Unpatched, Virus-Infected Windows To Blame For Grounded French Fighter Pilots And Halt To Traffic Arrests In Houston

from the gov't-security dept

Mon, Feb 9th 2009 1:25pm — Mike Masnick

Reader Calvin sends in two separate stories of government institutions who apparently failed to patch their Windows machines to protect against the Conficker virus -- despite the patch being available for many months. First, Houston police have stopped arresting people with outstanding traffic warrants and shut down the municipal court system for a few days to try to deal with their computer systems being overrun by the virus. Then, across the Atlantic, the French Navy is dealing with a similar problem, forcing them to ground many of their fighter planes. Some naval staff were told not to turn on their computers at all, as apparently the Navy's internal computer network has been hit by the virus as well. Apparently, now might be a good time to run some traffic lights in Houston or invade France (kidding, kidding...).

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: cornficker, france, houston, security, viruses
Companies: microsoft

22 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Dave Barnes, 9 Feb 2009 @ 1:40pm

cheese-eating surrender monkeys
ja mein Führer
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Ron (profile), 9 Feb 2009 @ 1:56pm

French Navy
Soooo, that explains the Frenchers going after MicroSoft; they did not want their military limited to using only one media player. I do find it a bit frightenng that even some of the French military was brought down by a virus. Could we really soon be at a place where some pimply Nigerian kid could maybe bring down NATO with a virus planted in a note from Mrs. John Mugabe whose husband, recently deceased and who was the head of foreign deposits at the National Bank and Trust of Cote de Azure, was holding US$31M in funds deposited by a former oil company embezzler who recently died, without heir, in an unfortunate auto accident?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 9 Feb 2009 @ 2:17pm

ROFLMAO at Ron
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 9 Feb 2009 @ 2:28pm

Title correction: Bad Admins To Blame For Grounded French Fighter Pilots And Halt To Traffic Arrests In Houston
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Haywood, 9 Feb 2009 @ 2:30pm

So have the French raised the alert level?
From run to hide? Only 2 levels left after that, surrender and collaborate. ;p
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Frenchie, 9 Feb 2009 @ 2:34pm

Ha Ha Ron
I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal
food trough whopper! I fart in your general direction! You mother was a hamster and your father smelt of edeberries. Why do think I have this outrageous accent, you
silly king!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
alex, 9 Feb 2009 @ 2:37pm

Re:
title correction correction: Bad Admins to Blame for Hitler invading France Despite Being Dead and Halt to Traffic Arrests in Houston
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 9 Feb 2009 @ 2:40pm

Frenchies
Frenchies are dumb. They should start using mac OS, just like americans (Yes. it cost twice the money. But interface is so nice!).

Or like germans who use linux (free. but our soldiers are still learning how to install the drivers).
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 9 Feb 2009 @ 2:48pm

Re: Frenchies
Dumbfuck
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Paul, 9 Feb 2009 @ 4:28pm

UK Subs
UK Submarines are to have MS Windows installed. I would not like to on board at depth if they get knocked out by a virus.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Amaethon, 9 Feb 2009 @ 4:42pm

The French...
Well, did someone really expect the French to win any fight with something other then themselves????
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 9 Feb 2009 @ 5:07pm

Confused
What happens is the French park the jet fighters in Houston?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Jesse, 9 Feb 2009 @ 5:26pm

"What happens is the French park the jet fighters in Houston?"
Mushroom cloud
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Clippy, 9 Feb 2009 @ 6:05pm

Pop Up
It looks like you trying to defend your country from evil doerz, would you like some help with that ?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 9 Feb 2009 @ 6:16pm

Be afraid, be very afraid
I hope they did not use Windows in any UAVs
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Spectere, 9 Feb 2009 @ 6:31pm

Re: Pop Up
Well played. :)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Rich Kulawiec, 10 Feb 2009 @ 7:36am

Quite, quite stupid -- but expected
It's not difficult to find naive, foolish people who actually think it's possible to secure a Windows system adequately...despite the existence of over a hundred million counterexamples. These pathetic individuals labor under the delusion that if only they add a sufficient number of band-aids -- firewalls and IDS's, anti-virus and anti-spyware -- they can somehow, magically, manage to compensate for all the inherent design and implementation flaws in Windows.
They're wrong. This incident is merely the latest confirmation of that, one of many -- many! -- that no doubt will be explained away by the inferior Microsoft fanboys as the fault of system administrators or somesuch.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 10 Feb 2009 @ 8:01am

Its always a good time to invade France as long as they don't need computers to raise the white flag.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 10 Feb 2009 @ 10:34am

There was a brand new jet that was flying around the pacific right around Jan 1st and when it crossed the International Dateline, the GPS system stopped working. No GPS, no guidance. They couldn't get it up and running inflight, so they had to send a tanker to give it gas and guide it home.

That was a US fighter.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 10 Feb 2009 @ 11:31am

Re: Frenchies
Americans in goverment use Windows. Sadly.

Allas in ordung! Duitschland!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 10 Feb 2009 @ 11:31am

Re: The French...
They beat the Prussians
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 10 Feb 2009 @ 11:33am

Re:
Given that they need computers to raise the white flag, invade France now and they'll eat you alive.
[ link to this | view in thread ]