
I think you need to read that article a little closer (or you can find other sites about the specifics I'm sure). It clearly states that even if you had auto-updates "disabled", MS still bypassed the setting. I think the author was fixated more on the 'notify user' aspect than the fact that MS bypassed it's own security setting. Now, since in this case the Windows Update app had to be invoked, you may you're OK as long as you never "visit MS sites." But that is probably a bit naive. I'd suggest you check your ip logs over the past month or so and see how many times your PC took a trip to MS addresses. Any time you see that, you can assume you were open to an unauthorized change to your system. I imagine it tries on Windows boot up (good ol' svchost really wants to get to the Internet all the time). I know for a fact it does (at least once/day) when I power up MS Office (ugh, yeah, gotta use that on an office machine, it's become godawful software hasn't it). So you're still stuck with blocking MS sites with external non-MS systems if you want to really be safe. So just put 2 and 2 together. Windows computers may very will "visit" MS sites without your knowledge. Windows can update files on the computer regardless of whatever "security" setting the user has set in Windows itself. And yes, any OS can have a back door. It was just somewhat surprising that MS would do it so blatantly for such a minor thing. But they did, and when they got caught they blustered about their rights to do so. And you can be sure they'd do it again in a heartbeat if they thought it'd give them a gain in profit. That's what companies do <shrug>. We could expect the same from Mac or any other proprietary system (I don't think Mac has done it yet, but they could just the same). I'm not surprised they do stuff like that, I'm surprised the "trained" computer professionals aren't aware of the situation. Lastly, I hope you realize that open source OS's are extremely unlikely to have these kind of "back doors" since they'd be so easy to spot by anyone that cared to look. -Charlie _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[email protected] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
