Declan writes:

Alan forwarded this to me. Thought it might be interesting. -Declan [...auto updating software...] Unanswered Qs: [...intersting questions which are raised by such a service...]

I saw no mention of authentication between the Oil Change client and server, so the first question that I had was "how do you know if you are actually connecting to the legitimate Oil Change server?" Since the updates are via dialup a few bridge clips in the right location would be all it takes to have the call re-routed to someone else's server (and if the update is done over the net hijacking the system is not much harder...) Once you have people getting your server instead of the Oil Change server you _own_ their machine. You can install whatever trojan horses or backdoors you want under the guise of an update or direct the user to pull a hacked update from a server you designate (and it wouldly not be hard to set up a dummy software package so that even if you later lose your override of the system or remove it to cover your tracks the system continues to keep your backdoors installed.) This is some very bad mojo. A little social engineering or midnight wiring and there will be a lot of people in a world of pain. Nothing like designing a system which takes your weak spot and makes it a security problem for every one of your customers... jim