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Vista's TCP/IP Promises and Perils
boyko.at.netqos tips us to a new writeup on Vista's TCP/IP stack, which is called Compound TCP/IP (CTCP). From the article: "...security policy will come from a centralized source. When you get your DHCP lease, your computer will report to the stack what OS you're using, what version level, what patches, what anti-virus software that's active — all that kind of stuff. It will have the ability to restrict your network access if you have a down-level machine... We could see a lot of our customers with much higher WAN network utilization because of this new TCP/IP stack... CTCP can be enabled/disabled from the command prompt but there has been no mention of tuning parameters which leads us to ask the question: How are you supposed to configure this setting in Vista?... What worries us... is that Microsoft is basing this on packet round trip time. The round-trip time from the client-side will have the server processing time in it; but the clients aren't likely going to be the running the CTCP at first. If you have a server-to-server backup running, for example, CTCP may think its part of the round-trip time and it'll throw the delay window through the roof..."
So my trojan will be reporting values honored by the DHCP servers. This system is still relying on the information sent by the (possibly infected) machine, so it is not secure in any way.
Life is just nature's way of keeping meat fresh.
"It will have the ability to restrict your network access if you have a down-level machine."
Ehm... and who decides what is a down-level machine?
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
"It will have the ability to restrict your network access if you have a down-level machine..."
Translation: "You WILL upgrade all of your machines to Vista, or Microsoft will artificially degrade their performance." It's called "market development."
Those M$ asshats are actually going to try to sell this as a NAC feature, when it's nothing but another license fee grab. Piss on them: I'm still running several totally stable, bullet-proof web servers on NT4 with 128Mb (albeit behind a good firewall), and I have neither the need nor the intention to "upgrade" them anytime soon (or ever, for that matter).
About the word "if": If bullfrogs had wings, they wouldn't bounce around on their little green butts.
Specifically, something to tell the CTCP stack that you're running the very latest version of everything, so that you don't get penalized by other nodes.
Of course, that would be bad news for everyone else on the network, if in fact your old, unpatched OS (which you are reporting as new and patched to avoid having to upgrade to Vista 2.5.9.396) _is_ infected. But then, that's part of the problem with including features that work AGAINST the person buying/using them.
To sum up: malicious/hijacked computers will report that everything's OK. Computers controlled by savvy users who don't want hassle will report that everything's OK. Computers that really have nothing interesting about them will report that everything's OK. There'll be a thin band of computers that really do have old OS versions but that nobody cares about enough to doctor -- these will report that everything's not OK, until they become an issue and are considered a painful extra cost of MS-based networks. The remaining 90% of all computers will have this feature disabled, thus saving all the bother at a very very low cost in security.
It's not that this feature is evil, it just comes from the wrong mindset. I think MS's misconception that it's good to start from the question 'how can we restrict or coerce customers', rather than 'how can we empower and help customers', is likely to prove permanent.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Thats exactly the point. It's a bastardization of the TCP/IP standard by M$. They want everything to operate to the M$ standard not the approved W3C/ISO standards. Which means that if someone implements an opensource version then M$ sues them. This should be a Security Service that runs in the background and annoys the user that they may be using an "insecure" connection.
The first time the CEO can't get his email because his laptop wasn't patched to the right level all hell will break loose and this will be turned off.
It's also insecure as hell, someone could write a virus that does nothing but shut off this checking and then erases itself. Then you got a lot of time spent by the Help Desk and/or Techs trying to figure out why no one can connect! And unless the techs are ultra sharp about how the "new" TCP/IP stack operates they are going to be really puzzled and frustrated.
People keep saying that your trojan'd box could report false information, but what about a rooted DHCP server (like in a coffee shop, or any area with free WIFI)? You computer would be telling an unknown system its exact patch level. Screw brute force attacks, it would know exactly where you're vulnerable. didn't microsoft learn anything about offering too much information?
Microsoft is famous for its "Embrace and Extend" philosophy of locking people into their products by corrupting open standards. This looks to be the same thing once again.
I have to admit, it's been a while since I've read the TCP/IP protocol specs, but I don't remember there being any provisions for communicating things like OS type, version, or patch lists over the TCP/IP headers.
This brings up a major compatibility question as to how this is going to work with routers, linux servers, printers, and other devices on a network who either don't know about CTCP or don't give a shit about CTCP. This scheme also seems to be extremely vunerable to spoofing.
If M$ would spend half as much effort in securing their OS as they do coming up with these hare-brained schemes, then we wouldn't need such contrived solutions to security.
When all else fails, run.
The network admins. Won't apply patches? You don't get network access. Won't run AV software? You don't get network access. Infected with known malware? You lose network access until it's cleaned up.
Or you could go with the paranoid conspiracy theory and assume that MS will shoot themselves in the foot by trying to close out competing OSes at the network level; that would be the slashdot way, after all.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Some MS patches are made to add hard DRM (WMP10) or police liscenses (GenuineAdvantage) and maybe there are some other tinfoil-needy reasons.
MS and the next-gen DVD consortium for that matter treat the customer as a potential criminal and require the ability to disable functionality in whole or in part. In other words, "security" to these people, including Microsoft, means keeping things secured against the user.
As a real security scheme it looks quite weak and vulnerable. But engineering a way to get user's machines to spy on them and report not only compliance with security policies but also use of arbitrary applications seems quite useful both for pushing OS upgrades and conversions to Windows down people's throats and for providing ammo to content liscensing organizations. Vista will be able to tell centralized servers who you are, whether you comply with some policy, and whether you can withstand an arbitrary network attack. Doesn't sound too secure to me. Wonder how SuSE will "interoperate" with this.