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TCP/MS, We'll Cure What Ails You

Posted by michael on from the bait-and-switch dept.

Cringely can string some words together from time to time, and this week's installment is a pretty good one. He's been reading a little too much Gibson (raw sockets have nothing to do with the spread of MSTD [?] 's), but overall, he's probably right. When the time is ripe, I think we'll see a move exactly like this.

27 of 478 comments (clear)

  1. Oh god, not another. by WasterDave · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Look, raw sockets in windows are not the end of the world: they're available already, open source (http://netgroup-serv.polito.it/winpcap/), and you can run them as a non-privaleged user. In as much as MS have a concept of privaleged users.

    Even if they weren't, there are SO MANY possible security exploits you can run using a small army of 0wn3d windows boxes. Including (but not limited to) just packeting the crap out of Steve "Bloody" Gibson's webserver. For instance, has anyone considered using something to script the IE network libraries (COM objects, I would imagine) in the background and launch a 'many millions of perfectly valid requests, complete with cookies and everything' attack?

    How would you defend against that?

    This whole raw socket thing has been blown out of all proportion. Can we please stop fretting and find a way of PREVENTING these big attacks from being spread. Or possible. Or something.

    Dave >:(

    --
    I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
  2. The Solution Is Clear (well, maybe) by namespan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Someone needs to write some viruses that do the following things:

    1) educates -- infects your computer and gives you
    a multimedia presentation on flaws within "Hi! I'm Victor Virus!
    I'm an Outlook Virus. How did I get in your machine?"

    2) secures -- "Would you like me to install a Zone Management
    package?"

    3) explains alternatives -- "Did you know there are other alternatives
    to Microsoft?"

    4) Highlights Microsoft abuses...

    --
    Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
  3. Raw Sockets == IP packet spoofing by PureFiction · · Score: 4, Redundant

    There seems to be a lot of confusion about this.

    Raw Sockets allow someone to send forged IP packets (spoofing) that appear to come from any IP address the sender chooses.

    This makes filtering a DoS attack harder, because you can no longer filter the traffic by IP or domain.

    So, right now the limited defense in the DDoS zombie attacks from Windoze is the fact that the IP packets have valid source addresses. These can be filtered at backbone or ISP provider routers.

    If these attacks used spoofed IP packets, there would be no easy defense.

  4. Re:How DID they do that? by Polo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You know, I thought the same thing as she did in the past. I'd worked for large companies and I knew how incompatibilities cropped up and it was just from engineers being distanced from their customers.

    Well, I was chatting with an ex-microsoft employee who had moved over to the white-side and he put things in perspective. Microsoft has strategic meetings where they sit around a table and say "how can we own this?"

    That put a different light on all those subtle incompatibilities I had always had to deal with.

    Backslash instead of slash in paths... / for options instead of - (remember switchchar? ..someone took it out) CR/LF instead of NL. ^Z as EOF. blah, blah. I wonder how many of these are deliberate?

  5. The critical missed point by Lumpish+Scholar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Cringely" and Dvorak keep saying, "No, seriously, shutdown the Internet and replace it with something secure."

    They're missing the first law of complex systems. I can't remember the exact quote, but it goes something like:

    All complex systems that work began as simple systems that worked.

    You can't replace today's Internet, the result of decades of evolution, with something purpose-built from scratch to do as much. The attempt will suffer from the second-system effect, and just plain won't work.

    It's easy for a columnist to ask for something drastic. Too easy. But it sells papers (or click-thrus, or whatever we're selling today).

    --
    Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
  6. Re:Gibson wrote zone alarm? by jeremy+f · · Score: 5, Funny

    Gibson constantly plugs Zone Alarm, so it's not suprising that people who don't read carefully would think that Zone Alarm is a GRC product, not a Zone Labs product.

    If Gibson wrote Zone Alarm, it'd look as ugly as hell, have lots of BIG and alternating fonts, but be less than 300k in size, written in ASM, and fast as hell.

  7. How DID they do that? by Compulawyer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Cringely makes a very astute observation: How did MS manage to avoid having all those VBS viruses tagged as MS Windows viruses or MS Outlook viruses instead of "email" viruses?

    --

    Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.

