Worm hits Windows-based ATMs

[ottomobiehl]

I'm all for ATM's which run off a C=64.

[AmigaPete]

Aw crap... I thought that I could now play this on my ATM while I was waiting for my cash.

Pete

[Rodney]

WHY ON EARTH would one want to use Windows in an ATM or such?

Prolly for the same reasons someone might want to use AmigaOS, although, not likly.

The amount of comments people make about MS's security are ridiculous to say the least. Sure people can say that its not secure, not stable and not something else, but then Microsoft have the largest user base of any software in the world, so of course you'r gunna find more bugs and more complicated softwareis going to be written for it that has a great chance of bringing the system down. When people compare Windows to linux or AmigaOS they assume that linux and AmigaOS are more secure and more stable than windows but how can people make these assumptions? Based on the fact that major flaws just havnt been found yet? Thats stupid to say the least.

The reason why windows is constantly cracked and etc is because there exists known bugs that anyone can utilise to their advantage and MS has the wider coverage amoung script kiddies so their MS are likly to be the most targeted OS.

How do people know for a fact that AmigaOS, MorphOS, Linux etc are more stable/secure etc? We done, untill they have the type of userbase as windows.

I love my debian system and it doesnt crash unless i use ctrl+alt+#num to switch between console and X a lot, which is weird! And it does seem stable, but the applications i use are a lot more simple than the windows applications i used, besides mozilla apps. So i would assume that linux would be more stable.

If AmigaOS ever gets the type of userbase MS does, or even Apple, you may find a hell of a lot of memory leaks, buffer overflows and other things that make you realise that All software is crap and we really need some radical thinking and new designs to help us make software what it needs to be.

Or maybe we should just take some of the OpenBSD code? But even then, it doesnt have a great market share, but has somewhat proven to be very secure.

[Peggus]

Prolly for the same reasons someone might want to use AmigaOS, although, not likly.

The amount of comments people make about MS's security are ridiculous to say the least. Sure people can say that its not secure, not stable and not something else, but then Microsoft have the largest user base of any software in the world, so of course you'r gunna find more bugs and more complicated softwareis going to be written for it that has a great chance of bringing the system down. When people compare Windows to linux or AmigaOS they assume that linux and AmigaOS are more secure and more stable than windows but how can people make these assumptions? Based on the fact that major flaws just havnt been found yet? Thats stupid to say the least.

I believe you missed the point. I wouldn't want to see any of the systems mentioned in an ATM. They are simply to complex and failure prone. An ATM does nothing that requires more computing power than a C64. The only way to make ATMs reliable and secure is to minimize the complexity of the system. To stick a full feature PC running Windows ( or AmigaOs or linux ) in one is an effective way to maximize the complexity.

 

The reason why windows is constantly cracked and etc is because there exists known bugs that anyone can utilise to their advantage and MS has the wider coverage amoung script kiddies so their MS are likly to be the most targeted OS.
 

Couldn't agree more, so why would you want to use it in an ATM?

-Peter

[that_punk_guy]

There is a internet booth at a mall near me but hardly anyone uses it since anymore ever since its copy of windows 2000 kept rebooting radomly meaning you'd lose your the time you'd paid for.

This I don't understand. I pretty much have to use Windows 2000 at home, because some of the software I need to use just isn't available on other platforms. But for an internet booth?! Linux should be fine if all someone wants to do is surf... and of course, much more stable.

[that_punk_guy]

An ATM does nothing that requires more computing power than a C64.

Hit the nail right on the head :-)

[Psy]

This I don't understand. I pretty much have to use Windows 2000 at home, because some of the software I need to use just isn't available on other platforms. But for an internet booth?! Linux should be fine if all someone wants to do is surf... and of course, much more stable.

Yes if people got it through their head they don't have to use IE.  Even the job bank near me uses Windows 2000 to search their job database.

yet the Giant Tigers (discount store) I went to seem to be running OS/2 for their registers.

[Seehund]

So they run "embedded Windows XP" (never heard of that). So?

What I want to know is how they could get infected by a virus? Are they trying to say that the ATMs are connected to the Internet? Not even a VPN?

Now THAT would be scary. They could be running OpenBSD for all I care, it still seems stupid.