5 ms·

There's some conjecture — well-founded, I assume — that a trove of zero-day exploit have been saved up for years in anticipation of the day Microsoft retires XP

There's some conjecture — well-founded, I assume — that a trove of zero-day exploit have been saved up for years in anticipation of the day Microsoft retires XP. Considering its install base in government, military and business institutions, the day that XP gets retired there will be a flood of attacks using these exploits. So we'll either face a sustained onslaught of cyberterrorism and/or cyber-counterterrorism (the NSA's interest in zero-days is well-known) or Microsoft will have to reverse its policy. Should be interesting in either case.

Shish2k 13y ago
> So we'll either face a sustained onslaught of cyberterrorism or Microsoft will have to reverse its policy ... or the people who are still using XP could upgrade? (Also I want a pony)
- keithpeter 13y ago
  They should upgrade, you are perfectly correct. But suppose that you are the manager of an organisation with just over 1 million PCs running XP, and those PCs are used to access hundreds of applications that are only guaranteed/certified to work with XP[1]. What do you do? At present, you pay at least $200 for each one of those PCs. And the associated servers. Let us just say some in Whitehall do not like having to pay that kind of money for updates that Microsoft is already committed to provide for XP Embedded customers. The result[2] may be an interesting change in attitude towards Microsoft in government circles. [1] http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/51393 http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/51393 [2] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/29/uk-government-plans-switch-to-open-source-from-microsoft-office-suite http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/29/uk-governm... That could be some pony :-)
  - pixl97 13y ago
    I don't give a damn if you have 1 or 1 billion computers. I don't care what your applications require and how much you paid for them. This is not my problem or Microsofts problem any more. Did you think this was going to last forever, because if you did and you don't have a contract saying so, well good luck. All this really sounds like is a regurgitated argument along the lines of "Regulations are so expensive, we shouldn't have to follow them" or "Minimum wage is to expensive, get rid of worker protections!" Keeping your systems up to date is the cost of doing business. If you can't afford the cost of doing business please feel free to leave the market to others that can.
    - keithpeter 13y ago
      I suspect this will actually be Microsoft's problem in the future. See the second reference I posted. Attitudes are changing. The OA was talking mainly about consumers and malware. I think the biggest effect on Microsoft will be from mega-corps burned by this. PS: I would like to see the NHS get rid of XP as soon as possible, don't worry. It is just the complexity of the job exacerbated by budgets being hammered in the last 5 years or so (exactly when a planned approach to upgrade should have been happening).
      - pixl97 13y ago
        As a BSD/Linux user from the mid '90's it's nice to see the government joining the movement 15 years later. Of course no one listens when the money is good. Don't be surprised if the economy does well again these lessons will be quickly forgotten.
  - bradyd 13y ago
    >But suppose that you are the manager of an organisation with just over 1 million PCs running XP, and those PCs are used to access hundreds of applications that are only guaranteed/certified to work with XP. Then you've had years to figure out a solution to this. It's not like there haven't been 3 OS releases since then (Vista came out 7 years ago). Microsoft has offered extended (paid) support for their end of life products in the past, so this is nothing new.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - keithpeter 13y ago
      Agreed it is nothing new, and agreed the situation should have been managed better. Never the less, here we are, and the need to pay £200,000,000 to Microsoft for updates that they have to provide for XP embedded anyway is going to have a negative effect shall we say. As the OA was explaining, this is all about perceptions.

Shish2k 13y ago

> So we'll either face a sustained onslaught of cyberterrorism or Microsoft will have to reverse its policy ... or the people who are still using XP could upgrade? (Also I want a pony)

keithpeter 13y ago
They should upgrade, you are perfectly correct. But suppose that you are the manager of an organisation with just over 1 million PCs running XP, and those PCs are used to access hundreds of applications that are only guaranteed/certified to work with XP[1]. What do you do? At present, you pay at least $200 for each one of those PCs. And the associated servers. Let us just say some in Whitehall do not like having to pay that kind of money for updates that Microsoft is already committed to provide for XP Embedded customers. The result[2] may be an interesting change in attitude towards Microsoft in government circles. [1] http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/51393 http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/51393 [2] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/29/uk-government-plans-switch-to-open-source-from-microsoft-office-suite http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/29/uk-governm... That could be some pony :-)
- pixl97 13y ago
  I don't give a damn if you have 1 or 1 billion computers. I don't care what your applications require and how much you paid for them. This is not my problem or Microsofts problem any more. Did you think this was going to last forever, because if you did and you don't have a contract saying so, well good luck. All this really sounds like is a regurgitated argument along the lines of "Regulations are so expensive, we shouldn't have to follow them" or "Minimum wage is to expensive, get rid of worker protections!" Keeping your systems up to date is the cost of doing business. If you can't afford the cost of doing business please feel free to leave the market to others that can.
  - keithpeter 13y ago
    I suspect this will actually be Microsoft's problem in the future. See the second reference I posted. Attitudes are changing. The OA was talking mainly about consumers and malware. I think the biggest effect on Microsoft will be from mega-corps burned by this. PS: I would like to see the NHS get rid of XP as soon as possible, don't worry. It is just the complexity of the job exacerbated by budgets being hammered in the last 5 years or so (exactly when a planned approach to upgrade should have been happening).
    - pixl97 13y ago
      As a BSD/Linux user from the mid '90's it's nice to see the government joining the movement 15 years later. Of course no one listens when the money is good. Don't be surprised if the economy does well again these lessons will be quickly forgotten.
- bradyd 13y ago
  >But suppose that you are the manager of an organisation with just over 1 million PCs running XP, and those PCs are used to access hundreds of applications that are only guaranteed/certified to work with XP. Then you've had years to figure out a solution to this. It's not like there haven't been 3 OS releases since then (Vista came out 7 years ago). Microsoft has offered extended (paid) support for their end of life products in the past, so this is nothing new.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - keithpeter 13y ago
    Agreed it is nothing new, and agreed the situation should have been managed better. Never the less, here we are, and the need to pay £200,000,000 to Microsoft for updates that they have to provide for XP embedded anyway is going to have a negative effect shall we say. As the OA was explaining, this is all about perceptions.