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Microsoft TechFest

Last week, I went to Microsoft’s TechFest as part of their “Public Day”. This is the first time MVPs as a group have been invited to this event, and although it’s clear we missed some of the demonstrations that are not public-ready, this is something that I hope can be extended to us in future, even...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Tue, Mar 3 2009
Filed under: Filed under: General Security, Things I Learned At Microsoft, Miscellany - not security
MVP Summit 2009 is here!

I snapped this picture last week at Microsoft' Research’s Tech-Fest event. Microsoft always makes the visiting MVPs feel welcome at Global Summit time, when all MVP awardees are invited to visit Microsoft’s campus, and engage in face-to-face conversations with various Microsoft Product Groups about...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Mon, Mar 2 2009
Filed under: Filed under: Things I Learned At Microsoft, Miscellany - not security
UAC - The Emperor's New Clothes

I heard a complaint the other day about UAC - User Account Control - that was new to me. Let's face it, as a Security MVP, I hear a lot of complaints about UAC - not least from my wife, who isn't happy with the idea that she can be logged on as an administrator, but she isn't really an administrator...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Thu, Apr 24 2008
Filed under: Filed under: General Security, Things I Learned At Microsoft, Windows Vista, What my wife knows, Windows Server 2008
Silently fixing security bugs - how dare they!

Over in " Random Things from Dark Places ", Hellnbak posts about reducing vulnerability counts by applying the SDL (Security Development Lifecycle), and makes the very reasonable point that vulnerabilities found prior to release by a scan that is part of the SDL process cannot be counted as...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Tue, Apr 22 2008
Filed under: Filed under: General Security, Things I Learned At Microsoft
Google on Microsoft / Yahoo! Deal: "Wah!"

In case you've been under a rock, Microsoft appears to be trying to take advantage of Yahoo! Inc's recent poor performance to make an unsolicited offer (as far as I can tell, it's not a hostile bid until and unless Yahoo! officers declare that they will be fighting against it by offering...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Mon, Feb 4 2008
Filed under: Filed under: Things I Learned At Microsoft, Miscellany - not security
Waiting for Vista SP1?

In a previous article, I wrote about how to sound stupid by saying " let's wait for Service Pack 1 before we deploy Windows Vista ". Now here are a few ways to sound clever, by pointing to specific issues that will be fixed by Windows Vista SP1 . GPMC.MSC (the Group Policy Management Console...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Thu, Jan 17 2008
Filed under: Filed under: Things I Learned At Microsoft, Miscellany - not security, Windows Vista
Why you don't run as root

[... or administrator, or whatever] I like Roger Grimes, he's a nice guy, and he generally makes me think about what he has to say. That's a good thing, because otherwise he'd either be part of the same choir as me, or he'd be the sort of guy whose ideas I dismiss with a wave of the paw...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Fri, Jan 11 2008
Filed under: Filed under: General Security, Things I Learned At Microsoft, Windows Vista, What my wife knows, Windows Server 2008, UAC
How many people do you represent?

In my earlier discussion on why 100% utilisation is not maximum efficiency , I alluded to the fact that a rejected customer, or a customer with a bad experience, will tell other potential customers that you never get to see. This reminded me that there are a myriad of connections that we have to other...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Fri, Nov 23 2007
Filed under: Filed under: Things I Learned At Microsoft, Miscellany - not security, What my wife knows
Let's just wait for Service Pack 1

Every so often, I'll hear it said, and frequently not in jest, "let's wait until Service Pack 1 before we deploy Vista", or sometimes "Server 2008". While it's true that Microsoft has indeed announced plans to test, and then release, Windows Vista SP1 early in 2008 , I...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Thu, Aug 30 2007
Filed under: Filed under: Things I Learned At Microsoft, Miscellany - not security, Windows Vista
Are you a 'dual'?

Last month at Tech-Ed, I was discussing with someone from the Solution Accelerators team about how I wished that Microsoft would produce some administration documentation for developers, and/or developer documentation for administrators, so that the two groups would be able to talk the same language...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Wed, Aug 29 2007
Filed under: Filed under: Things I Learned At Microsoft, TechEd, Miscellany - not security
Larry Osterman isn't that into you, either.

