There are few things in this world that really piss me off and blatant ignorance is one of them. On January 31st 2006 Microsoft did the right thing and removed Internet Explorer for Mac from their available IT downloads. Considering that IE5 for Mac had ceased further development in 2003 it had become riddle with unpatched security holes by the time MS removed it from the its website. Despite Microsoft’s positive action people are still recommending the software three and half years later, and not just regular Joe Schmoe idiots but major financial corporations.
Such recommendations place these corporations, not to mention their customers, at major risk for online fraud, phishing attacks, identity theft, etc… If a company does not wish to support a specific platform that is their prerogative but if they go out of their way to recommend not only an unsupported solution but also an extremely dangerous one shouldn’t they be held liable for their negligence?
I am pasting below a recent email exchange between a local IT Manager and the technical support for paychex.com. (If anyone knows anyone in security at Paychex you might want to point this out to them.) I sincerely hope that the flunky in IT who wrote this has just been misinformed and that this is not Paychex official policy, but hey, there are a lot of stupid idiots out there.
—–Original Message—–
From: Joe Smith (j_smith@smallco.com)
Date: Monday, May 11, 2009 05:19 PM
To: section125@paychex.com (section125@paychex.com)
Subject: Online FSA – Contact Us
What are the minimum requirements to use your website?
Several of our employees are having problems accessing their accounts. Do you support Firefox? Safari? Chrome? Do users need Java or Flash installed? Which versions? Thank you.
Kind Regards,
– J. Smith
IT Manager
————————————-
From: Paychex Section 125 [mailto:section125@paychex.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 4:22 PM
To: Joe Smith
Subject: RE:’Paychex=007-082-074’Online FSA – Contact Us
Hello and thank you for your email,
There are certain access issues that may occur with firefox and safari and it is not recommended to use these for this website. Internet Explorer should have no issues with access or transmitting information. No additional programs are required for access how ever to request certain documents and view them adobe acrobat reader is required.
Thank you,
Paychex Section 125
————————————-
From: Joe Smith (j_smith@smallco.com)
Date: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 04:48 PM
To: ‘Paychex Section 125’ (section125@paychex.com)
Subject: RE: RE:Online FSA – Contact Us
Internet Explorer is not available for Macintosh users. How do you recommend that those users with Macintosh computers access your website?
Kind Regards,
– J. Smith
IT Manager
—————————————
From: Paychex Section 125 [mailto:section125@paychex.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 4:22 PM
To: Joe Smith
Subject: RE:’Paychex=007-082-074’Online FSA – Contact Us
Hello and thank you for your email,
There are mac versions of internet explorer available online free of charge.
Thank you,
Paychex Section 125
———————————————-
Oh, and they had this stupid disclaimer on the bottom of their emails
The information contained in this message may be privileged, confidential, and protected from disclosure. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or any employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the message and deleting it from your computer. Thank you. Paychex, Inc.
All I can say is that idiocy must be brought out into the light so that it can wither and die. Become enlightened. Oh, and don’t use IE for Mac.