'Untouchable' Microsoft does it again: Windows XP is unsafe

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We are the ones, once again, who will pay for Microsoftís unparalleled incompetence.

technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

'Untouchable' Microsoft does it again: Windows XP is just as unsafe as previous versions

Sept. 9, 2001

By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2001, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2001, The Syracuse Newspapers

   Next month, you'll be able to buy Windows XP, a vastly improved version of the monopoly PC operating system for PCs. Although Windows XP has many outstanding features, it fails to fix some of the most serious problems of Windows.
   In fact, the failings of Windows XP could outweigh its many strengths. This is bad news for Microsoft, which remains defiant despite a court decision (and confirmation by an appeals court) that found it guilty of running a criminal monopoly. If Microsoft cannot get Windows XP right, corporate customers and consumers are likely to wonder if Windows is so badly designed that it cannot be fixed at all.
   The problems with Windows XP should be familiar to experienced Windows users. They render Windows XP just as vulnerable to breakdowns and virus infections as previous versions.
   Windows XP, like all other versions of Windows, has no built-in protection against computer viruses. Microsoft had a splendid opportunity to create a version of Windows that could resist virus attacks but failed to take any action. This would be inexplicable enough in normal times, but is nothing less than bizarre in a year when the Sircam virus alone is reported to have caused $2.5 billion in damage to businesses worldwide. (Sircam infects Windows computers through e-mail attachments.)
   Another serious problem is the way Windows XP hides the true nature of all files. In this manner, Windows XP behaves like every version of Windows since 1995. This means Windows XP continues to exhibit one of the oldest and most dangerous flaws in any operating system.
   Many viruses take advantage of this designed-in weakness by naming their "payload" files with double file extensions. Windows is not smart enough to see past this ruse -- something that could be changed in a couple of days, if Microsoft cared to change it -- and as a result any virus programmer old enough to reach the keyboard can create viruses that can take over any function in a Windows XP computer.
   This flaw comes about because all versions of Windows hide the three characters that make up the essential filename extensions that Windows uses to determine what kind of files it deals with. Other operating systems such as Linux and both current versions of the Macintosh operating system were designed to avoid this obvious trapdoor, but Microsoft has refused to change the default behavior of Windows.
   The major improvements in Windows XP -- a much better method of handing memory and a resistance to crashing, in particular -- are late in arriving but are welcome nonetheless. But the ease with which files can be transferred through e-mail makes protection against file-borne viruses just as important as memory enhancements and crash proofing.
   Anti-virus programs arenít the answer. They canít fix the basic weaknesses of Windows. Only Microsoft can do that. But itís now clear that it wonít.
   As an avid Windows user, I am sure I am not alone in wondering what could possibly guide the ethical reasoning of Bill Gates and his associates at the worldís biggest software company. And I am just as sure that we are the ones, once again, who will pay for Microsoftís unparalleled incompetence.
   The next virus that slips into your Windows PC wonít have Bill Gatesí name on it. It will have yours and mine. It will rifle through your files and my files. It will send out our personal documents at random, sharing our private lives with anyone it wants to, just like the Sircam virus has been doing since July.
   It will embarrass you. It will embarrass me. But you and I both know it won't embarrass Microsoft. Microsoft, maker of Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and now Windows XP, is untouchable.