Oil changes, safety recalls, and software updates

Re:Oil changes, safety recalls, and software updates by TeMPOraL on Wednesday June 14, 2017 @10:02AM (#14552757)

Sure, but if we're in dreamland, then I think the second biggest factor will be making security upgrades invisible to users. If you could ensure that you can upgrade any part of your OS/application while it's running, without ever requiring a reboot, then the problem disappears as you can simply stop asking people when they want a security patch.

In terms of safety, not much good comes from asking people.

(That, or let's just all agree that CVEs are a threat to Internet security, and have a policy for always displaying a message like "Your device will reboot in 05:00 in order to install a critical security patch. Please save your work." and have the users take comfort that it's not just their computer, but half of the planet is rebooting with them. That solution is game-theoretically unstable, though.)

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Re:Oil changes, safety recalls, and software updates by OrwellianChild on Wednesday June 14, 2017 @12:25PM (#14553821)

Agreed that asking is largely counterproductive when it comes to security patches (as opposed to feature updates). To satisfy the concerns of folks like @jacquesm, it might be best to implement a soft form of the hidden update: Make them opt-out rather than opt-in.

Keeps everyone happy and dramatically improves compliance.

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Re:Oil changes, safety recalls, and software updates by jacquesm on Wednesday June 14, 2017 @10:25AM (#14552926)

That's fine, but it would require companies to abide by the rule of security updates being just that, security updates and not ways to push their corporate agenda after the fact, accidentally bricking your computer (or maliciously), installing spyware, adware or or other junk.

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