RE: A DoS Must Read from Steve Gibson...

["Sims, Ken" <KSIMS@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Chuck -

>There is apparently something pretty scary mentioned in the following
>and about the INABILITY to stop DoS attacks in the near future unless
>Microsoft starts listening...
>
>"For no good reason whatsoever, Microsoft has equipped Windows 2000 and
>XP with the ability FOR ANY APPLICATION to generate incredibly malicious
>Internet traffic, including spoofed source IP's and SYN-flooding full
>scale Denial of Service (DoS) attacks!" Steve Gibson, Gibson Research

This has been discussed to death in the firewalls newsgroup.  In my opinion,
Steve Gibson is way overstating the situation (as is usual for him).

First, almost all operating systems (including Linux) already have the
capabilities that he is condemning.  It is part of the Winsock standards.
IOW, the prior Microsoft Windows OSes were crippled and are now being
brought up to standard.

Second, no real Internet application is going to use these capabilities.
After all, if you spoof your IP address, you'll never get any information
back.  If users keep trojan programs off their system, their systems won't
launch attacks.  If they don't keep trojans off their systems and don't have
an application level firewall that can stop them, there are already many
attacks that can be launched even using the crippled Winsock.

Third, [I know there is a third but I can't think of it at the moment.
Getting old???  Nah!]

Ken
Southern Wine and Spirits of Nevada, Inc.
Opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily represent the views of
my employer or anyone in their right mind.

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