Firewall Wizards mailing list archives
Re: How to Save The World
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry () piermont com>
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 11:11:42 -0500
"Marcus J. Ranum" <mjr () ranum com> writes:
Side-note: YES, ATMs run Windows inside. Another example of the kind of pervasive IT stupidity I was referring to, earlier. Rather than run a custom locked-down minimized O/S it runs a full Windows distro that has been locked down with a layer of software. Why? Because it's too much work to develop a new video player rather than use Windows Media Player, etc, etc. So rather than spend $400,000 to own a solution that's "done right" corporate IT would rather pay $150/ATM for a turd, and millions of dollars in turd polish to overcome the flaws in the turd. And, of course, turd polish is a recurring expense whereas just doing it right the first time is a gift that keeps on giving.
Side note to side note: I recently had the pleasure of watching an ATM reboot. I won't mention the bank that it was at except to say that it was Chase. Yes, it was, of course, running Windows. It appeared to be completely stock Windows, too, given figures like disk consumption and the nature of the boot sequence. It occurred to me at the time that the difficulty of doing Extremely Evil Things to the ATM networks of banks that use Windows based ATMs is far, far lower than that of the (theoretical) banks running something else on their ATMs. That implies, of course, that at some point someone is going to victimize the stupid banks, which will doubtless produce a scramble among them to use other, safer software. I suspect that such mass victimization alone will produce a change in their purchasing decisions. Perry _______________________________________________ firewall-wizards mailing list firewall-wizards () honor icsalabs com http://honor.icsalabs.com/mailman/listinfo/firewall-wizards
Current thread:
- Re: How to Save The World Frederick M Avolio (Dec 13)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: How to Save The World Marcus J. Ranum (Dec 13)
- Re: How to Save The World Danny (Dec 13)
- Re: How to Save The World Perry E. Metzger (Dec 14)
- Re: How to Save The World R. DuFresne (Dec 14)
- Message not available
- Re: How to Save The World Marcus J. Ranum (Dec 14)
- Re: How to Save The World Paul D. Robertson (Dec 14)
- Re: How to Save The World Carson Gaspar (Dec 13)