    1. Re:How DID they do that? by gig · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Ok you had me untill this part mate, and that's going way too far. Sorry to tell you, but the hassle of deleting and not opening annakournikova_jpg.vbs doesn't quite compare to some woman getting beaten by her husband. Not to mention the fact that it's nobody's fault that you get a virus except the prick who wrote the virus. Not microsoft's, and not even your less pooter-savvy mate who thought he was gonna see anna's tits. If enough people used a standard linux desktop for it to be worthwhile, more people would write virii for linux. As linux's popularity grows, so will virii begin to appear, or I'll eat my hat.

      He didn't compare the severity of Microsoft viruses to the severity of wife-beating; he compared the emotional dependence of the victims of both upon the perpetrator of both. In other words, he is trying to answer the question "what keeps them coming back for more?"

      Windows XP Home Edition runs everything as root. How can you apologize for that? They have said that user accounts and permissions are too complex for the consumer, yet both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X have user accounts and permissions. Mac OS 9's are of the training-wheels variety, but Mac OS X is full-bore, hardcore Unix. iMac users are getting by, so surely Windows users can adjust? The reality is that bad network security is good for Microsoft, because they never get blamed, only "Internet hackers" get blamed, and they want us all to use MSN anyway, not the Internet.

      As for your argument that popularity is the only reason Microsoft operating systems are virus-riddled, that is bunk. There are 25 million or more Macs out there, and there are lots of people who would love to stick it to Apple because they think Apple is on some kind of high horse. Why are there only a handful of Mac viruses? The system is completely scriptable, so there are tools there. But the worst Mac viruses all run in Microsoft software on the Mac. If you don't have Microsoft software, then you are susceptible to less than half of the viruses that run on the Mac.

      Blaming virus writers is easy, but think of it this way: the guy who wrote "Melissa" simply sat down at his computer, wrote a document in Microsoft Word, and emailed it as an attachment to another user. He didn't cut through a chain-link fence, he didn't pick a lock, he didn't hack somebody's password; he just wrote a Microsoft Word document. One of the features of Microsoft Word documents is that they can include tables; another is that they can include scripts that send emails. Who is to say that using one feature is not a crime and using the other one is? Ignorant politicians and cops who believe Microsoft and their apologists. There were no Windows programs until Microsoft created the Windows API that provides the environment for them, and there were no Outlook viruses until Microsoft created an environment that demands them. If there is no security in that environment, then you can't expect things to be secure. If you leave your flashy sports car running and unattended with the doors unlocked, you have to share some of the blame when someone takes it for a joyride. Microsoft is practically begging people to write these viruses, which is the point of the article. They can't be this stupid ... they are doing it on purpose to give Unix itself a bad name. To make the world so scary that their users will cling to Microsoft's skirt like frightened children.

    2. Re:How DID they do that? by gmhowell · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There are probably a few convenient factors that prevent them from being called "Outlook viruses".

      First (as others say) is that the slobs in the media don't know of the existence of Mutt, Pine, Eudora, etc. They know Outlook, Notes, and AOL client.

      Second, they don't know the subject that they talk about. Here in Washington, there used to be some smart TV reporters. But they weren't photogenic enough, so they were fired, or offered bad jobs/pay cuts. So now, WUSA has a bunch of young, attractive morons on the payroll. What does this have to do about anything? Like many media outlets, they have no experience with anything. It's not just computers. It's local politics, health science, world events... Most (not the modifier) reporters are just dumb. Reminds me of a college roommate. Okay guy, but not the sharpest tack in the drawer.

      But, at least some of them interview people with half a clue. Which brings me to point three: the people they ask are either M$ users, MCSE's, or in some way involved heavily with Microsoft. To them, Outlook IS email. So they describe it that way.

      The next reason I see is simple: MSNBC. Yeah, yeah, yeah, separate editorial staff, independent reporters, yadda, yadda, yadda.

      Now, take all of these (which individually might be minor) but remember how much news comes over an AP wire (or Bloomberg, or whomever). Listen to your local news. Much of it is a rehash of some simple wire-service article. Reporting with an emphasis on the 're'. And these folks don't know tech.

      I doubt that any of these alone could cause the problems. But taken as a whole, we have this situation. Basically, the blind leading the blind.

