Microsoft propaganda

[Ray Tracey]

WINDOWS 2000 SERVER - The Essential Resource for System
Administrators, Matthew Strebe, 2002.


I came across this book in the library recently.
Below are some extracts ( marked with * ) and my comments.
Purports to be a technical manual on Windows 2000.
In my oponion is nothing more than thinly disguised pro Microsoft -
anti-Linux - propaganda
masquerding as impartial technical advice. This spends more time
knocking Linux than imparting W2k info.

Judging by the amount of references on it's web site ( 2390, now 2270
) then we can be sure that MS has targeted LINUX
as a top enemy. Novell now rates 4840 references. By contrast Novell
talks about "microsoft W2K" only 880 times on it's web site.

This makes one suspect that *nix is upper most in the minds of those
at ONE MICROSOFT WAY,
In its own way it's very flatering . On the other hand it's scary as
it's most apparent that billig has Linux firmly in the cross-hairs.

This book is full of mis-information and half-truths. The message we
can take from here is that
the rest don't rate as serious competitors. It's no coincidence that
LINUX is being targeted like
this, as all other competitors have been firmly dispached. You can
take it that MS see's this
as the only creditable competition for the future ! Hence the effort
being made in trashing it
in the media and on the web.

A favourite methodology of MR Straube and one generally used in
statements coming out of Redmond.
Is an ambigous or blatently incorrect technical statement included in
with some opposition bashing.

Take the following "facts" from just one document, a msWord Document
naturally.

a) "There are significant costs associated with "retail-hardening"
Linux."

b) "Most Linux distributors make their money by selling their
services"

c) "Because of this open nature, developers can much more easily
identify
security weaknesses and prey upon them with viruses and by hacking
into systems" - ( developers ?- shurly hackers, ed)

d) "Open source ... find security weaknesses very easily with Linux"

e) "Microsoft Windows has better security than Linux out of the box"
   http://www.microsoft.com/europe/industry/downloads/retail/Linux%20report.doc


re a) Linux needs retail-hardening - The conclusion we are ment to
make is Linux is somehow soft !
Therefore Windows is somehow harder and the yard stick by which
measurements are made.

re b) Yea distributers make money by selling their services. Just like
MS does. What is wrong with that ?
Is is somehow un-American for someone else to make a buck out of the
software business.

re c) Get that - open source is less secure BECAUSE developers can
identify weaknesses (er BUGS ).
I'm no semiotic expert but that don't even make scence !

re d) and e) you get so totally saturated that you give up. Resistance
is futile, naturally.

Once they dispach LINUX it will then, for all  practible purposes, be
a MICROSOFT WORLD.
A new dark ages of I.T will open up. A thousand years of BSOD's and
treacly slow popdown menus.



* = quotations from the text ...
[] = Main Headers ...


*  The Essential Resource for System Administrators
*  WINDOWS 2000 SERVER
*		   24seven
*		   Matthew Strebe
*
*	Copyright 2002 SYBEX Inc.
* 
* 

[ Introduction ]
page xxx

*	... Windows2000 is the most advanced most highly evolved software
produced by
*	any company ever, it is the flagship product of the largest software
developement company
*	in the world....
*		            .... other platforms are now obsolite

The audicity of this comment just takes your breath away !
He's actually using the term "highly evolved software" and Windows in
the same sentence !
Doing a google turns up  - "did not match any documents"
So Matthew, if you really think this - you're in a minority of one !


page xxxv
*	I've also assumed that you are running Windows 2000 on the Intel
platfrom. I do not have
*	access to an Alpha server and have only worked with one once, so I'm
not really qualified
*	to write about them. Other platforms are now completly obsolete, so
if you havn't
*	migrated from them to Intel, you should consider doing that now.
Sadly, there doesn't
*	seem to be room for more than one microprocessor in the world.


Other platforms are now completly obsolete. Are you listening MIPS,
AMD, DEC, Hitachi,
Texas Instruments etc - you all are obsolete ! Resistance is futile
... and so on.

There is also the question of the dangers of having just one processor
in the computing world.
Just as in nature when a bug or virus comes along, having a good
genetic spread means that the
whole species doesn't get wiped out in an epedimic.

The same could als be be said about the advisability of having
"Windows everywhere".
The opposite case could be argued eg having a number of different
hardware platforms running
on a number of different operating systems to give the best protection
against viruses, hack attacks etc.

