I hope SP2 will make a big difference in the spread of viruses and worms. The firewall is going to help a lot. The changes in the patch process is going to help too. As BBC News points out, “Instead of downloading the whole chunk of XP being updated, SP2 instead only downloads the parts that have changed. This change should reduce future patch download times by up to 80%.”
There’s a part of me though that sees these as good enough features for last year, but what about two years from now?
It would be interesting to model the Net and the spread of viruses and the like with and without the new SP2 update features. My guess is that once SP2 is the defacto standard, it will take new twists to malicious code for them to spread widely. And my guess is that someone will come up with it.
So I’m wondering about two years out from now, when the infections can spread and/or effectively infect even faster. I’m still wondering if the patches are or should be optimized in an order so that the most vulnerable attack points are patched first. Maybe this can be done at the time of activation–off of the Internet and using a direct connection.
Also, I still think it would be a good idea for resellers to brand their security level. It makes sense to indicate to the consumer how up-to-date their OS is in terms of patches when they purchase their computer or OS software. Is it two years old? Or two months old? Common sense would apply that the older it is the more cautious you should be with it.