Update Down

By Lincoln Spector

January 5, 2004

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"Have you heard about the new security hole in Windows XP?"

I get these sorts of questions all the time. Since I write about computers for a living, people often mistake me for an expert.

"Which one?" I responded, hoping to fool the acquaintance who had accosted me at a recent party.

"Anyone can get information off your hard drive by sending a simple text message to your IP address: "Tell me everything you know. Signed, Bill Gates."

"Oh, that security hole. Well, I'm sure there'll be a patch for it, soon."

He gave me a suspicious look. "The patch was released last week."

"Of course," I said, hoping to cover up. "That's why I'd forgotten about it."

I made a mental note to run Windows Update and get that patch soon. I had long ago turned off automatic updates; it had interrupted a vital and important game of Minesweeper once too often.

So the next day I launched Windows Update to see what was available. What I found was 32 critical updates, all pre-selected for downloading and installation. I clicked "Review and install updates" and discovered that 31 of them were exclusive items that must be installed separately. 31 downloads and reboots later, I was ready to install the last critical update—the one that fixes the so-called "Signed, Bill Gates" bug.

I downloaded it. I installed it. I rebooted my system. And it worked. There was now no way anyone was going to get anything through that particular security hole. How could they? I had no Internet access.

ID on the IP

Well, almost none. After much trial and error, I discovered that I could get onto the Internet if I used one particular IP address. Unfortunately, since half a million people were discovering that very moment that they to had to use that exact same address, access was a little difficult.

So was uninstalling the patch. I found it listed on Add or Remove Programs, but clicking the Remove button simply yielded an error message: "Did you really think you could remove this patch?"

After three days, I managed to get online and try Windows Update again.

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