      --
      Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
    3. Re:How DID they do that? by ink · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Some IT consultant was talking on the radio the other day about Code Red, and she was actually apologizing for Microsoft. I couldn't believe it! She said (paraprased), "Microsoft has thousands of employees, and keeping track of everything they do is almost impossible. They have quality assurance tests, but as we all know, these aren't perfect." I was dumbfounded by her slobbering backpeddling, and she wasn't even an employee of Microsoft!

      The only way I can explain it is that most people use Microsoft software, and what we use must be the best, right? I mean, how often does someone buy a new car and then complain about all the problems that it undoubtedly has? Hardly ever. It must be the same with computers; the Windows users have an emotional investment in the product and they want everything to be just fine, so they apologize for shoddy software; "Oh Windows crashed, I bet the next version is better, this one is getting quite old", "Oh I got a virus, I wish those evil hackers would be put to death". See my point? They never think to blame Microsoft because they are Microsoft to a certain extent; they belong to a huge fanclub of a massive group of people. That's gotta feel good.

      And it makes it tough for us non-Microsoft users to get along with. Like the abused wife that toddles on back to her jerk of a husband, so the users return to Outlook, because "this time it will be better" and "I don't know how I could possibly function if my calendar and e-mail client were two separate programs."

      --
      The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
    4. Re:How DID they do that? by bikepunk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The whole "monetary investment" concept is hitting the nail on the head.

      Scenerio one:
      -- Arthritis is, by nature, a waxing and waning problem for people who experience it. This means that half the time it hurts and half the time it doesn't on average. The medications for it aren't always that good, and barely affect the 50/50 chance of improvment.
      -- Let's say a filthy-rich golfer buys a copper bracelet for 100 dollars to cure his arthritis, and he experiences a decrease in pain! Note that this decrease in pain is likely to be a naturally-occuring decrease. Nonetheless, he attributes this decrease in pain to the copper bracelet.
      -- Now, another filthy-rich golfer also bought a copper braqcelet for 100 dollars to cure her arthritis, and she experiences an increase in pain. In other words, the bracelet appears to have done nothing for her arthritis. She paid 100 dollars for it, so she doesn't really feel like admitting her foolishness for buying the bracelet, of course!
      -- In summary, about 50% of the people who buy copper bracelets go on to recommend them to friends, and 50% of them are too embarassed to say anything bad about them.

      Now, go next door, and talk to your neighbor about their computer's operating system and computer that they just put down a few month's salary on. Are they going to say anything bad about the super-duper Wintel machine they just drained their wallets for? I doubt it. Also, what are they going to compare it to?

      People feel a lot better having to pay for a product and seeing a smooth interface and knowing that their company endorses it. This seems to be a fact of capitalism. I really hope this fact becomes fiction...

      Footnote: The copper-bracelet example is from some medical/doctor journal/magazine article. Sorry, but I can't remember the issue number or title. Anybody know the article I'm thinking of? I hate using nifty ideas and not giving due credit :)

    5. Re:How DID they do that? by IronChef · · Score: 4, Interesting


      It's simple. 95% of the computer-using public doesn't know that there is anything besides Microsoft out there. I have had people tell me crazy things like "of course Macs run Windows."

      So, naturally they'll call this an "email virus" or "computer virus" instead of "a shoddy security flaw particular to one operating system." The level of analysis in the latter description is far, far over the head of most computer users. And MS doesn't have any competition to make security a big deal in their OS advertisements.

      (I love Apple, but we Apple users just don't count. There are not enough of us. Like it or not, we are the lunatic fringe. Long live the fringe though!)

      To most folks, Microsoft is a benevolent, Barney- like giant without which there wouldn't be computers at all. "How can you blame such a wonderful company for what some misceant hackers do? It certainly isn't Microsoft's fault that computers have these fundamental flaws, or that there are people that exploit them. Ooh! Someone emailed me a magic elf animation!"

      Like ex-Pres Clinton, Microsoft has a teflon coating. Fascinating, and disturbing.

  8. MS already changed tcp already... by Polo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hasn't microsoft already brok^H^H^H^H embraced-and-extended TCP/IP lots of times before?

