A.P. Lawrence

You "may discover" things about Microsoft

(Traditional format)

Sat Dec 18 12:37:39 2004 You "may discover" things about Microsoft
Posted by Tony Lawrence
Search Keys: security|microsoft
Referencing: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/886185

In the notice above, Microsoft tells you that:

After you set up Windows Firewall in Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), you may discover that anyone on the Internet can access resources on your computer when you use a dial-up connection to connect to the Internet. For example, after creating an exception in Windows Firewall for File and Printer Sharing, you may discover that anyone can access shared files and printers.

You "may discover"?

"Honey, it looks like someone from the Internet has been rummaging through our files."

"How can you tell?"

"Well, there were muddy footprints leading from the network icon to the hard drive. Those Internet people just NEVER wipe their feet. Plus there are fingerprints all over our banking files and somebody left a half-empty can of Coke over by your passwords. Oh, and we keep getting spam - on our printer!"

Of course, this "only" affects dial-up users. So it's really nothing to worry about, because what hacker is going to have the patience to copy from your system at dial-up speeds? That's probably why Microsoft didn't feel it was any big deal, as explained at http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1743123,00.asp

That's the fun of using Microsoft: you never know what you "may discover" next!

Comments /Blog/B1197.html
CommentsBlog1197 :

---December 18, 2004

So, let's see here... my guess is that like *nix, the dial-up interface in Windows, for comparision purposes in linux like ppp0, was not included as a protected interface in the firewall? I suppose all those people in rural America, without broadband access got a good taste of how Microsoft QA, tested their new Firewall in SP2. That is very poor - only testing the ethernet interface of the firewall. How hard is it to run nmap on a machine that is connected to the net via dial-up?

Very, very poor, for the richest software company in the world. It makes you think about the so called quality of the people they hire, and how much they really understand about computers. Maybe the MS GUI, is toning down the intelligence of their own employee's!

It looks like MS needs to discover some of the tools we *nix users use to test our equipment, before we advertise ourselves to the Internet!

- Bruce Garlock





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