Memo to Oracle: Nothing is 'Unbreakable'

Memo to Oracle: Nothing is 'Unbreakable'
Tim Mullen, 2001-12-10

Larry Ellison is setting himself up for a nasty fall by marketing Oracle as hack-proof

...and "anal retentive" has a hyphen when used as an adjective. 2001-12-11
Matthew X. Economou <xenophon@irtnog.org> (5 replies)

Not to be too pedantic, but the three events you described in the introduction of your article are normally called coincidences, "the occurrence of events that happen at the same time by accident but seem to have some connection", rather than described as ironic, which "implies an attempt to be amus...

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...and 2001-12-13
Anonymous

cant get away from the grammar nazis no matter how hard you try can you tim?...

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...and 2001-12-14
Anonymous (2 replies)

I think your logic is flawed. The occurences cited by the author are, in fact, ironic. If he was working on cuisinart, and it started a fire, that would not be ironic (nor coincidental). The fact that it was a smoke (fire) detector is what makes it amusing (per M-W) and thus ironic. The smoke de...

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...and 2002-01-02
Earth Wolf

I agree. I just looked it up myself (Reader's Digest Great Encyclopaedic Dictionary, which is the only one I have handy). One of the definitions is "course of events, combination of circumstances, the result of which is the direct opposite of what might be expected as though due to the malice of fat...

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...and 2002-01-17
Anonymous

My turn to be pedantic.

A smoke detector does not prevent a fire. It detects smoke, presumably from a fire.
I do agree on the ironic quality of the agent working to protect you from danger causing the very danger it was designed to protect your from (and, in case I have to go all the way : the w...

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Read between the lines.... 2001-12-17
Focusin

As one who holds a Bachelor's degree in English writing, I have to disagree with your ignorant statement about the word irony. Mr Mullen wasn't claiming the events were ironic because of number of occurrences, but instead he was simply offering three unrelated stories of irony, analogous to his per...

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...and 2001-12-18
Anonymous

MatthewX is being pedanic, but clever and correct!...

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...and 2001-12-18
Anonymous

I think the definition that applies is: incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result. The sequence of events being Oracle is touted as Unbreakable. The normal result being no one can break in to Oracle in contrast with the actual result of several ...

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Memo to Oracle: Nothing is 'Unbreakable' 2001-12-12
Anonymous (3 replies)

More bull s#%t from Larry. BTW, since SQL Server is taking a bunch of marketshare from him, why does he just compare himself to UNIX database? Go to the Oracle site, fastest DBMS (on UNIX), runs LOB apps fastest (on UNIX), to bad that he fails to compare SQL on Windows which owns all these title...

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Memo to Oracle: Nothing is 'Unbreakable' 2001-12-13
Anonymous (2 replies)

SQL on Windows (like it runs on anything else…) may be fast, but that doesn’t change the fact that the OS that SQL runs on is as stable as a bowl of jello on the San Andres fault. And speaking of security holes….....

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Memo to Oracle: Nothing is 'Unbreakable' 2001-12-14
Anonymous

I love "SQL is unstable" comments... I have three SQL servers, one with a dozen databases, one running a 24/7, 30 employee help desk app, and one running HP OpenView 6.2 managing several thousand nodes. All are 100% reliable, and have had no unscheduled downtime over the past few years.

If your...

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Memo to Oracle: Nothing is 'Unbreakable' 2002-01-02
Anonymous

There is an old adage that goes ‘Ignorance can be corrected. Stupidity is forever’.

Stating that software, regardless of who developed it, is unbreakable falls well into the later of the aforementioned.

If one can make it, another can break it.

Since being in this industry sin...

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Memo to Oracle: Nothing is 'Unbreakable' 2001-12-20
Oracle lubber

Guess you use MS SQL then.....good luck to you...you'll need it....

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Memo to Oracle: Nothing is 'Unbreakable' 2001-12-23
outboard

Well Microsoft is the biggest target for finding faults. I know they don't think everything is perfect. Oracle has put down a gauntlet that few will feel the need to tackle not enough targets unless you like the challenge. Nothing is bug free and the attacks are getting extremely interesting. The be...