    There was a time when Sun servers responded "slowly" to windows HTTP requests because microsoft changed the behavior of TCP slowstart, etc...

    I'm sure there are other examples.

  9. Is this guy nuts? by Carbonate · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I used to respect this person but now I have to wonder what kind of technical background he has and if that background is backed up by ay sound reasoning ability. I remember watching conspiracy theory in the theaters (You know with Mel Gipson). That had some pretty crazy ideas but this is just nuts. At one point in this article he suggests that everyone loose his or her anonymity. Then at another point in the article he criticizes Microsoft for their supposed protocol, which will remove anonymity. This article seems more like a rant by a frustrated Windows user than an actual intelligent discussion on the security problems of Windows.

  10. Wrong Premise by PureFiction · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The two main points of this article are based on flawed assumptions.

    1. Raw sockets in windoze is not the end of the world. *nix systems have them, even vxworks. A number of ISP's filter forged packets. If this type of spoofing is such a harm, it is trivial for ISPs to implement this. Cripling stack interfaces in OS'es is rediculous.

    2. Passport will not authenticate every connection made on the net. Sorry, this is a pipe dream M$ sold you on somehow. And second, priority net traffic based on M$ passport is even more impossible.

  11. Hi, I've lived under a rock for a while by Dancin_Santa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We could implement a secure user identity system precisely like telephone Caller ID. It would be essentially an Internet ID. All Internet transactions could be based on it. Anyone who sends me e-mail can be identified. Anything I send can be traced to me. People wouldn't be forced to participate, but if they remain anonymous, I might choose to block them. I certainly wouldn't accept file attachments from them.

    You can already do this. You can trace email. You can block email from those you don't know. And this system won't work to block email worms because usually they come from people who you know.

    Get with it, man!

    Dancin Santa

  12. Sock_Raw by NitsujTPU · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is true, I have NO IDEA what Cringley is saying when he says that raw sockets allow for more viruses and such to be introduced to your system.

    For the uninitiated...

    Generally, when programming, you define a great many things when defining a socket, the layer of abstraction to tcp/ip defining a single connection.

    SOCK_RAW is a bit less abstract, you define more of the data that is being used by hand rather than allowing for the socket code to do it for you. Generally the you use SOCK_STREAM of SOCK_DGRAM, which define TCP and UDP sockets, respectively. SOCK_RAW writes directly to IP, so you must encode many of the headers manually rather than automatically, as the other 2 would do, and then write them to this socket.

    In other words, it has NOTHING to do with getting viruses! SOCK_RAW is just another socket, but you are writing to the IP protocol, rather than TCP or UDP (which sit on top of IP). It also has nothing to do with being DoS attacked. I have NO CLUE where he got that from.

  13. In other news... by LyNXeD · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Micro$oft (NASDAQ: M$FT) today realized that their new TCP/MS protocol will not function over the Internet's (mostly-non-M$) infrastructure. The TCP/MS protocol is designed to address some of the security issues involved with the industry-standard TCP/IP protocol. It allows for authentication and tracing, to allow large corporations to know who does what, when, where, and how.

    Micro$oft is not held back by this issue, however. They are currently working on developing a solution called "MS-over-IP" which will allow TCP/MS packets to travel over non-M$-compliant IP networks. This will be available as a patch to the upcoming Windows XP, for approximately $300. Micro$oft also notes that if your ISP refuses to conform to the new TCP/MS standard, and you do not wish to spend $300, you may switch to their M$N Internet $ervice, which will support native TCP/MS connections.

    Micro$oft did not return any calls to our reporters on this issue, and simply sent us an E-Mail saying: "All your packets are belong to us."

  14. Already been done... by ckm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    We already have a replacement for IP that does many of these things. It's already supported under Linux, and probably a couple of other OSs I don't know about.

    It's called IPv6, and it has QOS, guarenteed delivery, traceablity, and a whole host of other goodies. C'mon, do you really thing Cisco would let MS take away their bread and butter? IPv6 has been in the works for years and was designed specifically to solve all of the issues he mentions. I guess he thinks that only MS is smart enough to develop a new protocol...

    This whole article is a red herring, and Cringley's about a technically literate as a door knob.

