On Monday 30 July 2001 13:02, you wrote:
(vaporized material)
> Unix boxen have offered SOCK_RAW for years.
> (clipped stuff)
> IIRC, NT4 and Win2000 have supported SOCK_RAW for quite some time. I
> believe that any Winsock 2.0 provider can support SOCK_RAW in a
> replacement IP stack (and many do). With the default IP stack in
> WinNT/Win2k, you must merely be logged in as adminstrator (normal
> users can't use SOCK_RAW sockets).
> (more words clipped)
> - Ian C. Blenke <ian@blenke.com> <icblenke@nks.net>
I think that is Gibsons point: in NT4 / W2k, unpriveleged user processes
can't use SOCK_RAW (and don't need to, either). However XP, destined to be
sold to / installed by the clueless millions, offers no such protection. Add
that thought to the rise in home higher-speed access and the beefier machines
needed simply to run XP at all and I think we have a recipe for calamity.
I'm not running for cover ... and Gibson is not my hero (the dink politely
but firmly refuses to port SpinRite to Linux -- boo, hiss) ... but I think
the potential threat is real.
The bind worm caught a lot of Linux users flat-footed and complacent. Linux
users are, when compared to the general populace of Windows users,
semi-clue-full and every machine that was compromised had ready access to the
security patch that would have prevented the attack altogether. I would
suspect, with security being as much of a duel as it is, there are going to
be precious few invulnerable XP machines ... indeed, precious few of them
will have _any_ level of protection at all that does not come straight from
the box on a "typical install".
Bill
"At first, to defray their legal fees, the hat would be passed whenever
someone was forced to install XP. Eventually, even its unwilling users were
vilified. The information superhighway gridlocked. Proponents were simply
left in the streets wherever they landed. In time, XP was all but forgotten.
By then it was too late. Civilization had failed." (Engraving found on
monolith near the former site of Redmond, Washingon, USA)
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