When There's Nothing else to do, Argue
It has been an odd week in Information Security. Not only did Microsoft release nine patches as part of the August Security Patch Release (which some consider all to be Critical), but the popular VoIP platform, Skype, encountered system-wide outages and difficulties. While the official reason for the outages is still not understood, security mailing lists and web forums were rife with speculation and claims of Russian hackers targeting the core systems responsible for Skype's operation. Unfortunately the information available about the supposed exploit code was either incomplete (not unreasonable), or a hoax (more likely). Long after common sense should have prevailed, arguments and bickering continued over the topic.
It wasn't just the Skype outage that attracted attention from those happy to argue back and forth in public. It seemed that more than the usual number of argument threads were present across a range of mailing lists and forums as people spent a lot of time and energy bickering back and forth over minutiae, most of it irrelevant.
It could be indicative of the returning academic year for many Northern Hemisphere centres of learning, or it could just be that the heat is drawing out the not-so-best in people. Either way, the noise should only be temporary, until people get back into the swing of releasing and investigating Information Security data.
20 August 2007
Social bookmark this page at eKstreme.
Alternatively, Bookmark or Share via AddThis
Do you like how we cover Information Security news? How about checking out our company services, delivered the same way our news is.
Let our Free OS X Screen Saver deliver the latest security alerts and commentary to your desktop when you're not at your system.
Comments will soon be available for registered users.
Subscribe to our feed.