Hacker News

points by Oarch 2 days ago | 0 comments

I can't wait for the Raymond Chen write up one day.

Just after I deployed a "currently patched" system yesterday and failed to uninstall Paint when I had the chance.

Normally have been 86-ing a number of annoying things such as OneDrive, but leaving Paint in place figuring it's got to still be harmless.

Creeping increases in attack vector when just the opposite is needed more than ever.

[–] onei 2 days ago

Some years ago, I ended up on a call with a support team guy, helping him under some parts of a system I worked on. He shared his screen, started drawing diagrams. It took me a whole 10 minutes to realise it was in paint, he was just that good at using it.

Turns out paint was the thing almost every customer had installed/had access to, so he worked to the lowest common denominator and got really good at using it. I guess now he'll need to find a new tool to astonish devs with.

[–] ethbr1 2 days ago

If you're in support across multiple customers, especially in regulated industries, you learn to rely on the minimum common denominator, which usually means OS utils.

And at the end of the day $2 and $2000 screwdrivers are both still screwdrivers.

[–] ndsipa_pomu 1 day ago

This is also why knowing the basics of "vi" is so useful on Linux/unix systems

[–] partomniscient 1 day ago

...especially knowing how to save/exit without saving/quit, when it automatically opens up for some reason.

[–] joshspankit 1 day ago

Before MS, there was a time where it wasn’t possible to get a virus by receiving an email. Users had to click on the attachment. Email itself is a text protocol after all.

Then they added automatic HTML parsing of incoming emails, and the attackers cheered.

[–] stevekemp 1 day ago

Email may be text-based, but parsing MIME is a pain in the ass (speaking as somebody who wrote a console-based email client.)

You can go back to mutt's parsing, and CVE-1999-0940 for an old example. But I'm sure that's only one of many.

[–] znpy 2 days ago

86-ing?

[–] yakshaving_jgt 2 days ago

It comes from working in kitchens. It means to remove something from the menu, or otherwise make it unavailable.

[–] dboreham 1 day ago

Also seashells.

[–] SketchySeaBeast 1 day ago

86 seashells? I don't even know what do with the three seashells.

[–] Grimeton 1 day ago

Greetings and salutations!

I understood that reference.

[–] zdragnar 1 day ago

Surely a SketchySeaBeast could come up with uses for at least three seashells

[–] fuzzfactor 1 day ago

Traditionally tossing excess baggage overboard when the situation gets grim enough.

Like when a previously sturdy old sailing ship starts taking on water, for instance in the 18th century and beyond.

Numerical equivalent to "deep-six."

[–] DANmode 2 days ago

Perhaps someone else,

once Microsoft has reinvented themselves as…security-first?

[–] pjmlp 2 days ago

They supposedly did, that is why most stuff on Azure is now a mix of Java, C#, Go and Rust with very little C and C++.

And there is the SFI program.

However this is a Windows application, and in spite some Rust advances in WinDev, it is pretty much C and C++ turf, with Rust getting the same warm reception as .NET used to enjoy.

Guess which language is Paint written on?

Nonetheless, they are doubling down on sandboxing Windows, macOS, iOS and Android style, for quite some time, exactly to become security first as you are asking for.

[–] NooneAtAll5 1 day ago

I didn't know "just don't bloody add an internet access to everything" required a different language

[–] DANmode 1 day ago

Not asking - just saying aloud that they seem to feel the need to get ahead of sentiment (like being dev-unfriendly), and surely this one comes next.

[–] vaylian 2 days ago

Remember Windows Vista? Cancel or Allow?