    --
    -- I don't have a cool sig.
  15. You're all missing Cringely's main point by Infonaut · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Sure, Cringely is not a technical maven, and debating the finer points of TCP/IP is probably best left to people like.. well, like Slashdot members.

    But Cringely's real point is that Microsoft is a very powerful company with a long history of turning its own technical shortcomings into market strengths. Microsoft's PR machine is incredibly effective - witness the FUD that kicks into high gear any time MS announces anything.

    It's also instructional to remember a few Microsoft projects that didn't go off as planned. Ever wonder why journalists never bring up those failed efforts, or points to the millions of wasted dollars MS has spent over the years on vaporware?

    Remember how Microsoft Bob was going to "personalize" the computing experience? Well, it failed not once, but twice!. Remember how Chrome was going to "revolutionize the industry," according to the drooling press?

    Because Microsoft is the 800-lb. gorilla of the software world, even when they fail, they get the benefit of the doubt. It comes with the territory. Also, because the Microsoft culture is fantatical about continuous improvement, they have a long history of sucking hard at v1, sucking at v2, becoming fairly usable at v3, and taking over the market by v4 and beyond.

    Microsoft has been doing this long enough to realize an opportunity when they see one. Cringely is reminding us that unlike all of you Slashdot readers out there, Microsoft is driven not by desire to build cool, useful technology, but by the desire to control marketshare. That's the be-all, end-all of their existence.

    So whether Cringely is correct about raw sockets or the demise of TCP/IP doesn't really matter. Almost every company that has gone toe-to-toe against Microsoft in a market segment has failed because they continually underestimate and miscalculate Microsoft's strengths (IBM, Novell, Apple, WordPerfect, Lotus).

    Microsoft has an overarching vision of the computer marketplace that is far more evolved than any of their competitors, with the possible exception of Sun.

    Microsoft remains unconcerned with business ethics, is unafraid of censure by the government, and wouldn't hesitate to use the ubiquitous of their own flawed products as an excuse to move the foundation of the Internet to a proprietary framework.

    Microsoft doesn't give a shit about the history of the Internet and the spirit in which it was created. They don't give a shit about letting everyone in.

    If Microsoft believes they can make the Internet a proprietary environment that they can control, they will work relentlessly toward that end.

    --
    Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
  16. Good morning Slashdot by ObligatoryUserName · · Score: 4, Insightful
    What so far, most of what I've seen people post are Microsoft apologists, and predictions that it's all overblown, and confused people who think Cringly's confused because they can't follow all his threads.

    No he's not saying viruses spread over raw sockets. He's saying that many viruses/worms like Code Red have the end effect of creating a denial of service attack; denial of service attacks are very difficult to block when the addresses of the packets are spoofed. He's saying that in the future, when 90%+ of the world is running Windows XP (and Windows 95/98/ME/2000 has been discontinued by Microsoft- ever try to get Windows 3.1 anymore?), and 90% of those people haven't used third party tools to secure their computers, there will be a continuous series of distributed denial of service attacks, and viruses like Code Red which will effectivly bring the Internet to a halt. (Most servers aren't running Microsoft OSes, but most of the clients are- the fact that Apache is the most used server is completly unimportant in this matter. Code Red isn't as bad as predicted because most people don't run Windows 2000, but XP unifies the server and consumer OSes so it'll be running on a very large number of computers, making these future problems several orders of magnitute worse.) The end result (as predicted by Cringly) is that Microsoft will extend and embrace TCP to get the Internet (which will be rendered useless by script kiddies and/or attacking foreign governments) working again.

    Once implemented, if your web server doesn't speak MS/TCP then no one with Windows will be able to see your site. (And the only servers that will have bug free implementations of MS/TCP will be running a Microsoft OS.) Think that little ploy is hardly enough to overturn the Internet? Then why am I using IE right now? Their ploys have undone greater marketshares.

    Someone said that Cisco is working on a way to prevent spoofed IPs at the router, if this is true, then this speculation is for naught. However, the fact that this is plausible should be a wake up call. Microsoft owns all of us. This is the straw that broke the camel's back, I'll resign before I install Windows XP. Microsoft's abuse of their monopoly is an affront to freedom. Live free, or die.

