Completely off topic: FW: Trustworthy Computing

[Michael]

Does Windows Update not allow you to set your own server? Sounds kind of
sucky. If it can use a proxy server for requesting the files then you
could still limit your business to downloading the files just once. It's
been quite some time since I had to deal with admin'ing Windows but
overall it sounds Like once again Linux kicks it's butt. Both RH's up2date
programe and Ximian's Red Carpet (doesn't it seem odd that Red Carpet
isn't from RedHat?) handle those two little features nicely. :)

> >   Has it ever occurred to anyone that WU itself, if it ever were
> > compromised, would become the mechanism to spread a worm to EVERY SINGLE
> > "TRUSTWORTHY" COMPUTER?
>
> I fear this every day at work, but what are you gonna do?  I think that MS
> ought to give away a free version of Patch Server to each Enterprise level
> customer. (They don't currently have such a thing as far as I know.)  With
> this you could mirror the patches on Windows update and test them in a
> secure environ and them distribute the patches via SMS or a startup script.
> We currently waste all kinds of bandwidth downloading the same patches over
> and over again. Some patches can be downloaded and stored on a server, but
> I'm talking about when you have WIndows update analyze the PC and load
> several patches at once.  I also routinely discover PCs with really old
> outdated images that haven't been defragged in two and a half years and
> such.  I usually find them when I get a helpticket for a virus infection.