Comments on: Cisco exec: Windows Vista is scary

A senior security expert at the networking giant says that aspects of Microsoft's new operating system are worrying.

[tania3000]

THIS is even scarier ...

... namely that odd military facility in China recently found using Google Earth:

Articles with pictures:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/19/huangyangtan_mystery/
http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/the-riddle-of-chinas-area-51/2006/08/14/1155407679963.html

Google Earth forum post:
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php/Cat/0/Number/484568

That's the place in the middle of the desert where the Chinese Army has constructed a scale-model replica of the entire region of Aksai Chin (occupied by China since the 1962 war with India). At 1:500, it's still 700 by 900 meters big ( = several football fields). Next to it is a base with dozens of troop transporters seen coming and going. The duplicate shows everything: rivers, lakes, roads and snow-capped mountains. It's basically a landscape within a landscape.

The problem is that nobody has been able to figure out the function of this thing. The world's biggest miniature golf course, perhaps? China's own Area 51? That's why it's the subject of so much discussion in the blogosphere. The discoverer even had to set up his own blog to handle the buzz: foundinchina.blogspot.com

Any ideas?

[TheMikeness]

Thank you

Glad to hear when someone who actually KNOWS something about the history of operating systems discusses mac, windows, and unix. I would also like to mention that another large source of windows crash problems is due to lax coding, there are 13 year olds out there writing windows applications on .Net and other languages, whereas 99% of the Mac users out there dont know how to program real applications on their platform.

Some people are saying that the main thing holding back the Mac is the fact that people dont see it as worth it to write software for a small percentage of the market, but then why is almost every piece of professional software out there available for both pc and mac? You can even play games on linux now. Many people switch away from windows, and like it.

Usually the reason they switch away from windows is something like security or stability, because if they dont need to run too many specialized programs, they never miss it, and when windows represents over 90% of the loosely secured systems on the planet, why bother writing viruses for unix or mac? it can be done, sure, but in practise it isnt, because these jerks like targetting the majority of people.

My main gripes with Vista RC2 that ive seen so far are the 10GB default barebones windows folder size, and the massive amount of folders and files in it (i think its got some 50,000+ files in about 7,000 folders, compared to XP's 2,000 files? in about 700 folders, taking up about 1.2GB).

I used to remove most spyware/viruses manually for the most part, but now that its not going to be easy to determine what belongs and what doesnt, this makes it harder for me. Hopefully i wont need to however, now to changes in access to the kernel, etc, which yes, i believe are long overdue.

The new object oriented shell features are probably a very big step forward for developers, id like to hear more about how it works.

If Mac were able to encourage developers to consider its OS, maybe they wouldnt be stuck with under 5% of the desktop computer market share perhaps? After all, its not like there could be anything WRONG with OS X, its not Apple's fault their product isnt selling, its somebody elses, like (insert company/person name here)'s fault, right?

[TheMikeness]

RE: I don't know how you can be so wordy and so wrong

(last comment was for rapier1?'s comment, hit wrong reply link when reading it)

[TheMikeness]

Actually...

i have not worked a whole lot of different jobs in the past, but i have worked in different industries altogether, and when i see a computer running in a business, its just as likely to be running dos/linux or some sort of non GUI based system as windows 98 or xp. the truth is, the office world is ruled by Windows, and windows 2000 is seen as the MINIMUM spec required when setting up a large corporate network due to windows 2000's introduction of active directory. i think windows 98 SE is the EARLIEST possible windows release that can be used in active directory, and due to all that netbios nonsense, etc, most larger companies usually skip thru to 2000/xp rather than have to deal with tons of different OS'es

I worked at a company that did a local newspaper, and they had the strangest mix ive ever seen: mac os 9, 10, windows 95 osr2, 98, 98 se, 2000, xp, linux redhat 6.something, windows 2000 advanced server, SCO OpenServer Unix, SME,...it was atrocious.

They were using a 20 year old COBOL database app running on the SCO Unix server, and for some reason when they upgraded to Mac OS X almost across the board, Mac doesnt have a telnet client that can read the SCO Unix telnet data properly, and linebreaks dont work, so the text-based application interface becomes unusable, whereas a dos box in windows 98 to xp could run it properly on any of the windows systems. THIS is one of the main reasons why you see windows dominating most office environments, because rather than having to upgrade their ancient central server applications, windows products have had a history of good upgrade paths that have acceptable backward compatibility.

Microsoft is changing all that with Vista, and this will make companies not move to upgrade for quite some time, but most companies have known for ages that theyve needed to upgrade their legacy systems, and most are following suit. Most of these programs are moving towards web application driven intranet servers, which are platform independent for the most part.

There havent been a great deal of business applications available for any operating system besides linux and windows, and they both can run on the same hardware and interface with each other fairly well as compared to Apple, and its extremely proprietary, too-good-for-standards stance. Now that Microsoft has been long established as the business leader, theyre able to get away with changing things and forcing the industry to keep up, thats just how it goes. Eventually, the 30 year old hardware these legacy applications run on will fail, and if these people arent encouraged to upgrade, they can end up closing down after they permanently lose their database or are unable to file their taxes thanks to cheap, extremely anti-tech-savvy management.

[Ipod Apple]

windows dominating most office environments

http://www.analogstereo.com/chrysler_300_owners_manual.htm

[parkstreet1234]

Cisco = Liars

The only reason Cisco is saying this is because are looking to dodge work to make their software compatable with Vista. They did make a client, which half-works with Vista and is full of bugs for the VPN Firewall and Firewall products. Cisco TAC blew me off, and I repeatedly asked to have my case escalted to managment. Each time I waited 2 weeks, only to get lip service and lies from the managers. Some who did not even have the courtesy to write me back and email, until I send them something in capital letters. The only ones who are lazier then the developers at Cisco are the Managers, I guess the EXECS are leading the way here.

To everyone who owns a pix. Just put it in the trash can if you run a current Microsoft OS like Vista, which has been out for a year. The only solution is to give more money to Cisco, and buy an ASA. I was told they are giving up on the bugs for the Pix firewalls, and they blamed microsoft. You may need to go to small claims court to get your money back for your PIX firewalls, and also for your time wasted on their broken promises. This time I bought an ASA, but I am not really happy about why I had to buy it. If you use TAC, which is a waste, they will just tell you to buy an ASA and get ANYCONNECT. That is what they told me when i called TAC, althought ANYCONNECT is not even for the product I purchased, (the regular Pix). Also, the newest OS, Pix 7 is not supported on the Pix. Again, they could easily support Pix 7 OS on the pix, but are really dragging their feet hoping you will get frustrated enought and go buy a new firewall. I don't have a lot of time right now, because my firewall is basically down because of TAC, so I had to buy an ASA. Next time I will not buy Cisco. Where is the integrity Cisco?

[AmericanCliche]

It's your choice

If you feel Vista is unsafe, simply don't upgrade to it. Honestly, I
think Vista will be fine for most consumers. Corporations,
government agencies and other organizations with privacy conerns
might want to upgrade after they've had a chance to observe Vista.

[pentium4forever]

Funny

It's funny to hear a company like Cisco speculate on Vista. Actually, I agree with Cisco. I think Windows Vista and the subject of security is scary, that's why I will wait for things to be smoothed out as I'm pretty sure there will be flaws immediately upon Vista's debut.