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Memo to Oracle: Nothing is 'Unbreakable' 2001-12-12
ninjan

Oracle might not be wrong about having an un-breachable product, but the only way this could possibly occur is when you unplug it. ...

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Memo to Oracle: Nothing is 'Unbreakable' 2001-12-12
Anonymous

How wonderfully embarassing for Oracle and Larry. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy....
...

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Memo to Oracle: Nothing is 'Unbreakable' 2001-12-13
Anonymous

ya think him and Billy are in cahoots together..lol Both claim lots of things, both neither can pull it out....

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Memo to Oracle: Nothing is 'Unbreakable' 2001-12-14
subcrews.com

to be reviewed...

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Lets hear it again, FUD~FUD~FUD 2001-12-14
Anonymous (2 replies)

More Microslop FUD from Tim. Tim i9 has better security measures than SQL. Lets take a closer look at Microsofts security, after all that is what SecurityFocus is all about, isn't it. Why don't you take the time to compare features of the products instead of foaming at the mouth about all product...

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Lets hear it again, FUD~FUD~FUD 2001-12-15
Rod Judy (2 replies)

Tim's article is FUD?? Do you even know what it stands for? Did you even SEE Ellison's Media Circus? I was there- it was sad!

The length that you MS bashers go is amazing. I mean _really_ amazing. You call this MS FUD, when the guy does not even mention MS or SQL once in the article. Yet, you ...

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FUD~I think so. 2001-12-17
Anonymous

"...to say what really needs to be said..." Tim is an idiot, he needs to say it to Bill not Larry. Billy has far more inaccurate claims on security and stability than Larry. Put the shoe on the other foot stupid....

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The man has a point 2001-12-21
Anonymous

And to be honest I've been using MS products since i was 11 years old. That dosn't make me PRO Microsoft, but clued on to the pro's and con's of the standards which Microsoft has evolved, which I may add exists in home and offices, just as RedHat, SuSe, Debian, FreeBSD do... and this is the part tha...

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Lets hear it again, FUD~FUD~FUD 2001-12-15
Anonymous (3 replies)

<Tim i9 has better security measures than SQL
Tim's column was not about security measures, or FUD. It was that be critical to every application you install on the system. Eventhough Oracle was shouted to be secure, at same time it was demonstrated to have remotely exploitable vulnerabilities. Feat...

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FUD - Sounds fair and balanced. 2001-12-17
Anonymous (1 replies)

Okay Tim, but why jump all over Larry when Bill has larger and bolder claims. Seems to me that you are clearly shouting FUD when you ignore the claims of Redmond! Purty narrow minded I'd say....

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FUD - Sounds fair and balanced. 2002-01-18
That One Guy

Anonymous wrote: "...why jump all over Larry when Bill has larger and bolder claims.".

Would you mind sharing one of these claims with the rest of us? I'd be interested to hear what claims Bill Gates has made that are larger and/or bolder than "can't break it, can't break in"....

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This is FUD. 2001-12-20
Anonymous

"Oracle was just an example" Your as narrow minded at Tim. If you have read any of Tims writings you would easly see he can only point out inaccuries about MS competitors. MS has much larger holes in their ship and allot of zombies like Tim to fill buckets of water to bail them out. I have yet to...

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This is FUD. 2001-12-20
Anonymous

OK where did he mention MS? 2001-12-21
Anonymous

You fools make me want to pull the cable on computers and warn everybody to NOT ever use a computer or 'especially' a security forum, as there is a remote chance that they might be as ignorant as you lamers.

Get a grip and realise that the statment made, is more to do with the first points raised...

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in business terms its as bad as bill gates saying he is a drag queen 2001-12-21
Merry Whithouse & Happy Goo Ear

Sure it's a sweeping statment to make of the same magnitude as the 'Titanic being unsinkable...

in business terms its as bad as bill gates saying he is a drag queen...

email evidence to = qbit@spl.at = ;)...

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Nothing is 'Unbreakable' HA!! 2001-12-21
Scarecrow

I have to echo some of the statements made by other posters here. Being a Unix net admin and CCNP I have to just laugh at the *nux security wanabes who are so intent on bashing MS that they fail to realize that _all_ systems have holes to be plugged. One hole or thousands of holes still mean BIG tro...