But wait I can hear you say, what about compatibility ?
That would be no problem if everyone wrote to the same protocol.
Instead of deliberatly polluting the protocols in order to lock out
the competition.
Standards are freely available on the Internet as RFC documents.
Anyone can access these and write their own software.

I realise this is old news to most of you but I'm aiming this to the
general public
who is under the impression that billyg invented the micro-computer
and the Internet
and that there is only one processor manufacturer - Intel.


[ Part 1 ]

page #3

*	Windows 2000 is an amazing operating system; it is the most
sophisticated and usefull
*	operating system ever developed. Most amazing is the relative
simplicity of Windows 2000's
*	basic architecture. From a few simple design decisions springs an
operating system capable of
*	running the most complex software available across a number of
processors in a single
*	machine on virtually any processor architecture.

most over bloated kludge ever foisted on a gullable public - more
likely.

relative simplicity ? The admin tools need third party admin tools to
use properly.

Even doing something as simple as forwarding email requires selecting
amoung several screens.
You need the manual in front of you in order to keep your place. 
What then does the manual give you - pictures of screen shots.

Any processor as long as it's a little endian Intel processor.
Apple Mac's use a Big Endian Motorola processor.

sophisticated .. ever developed :- As compared to what one may ask ?
What independent and unbiased body has W2K been submitted to in order
to qualify for such a claim ?

What other O.S has the author experience of in order to make such
claims ?


page #3

*	Once you understand the architecture of Windows 2000,
*	its sometimes inexplicable behavour becomes explicable.

For a graphical user interface, one would assume that it was
intuitive.
This is obviously not the case. What one is presented with is a
massive laundry list of menu options.
eg select an option, select a sub-option and so on.


page #3

*	Although I wrote this chapter primarily for administrators migrating
from other operat-
*	ing systems like UNIX ...

Hint Hint. Have you got that, people only MIGRATE fron other O.Ss not
the other way around!


page #4

*	Windows 2000 is the latest incarnation of Windows NT, which
Microsoft created to
*	compete directly against OS/2, Netware and UNIX in the file server
and small applica-
*	tion server markets.


VAX/VMS doesn't rate a mention. Consider your selves lucky that his
billness hasn't made you a partner yet.
.
Bwfore I.B.M and Microsoft fell out, Windows NT was known as  OS/2
Version 3.
OS/2 ran windows apps better tham windows and was reported to be
crash-proof.
.
December, 1987 - OS/2 1.00  was the first ever O.S with hardware based
multitasking.
October 1988 OS/2 version 1.10 released with a GUI released 
No problem running on Intel, Motorola, SUN, and DEC processors
1993 Version 2.11 released with Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) when
Windows was still at the 3.x stage.
.
Developement continued but by 1990 I.B.M and Microsoft had parted and
MS RENAMED OS/2 V3 to Windows NT.
OS/2 version 1.20 EE came with REXX a very powerful interpretive
programming language.
Complete applications can be written in this or used as a powerfull
batch language.
.
Netware - according to the MS support web site should already be
deceased.
"How to Migrate or Deploy a Novell NetWare Environment to Windows" is
typical of
"technical" articles on the site. In case you still don't get the
hint,
they use the words "legacy" and "Netware" in the same sentence. 
Mr Strebe is also prone to employing the same methodology.


page #4

*	The market for networking operating systems has changed completly
since the early days of
*	Windows NT: OS/2 has been completly dispatched as a competitor, and
Novell NetWare
*	is losing ground so quickly that the company will likely not be
profitable this year.

My understanding is that OS/2 was a joint venture between I.B.M and
Microsoft.
It's even been claimed that MS effectivly sabotaged OS/2 while waiting
for Windows95 to mature.
I suppose the only real difference to being a Microsoft competitor
is that they take longer in getting around to to screwing you.
.
I'm sure that Novell is thankful for that financial forcast.
Whats more don't even buy shares in the company everyone.


page #4

*	Although Nt currently supports more native services and is vastly
eas-
*	ier to configure and manage, Linux is catching up fast and gaining
momentum and wide
*	industrial support.

