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Microsoft States Full TCP/IP Too Dangerous
daria42 writes "To fully implement the TCP/IP protocol in Windows XP would make creating denial of service attacks 'entirely too trivial', Microsoft has claimed. The company was responding to claims by Nmap author and well-known security expert Fyodor that by repeatedly disabling the ability to send TCP/IP packets via the 'raw sockets' avenue, Microsoft was asking the security community to 'pick their poison': either cripple their operating system or leave it open to hackers. Admitting that a recent security patch had intentionally disabled a community-developed workaround to Microsoft's TCP/IP changes - which were first implemented in Windows XP Service Pack 2 - the company claimed it had received little negative feedback on the issue."
Microsoft decides what I may do on my computer or not?
What's next? Microsoft deciding I may not run OpenOffice on my computer because I may write threatening letters on it?
-- Put crudely, the world is an extremely large problem instance. (Russel/Norvig Artificial Intelligence)
Uh, change your TCP window size, dork.
...and people wonder why everyone runs as Admin. I'm sorry but that is a half-assed implementation and thus has limited uses.
Wrong. For tabbed browsing, javascript control, intelligent cookie management, and popup blocking.
That being said, you'll note that Firefox/Mozilla patches are available immediately when vulnerabilities are discovered, instead of 10 months after an exploit hits the street.
If MS could provide patches in a timely fashion, they would have far fewer problems.
If they weren't shopping their OS to a demographic that is too clueless to install the patches when they are available, they would have no problem at all!
But let's face it, somebody will always try to provide an OS for uneducated, incompetent and mentally defective computer users - since there are so many of them, eager to spend their hard-earned cash of a device they don't need or understand.
Damn, somebody must have hit my "cynicism" button today.
THen whatever it is you're getting, you're being grossly overpaid.
Running as a non-admin in Windows is not hard. Some of us have been happily doing it for nigh-on a decade now (and, consequently, have never been infected with any form of virus or malware, despite a complete and utter lack of realtime scanning/protection).
My experience leads me to conclude MS is a long way from really solving the admin/general user problems [...]
The problem isn't with Microsoft, it's with application developers.
B.S. I don't believe you. If you surf the internet WITHOUT some form of protection ie. firewall, adware removal/ blocker, etc, you have been compromised, period, end of story... Either by a virus, malware, spyware, adware, trojan, etc... I used to think the same way, until I got compromised, it can, and will happen in M$ Windows, that's a fact. BTW,
If M$ is so secure why is Xecu.net that you have as a weblink using a UNIX variant??
Xecunet, LLC. Frederick MD US 21704 216.127.136.216 FreeBSD Apache/1.3.26 Unix 9-Aug-2002
Xecunet, LLC. Frederick MD US 21704 216.127.136.216 Solaris Apache/1.3.11 Unix 3-Dec-2000
ALL M$ systems should NEVER be let on the internet by themselves, they cannot be trusted. Regular, joe schmoe users have no business with raw sockets, they aren't needed.
If Kerry was the answer, it must have been a stupid question.
The UN - The largest "political" cause of death.
Oh Jesus not this old chestnut again.
Microsoft HAVE designed a proper multi-user operating system that CAN be operated from a non-priveledged user account. The only problem is, making it behave this way be default would break the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of legacy applications that were not designed properly nor under active development or maintenance.
Don't you think they haven't though about it? Did you ever stop to think about how Microsoft may have used their teams of Highly-paid, industry leading professionals to weigh up the options? Or do you think that admin privs were left in the default account by some low-level code monkey in some dingy office somewhere?
You'd piss and whinge if they went ahead and disabled the admin privs on the default account, wouldn't you? You'd go "eugh, God-damned Micro$oft breaking all my wondeful software with their patches." And you're moaning now because they won't.
Microsoft have already been looked into by the DOJ because improvements draughted in by SP2 broke their software. It's bordering on anti-trust as it is.