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Memo to Tim: "Shut up." 2001-12-22
Anonymous

...Sorry, I couldn't resist being juvenile.

[0.02¢]

FWIW, when the fog clears (no doubt caused by Tim's hot air), Tim is actually more juvenile. He does it in a way that predisposes attention to his "facts" (AKA FUD) rather than blantantly flashing his Microsoft Payroll ID.

Added to the un...

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Memo to Oracle: Nothing is 'Unbreakable' 2001-12-23
Anonymous

Interesting article!...

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Memo to Oracle: Nothing is 'Unbreakable' 2001-12-24
Anonymous

IMO the problem is in the word Unbreakable.

For me Oracle is rigth: O9i is 'Unbreakable', it's more stable that Windows XP! :-P

As for bug or hole...well it's another problem.

Braking into a DB is not so interesting if yuo don't know how to query the tables.

Bey....

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Memo to Oracle: Nothing is 'Unbreakable' 2001-12-26
criminal_terminal

you really think you can pull that off, huh, thinking your OS is unbrakable you must be silly in the head so sayeth me....

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Advocating Microsoft? No. Pointing out nothing is unbreakable regardless of the marketing campaign? Yes. 2001-12-26
Chris (1 replies)

This article isn't saying Oracle is bad, MS is good, blah blah blah, like so many AntiMSers seem to say. It's simply saying that the claim to say anything, ANYTHING, is unbreakable is outlandish and laughable, only re-iterating that point by saying it's already been exploited in the worst way(giving...

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you know...with a little bit of editing... 2001-12-27
Anonymous

With recent discoveries of security problems identified in "..the most secure Windows product ever.." XP, (Bold claims huh Tim). This artical sould be rewritten, but replace: Larry with Bill, Oricale with Windows XP, and reposted. It will be an interesting twist if SecurityFocus would focus on the...

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get a life... where did XP get into this? 2001-12-30
dim blimb (1 replies)

look... your idiots. ignorant fools running up space with mindless reply's to an article which has nothing to do with XP or Microsoft - so go back to bed and put a dummy in it...

im holding back cursing as your ignorance is not worthy of it....

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The Wall Street Journal got it right 2002-01-03
Anonymous

Look stupid, It was simply pointed out that MS has "larger and bolder claims" than Larry, and Tim will not address any issue that is in direct conflict with MS marketing compain. Recent XP problems is an great example. If you MS people would pull you head out of the sand long enough to look at the...

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Memo to Oracle: Nothing is 'Unbreakable' 2001-12-31
Anonymous

been there seen that touched that had a laugh cya ...

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Zealots 2002-01-01
LogicMan

Computers don't recognize Faith, in Oracle, MS or Penguins. Everyone would be well advised to remember that.......

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...and hung a sign on his ass that said "Kick Me!" 2002-01-02
Anonymous

Somebody will kick it for him....

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Pride 2002-01-03
Andrew Hurley

Pride comes before a fall, Larry.

Is this the same guy who wants to provide the software for an American ID card?

MS haters are the same type of people who fly planes into towers. They hide in their rooms, posting their wonderful 'desktops' on 19inch monitors to linux websites, and write virus...

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Memo to Oracle: KEEP IT UP 2002-01-16
Anonymous

Oracle is the first commercial Sql database and it
is 25 years old in 2002 - that's right - Larry was
championing the Sql language when Billy was still in
college and there was no such thing as Microsoft.
So when the champion of a 25 year old database
says that Oracle is unbreakable, he means ...

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What Oracle mean by 'Unbreakable' 2002-01-17
Anonymous

I think the writer and others have misunderstood
the meaning of the word "unbreakable". This is
what Oracle says:

"With Oracle9i Database, your business is unbreakable. Oracle9i Database is designed to eliminate the need for planned downtime and to withstand any failure: system failure, storag...

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Did most of you read the article? 2002-01-20
Anonymous

Tim simply said that Larry's claim on Can't break it, Can't break in (which can be found here... http://www.oracle.com/start/unbreakabletechha/intro.html?src
=1154179&Act=4) was untrue. It was also foolish because he set the company up to lose face.

Where did the MS vs Oracle slagging match come ...

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