"more native services" - Sounds suspiciously like an advertising
slogan.
Our product has MORE of what ever it is. Anyone on comp.*nix care to
comment.
.
"easier to configure" - yes if you call filling in check boxes
configuring and
editing a text file is beyond your capabilities.
.
"Linux is catching up fast" - again notice how Linux gets singled out
for special attention.
Why is this ? answer it's the ONLY real threat that the BORG can see
on the horision.


page #5

*	Platform independance ...

Intel only - this has more to do with microsoft politicing than any
technical reason.

page #5

*	Multithreaded
*	Pervasive security

Of course the memory management subsystem would have to be rock solid
otherwise you end
up with things like BUFFER OVERFLOWS and processes able to write to
each others memory
.
Since memory management is handled within windows. It's only as
reliable as the underlying O.S
and we all knw how reliable that is. For instance things like the red
alert virus functioned by
writing to place in memory that it shouldn't have. Such "security" has
as much enforcement as a
line in the sand.


page #5

*	........................................................  Windows
2000 implements symmet-
*	rical multiprocessing (SMP), meaning that all processors are loaded
as equally as possible.
*	...

Linux 2.0 also supports SMP as does Mac OS9, OS/2 Warp Server.


page #6

*	Reality check: Multithreaded Application

*	The Web service of internet information Server (IIS) is an excellent
example  of a
*	multithreaded application.


It's also an excellent example of a buffer overflow when used with the
Code Red Worm.
where an attacker can gain full SYSTEM access. Again buffer overflow
is a failure of
the underlying system to manage memory properly. Ideally memory
management should be
done in hardware not by a system process.


page #6

[ Large Address Space ]

*   Huge applications that efficiently use enormous amounts of memory
require a "flat" or
*   linear memory space of 32 bits (or 4GB). However, Windows 2000
uses the high bit to
*	seperate kernal mode from user mode, so only 31 bits are acctually
available for user
*	processes (2GB)... etc

This just seems to me as a reinvention of the switched mode segmented
memory model.
By rights memory allocation should be done by the hardware -
transparent to the processor.
That's why they put a halt pin on the processor isn't it ?
It should be obvious to all that the WINTEL memory model is
fundementally flawed.


page #7

*	Windows 2000 is currently being developed for the new Intel Itanium
line of processors
*	that use a 64-bit word size.

I'm sure Linux went 64 bits a good while ago. On the Alpha I believe.


This bit deserves quotation in full !

page #8

*	NOTE Windows 2000 actually only supports microprocessors capable of
oper-
*	ating in the little-endian byte order mode used by intel
microprocessors. Endian
*	refers to byte order of a stored 32-bit word: storing a word with
the most sig-
*	nificant byte first is big endian: storing a word with the least
significant byte first
*	is little endian. Most modern processors (except those made by
Intel) can switch
*	between big-endian and little-endian modes: but an actual computer
may be
*	hardware-limited to one mode or the other. For example while the
PowerPC pro-
*	cessor can run in either mode, the processor is likely hardwired in
the big-endian
*	mode on the Apple Macintosh, which would make it impossible to port
Win-
*	dows 2000 to that platform.

That's utter bilge water, if you don't mind me saying so - Matthew !
The reason W2K doesn't run on the Mac is because Bill Gates doesn't
own it !
. 
How difficult can it be to produce a big-endian compile.
Just set some options in a MAKE file and off you go.
The *NIX people have no such difficulty.


page #9

[ PERVASIVE SECURITY ]

*	Pervasive Security provides an environment wherein an application
can be certain thats its
*	data has not been modified by another application on the same
machine. Applications
*	running on the same machine cannot violate the memory space of other
applications,
*	which prevents both accidental crashes and malicious theft  of data.
Despite the steady
*	stream of news about esoteric bugs in Windows 2000.

Esoteric bugs ??? - Red Alert "infected" through a unicode string in a
URL string.
All it took was to enable support for Unicode.
NO checks were then performed on such encoded strings.

Ms excuses this and other viruses on globalization and support for
other languages.
How can modifying the character coding lead to effectivly breaking
security in a totally unrelated sub-system.
Did no-one ask the question at the developement stage ? Answer NO!


page #10

[ PERVASIVE INTERNET CONNECTIVITY ]

*	Windows 2000 builds on the Internetworking improvements of its
predecessor, Windows NT.
*	The first version of Windows NT didn't even include a TCP/IP stack.