  17. Can WE Sue Microsoft? by BigBlockMopar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Quoted from Cringely:

    If it were not for Microsoft's carefully worded user license agreement, which holds the company blameless for absolutely anything, they would probably have been awash in class action lawsuits by now.

    But can't sysadmins sue Microsloth for the gross negligence that consumes our bandwidth?

    I know the license agreement that I made when I opened my Windows 2000 CD only affected my Windows 2000 desktop. It has *nothing* to do with the bandwidth - which I pay for - that this stupid [expletive deleted - Ed.] worm has consumed.

    I'm not normally litigious, but Microsoft needs to clean up their act.

    Anyone know a good class-action lawyer?

    --
    Fire and Meat. Yummy.
  18. Gibson wrote zone alarm? by Safety+Cap · · Score: 4, Funny
    By default, under this scenario, your PC becomes a TCP/IP read-only device. By running applications like Gibson's Zone Alarm you can -- right now -- severely limit the use of TCP/IP by applications on your PC

    I didn't know Steve Gibson wrote Zone Alarm. When did this happen? What happened to Zone Labs?!

    --
    Yeah, right.
  19. not to worry by peccary · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The bee in Gibson's bonnet (and therefore Cringely's, cuz we know where he gets his material) is IP source address spoofing. He thinks that Windows XP will somehow make this much easier.

    He's right.

    But it doesn't matter.

    There are already several easy technical fixes to prevent source spoofing, and if Gibson and Cringely's phantasy comes true, they will all be deployed in various Internet routers in a matter of weeks. Some of them already are implemented in Cisco routers, but are not enabled by default. Long before things can come to sufficient head to justify Microsoft's appearance as an off-white knight to ostensibly save the day.

    See also this article from Network Magazine.

  20. IPv6 myths by Cato · · Score: 4, Informative

    IPv6 does not have any more support for QoS than IPv4 (except for the flow label, only useful with RSVP, which is very rarely deployed). I work for a software company that enables people to deliver QoS today on IPv4, and quite a few are happily doing so.

    IPv6 does not have 'traceability' - there is an IETF RFC detailing how to have slowly changing IEEE identifiers (MAC addresses) so that your IPv6 address will not include a static ethernet card MAC address. No more traceable than IPv4, and better in some ways.

    IPv6 has no more guaranteed delivery than IPv4 - both of them can use TCP to ensure delivery of packets, but IPv6 has no special features in this area.

    IPv6 is all about larger address space, easier router/host configuration and auto-configuration, easier re-addressing, better mobile IP, reduced routing table sizes, simplified options processing, and simplified headers. Please read up on IPv6 at http://www.ipv6forum.com before making these misleading statements.

  21. Not necessarily by marm · · Score: 5, Funny

    If these attacks used spoofed IP packets, there would be no easy defense.

    Except for if every damn net admin would WAKE UP and SMELL THE COFFEE and IMPLEMENT EGRESS FILTERING or SOURCE ROUTE VERIFICATION or whatever your router calls it.

    If you have a router built within the last 5 years, I can pretty much guarantee you it supports it. So turn it on already!

    If every border router on the internet used it, we could stamp out IP address spoofing overnight. No magic about it. All the border router has to do is check that the source address of the packet is within the range of addresses that it 'owns'. If it isn't, drop it, and log the MAC address so that it can be traced.

    Easy huh? Any router worth its salt can do it, so...

    Please!?!? What does it take to convince you?

  22. Please remember history... by weave · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Most slashdot readers are young. One day you'll be cursed and promoted into management, then decision making jobs. Don't forget this kind of crap. Don't grow old and start buying default corporate lines, etc, etc...

    When *I* was a youngin, IBM could do no wrong with many decision makers. I swore I'd never have my head in my ass when I got into decision making positions.

    Now I'm 42 and one step away from making the decisions. I can INFLUENCE them now, and due to that, we run Apache for our web servers, I've stopped any thought of IIS from being implemented, and run Linux where possible and NT reluctuntly in some applications....

    So don't forget this stuff. Microsoft may gain that market share, but one day hopefully pointy-haired bosses will be a bit better educated and make better decisions and not get sucked in by marketing hype.

    Oh, I can dream, I can dream...