This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Or, for your consideration, could it perhaps be because they don't use crowdstrike?
Yeah, what? 3.1 not getting updates has nothing to do with this. Software developed for 3.1 can still be updated. This article is just silly.
The interesting thing here is wondering why they never upgraded. Perhaps managing flights digitally just hasn't changed much since the early nineties and they never needed anything else?
Likely the same reason why banks and other financial institutions still use COBOL and Fortran code written in the 1970s or earlier on archaic mainframes: Top management decided at some point it was too expensive to rewrite everything from scratch in some modern language for modern hardware, so they just limp along with what they have.
A 16-bit app written for Windows 3.x would almost certainly have to be rewritten for modern, 64-bit Windows.
While i figured the cost would be a factor, i just figured they were sticking with a system that works. If it serves their needs effectively and reliably, why change it?
Edit: answered my own question--it doesn't work anymore, and that's why it needs to be changed
It isn't even a Windows update, but a software update.
My Linux servers weren't affected either. I think it's because of Windows 3.1
My wife shared this with me yesterday, but I didn’t see it:
Somebunny is gonna learn those things aren’t windows-based today!
Just yesterday I had that exact "Tech enthusiast vs tech worker" meme play out. I wanted a timer to control the electrical outlet for an aquarium bubbler. Saleswoman really wanted to sell me this "smart" controller with an app that can program the outlet.
Me:"What happens when the app stops working?"
(saleswoman is frantically flipping the box over for answers)
Her:"...maybe...it keeps the existing timer?"
I've got about six smart plugs that all stopped working because of lack of support. I am no longer interested in smart plugs.
For only way more time and money, you can buy a zigbee smart plug and a vendor agnostic zigbee hub flashed with FOSS, or you can buy a esp-based board, wire it up with a relay, and flash it with something like esphome.
Sure, it’s way more money and hours of work (cumulatively), but it won’t lose support!
I feel like every article out there is missing this and keeps blaming Windows Update vs an update pushed to a specific piece of software by a third-party developer. I get end-users not understanding how things work but tech writers should be more knowledgeable about the subject they write about for a living.
Best feature windows 3.1 has:
... it doesn't pop up message telling you to upgrade to windows 11.
or add shitty AI tools without asking.
or constntly nag you to use their cloud storage
Plus all them decks for solitaire!!!
My windows 10 PC is telling me I don't qualify for a free Windows 11 update, so I've got that going for me.
Shhh don't give microsoft any ideas
Windows 3.1 didn’t have the BSOD. It just froze. I remember with Windows NT 4, when we first got the BSOD, being so grateful that Microsoft decided to actually tell us that our computer wasn’t going to recover from the error. Otherwise, we’d just be sitting there, waiting, hoping it would unfreeze itself.
It never did
Windows 3.1 did have a BSOD. It wasn't always fatal, you could try to hit enter to go back to Windows, but most of the time it wasn't really recoverable, Windows often wouldn't work right afterwards.
I ran into them all the time in 3.11 on our 486 which had some faulty RAM (the BSOD would even be scrambled). If we could get back to Windows after that, it'd just be in a zombie state where moving the mouse around would paint stuff over whatever was left on screen, and wouldn't respond to clicks or keypresses.
Fun times.
Are you sure? I remember a long time ago being able to trigger a BSOD by opening Windows Calculator and dividing any number by 0. And I'm pretty sure that was 3.1 or 3.11.
In fact, I remember being able to change the color of the BSOD.
As another user mentioned, the BSOD first came in Windows NT 3.51.
But it definitely wasn’t in Windows 3.1 or Windows 3.11
The fact that they’re running 3.1 is not something to be proud of. They’re probably extremely vulnerable to any other attack.
This is the "can't get a Word Document macro virus because I use the Corel WordPerfect Document type" kind of energy.
One X user suggested that the company switch to Windows XP—it’s also no longer updated, and it can run Windows 3.1 applications via compatibility mode.
Maybe that was a joke, but if anything that would reduce their security. Windows 3.1 and 95 are old enough that they can't even run most stuff from the last two and a half decades, which probably protects them. XP is just new enough, and plenty old enough, to be very risky.
Reminds me of an episode of Ghost in the Shell where a hacker in a hyper-advanced cyberised society was using floppy disks as a storage medium because they were so slow.
One of the background details I liked in Ghost in the Shell was how the high-end data analysts and programmers employed by the government did their work using cybernetic hands whose fingers could separate into dozens of smaller fingers to let them operate keyboards extremely quickly. They didn't use direct cybernetic links because that was a security vulnerability for their brains.
Holy crap, they are serious. I though I was on !programmer_humor@programming.dev for a minute. I sure hope none of those computers are connected to the internet. There's a massive number of vulnerabilities in windows 3.1 and windows 95.
Windows 3.1 doesn't even come with a TCP/IP stack. It's actually pretty safe.
As long as that's the exact version they're using. Windows for workgroups 3.11 has networking.
Is this actually confirmed anywhere though? I keep seeing it repeated and the only 'source' is a ?xeet? .
Same, I'm pretty sure it's not true.
I’m inclined to believe this post, claiming this article is BS https://mastodon.social/@jplebreton/112825798853315264
Maybe don’t pay a company to install a rootkit on your critical infrastructure?
Just open up your critical infrastructure to the public Internet and you’ll get rootkits for free.
This is both awesome and frightening for many reasons
If they still use Windows 3.1 and it works, then I do have to wonder about the rest of their security setup.
Hang on, if you're using CrowdStrike but not getting the updates, then why are you using it at all?
Because none of these journalists have a basic understanding of what actually happened lol
That makes fuckall sense.
Windows 3.1 not being updated by Microsoft has nothing to do with Crowdstrike rolling out an update to their Falcon Sensor software including a file with 42kB of zeroes.
On Windows 3.1 you probably can't run Falcon Sensor, so in that way it could be related. But it seems way more likely that Southwest Airlines simply didn't use Falcon Sensor on their normal Windows 10 or whatever clients.
There are probably competitors to Crowdstrike, at least some companies would be customers to one of them.
Windows 3.1? You fancy kids, and your modern operating systems! What's wrong with Windows 1.0???
I thought everyone already switched to 3.11