In previous articles, I've pointed out: Programmer Hubris - He's just not that into you Programmer Hubris - I don't run your software all the time Programmer Hubris Part 3 - Microsoft Knows I'm Not That Into Them I'm still not that into Apple All of these are on the basic theme that...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Wed, Aug 22 2007
Filed under: Filed under: Programmer Hubris, Things I Learned At Microsoft, Miscellany - not security
firefoxURL:%03

Part 3 - and I promise that's the lot for now, because it's starting to look like I'm obsessed or something. Over the past week or so, you've read me talking about vulnerabilities in Fire fox's protocol handlers, and how my perception is that Internet Explorer is neither the source...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Thu, Jul 26 2007
Filed under: Filed under: General Security, Programmer Hubris, Things I Learned At Microsoft
firefoxurl: URL vulnerability

Heard about the firefoxurl vulnerability? It turns out that you can exploit Firefox by having Internet Explorer visit a link to a URL that starts with "firefoxurl:" (and a bunch of other code). [Assuming you have Firefox on your computer along with Internet Explorer] This is because Internet...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Sun, Jul 22 2007
Filed under: Filed under: General Security, Programmer Hubris, Things I Learned At Microsoft
Security Expert Chat - Thursday 6/21/2007, 4pm PDT

Technet's brief description for a chat this Thursday (June 21st) at 4pm PDT: Q&A with the Security MVP Experts We invite you to attend an Q&A with the Microsoft Security MVPs. In this chat the MVP experts will answer your questions regarding online safety issues such as phishing, spyware...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Tue, Jun 19 2007
Filed under: Filed under: General Security, Things I Learned At Microsoft
Couldn't have done that at Microsoft

Today, another reminder of things I couldn't have done at Microsoft. Last night, I rushed home from work in time to take my kid to his Webelos den meeting. There, we worked on his Pinewood Derby car. He's been sick most of last week and weekend, so he hasn't done as much work on it as he'd like. So,...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Thu, Mar 22 2007
Filed under: Filed under: Things I Learned At Microsoft, Miscellany - not security, What my wife knows
WIP: Principles of Secure Software Development

This is a work-in-progress, but I'd like your opinions on it: Principles of Secure Software Development You're not that good - someone will find a hole in your software. Find as many as you can, first. You're still not that good - you didn't find all the holes. Someone will find a hole in your software...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Wed, Mar 21 2007
Filed under: Filed under: General Security, Programmer Hubris, Things I Learned At Microsoft, What my wife knows
Security Bulletins are easier to read in Japanese

It's "Patch Tuesday" again - and you're going to be spending a busy Valentine's day installing all of them. I'm not the first person to cover this - Steve Riley did it way back when, and Susan Bradley reminded us of it , but it's time to raise the point up again. You can get to the Japanese Security...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Sun, Feb 18 2007
Filed under: Filed under: General Security, Things I Learned At Microsoft, What my wife knows
ScreenSaverGracePeriod - how fast can you cross a training room?

We're faced with an issue where presenters are losing their train of thought mid presentation because their slides are covered up by the screensaver - this would not be a significant problem, except that by the time they get back to wiggle the mouse, the workstation has been locked, and they have to...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Fri, Jan 26 2007
Filed under: Filed under: General Security, Programmer Hubris, Things I Learned At Microsoft
Trying to deploy an Outlook add-in

Even us grizzled security professionals occasionally have to give up when faced with a pile of security so incomprehensibly bizarre as to make life seem impossible. Recently, a member of our Security Council asked the simple question "instead of having us manually forward email to the junk mail filters...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Wed, Jan 24 2007
Filed under: Filed under: General Security, Programmer Hubris, Things I Learned At Microsoft
Developers still don't get it.

I'm perplexed by a statement made by one of the commentors on a recent Michael Howard blog posting . Why would you NOT run [Visual Studio] as an administrator at all times? As a developer, I spend enough time on my own work. I don't need to be spending ONE second switching profiles, typing passwords...

Posted to Tales from the Crypto by Alun Jones on Thu, Jan 11 2007
Filed under: Filed under: General Security, Programmer Hubris, Things I Learned At Microsoft

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