WinXP Raw Sockets ["Windows XP Home Edition Must be Made More Secure"]

From: Luke Mullen (l.mullen@ieee.org)
Date: 08/18/01 

Message-ID: <001701c1282a$b6f48460$6401a8c0@san.rr.com>
From: "Luke Mullen" <l.mullen@ieee.org>
To: "Security-Basics List" <security-basics@securityfocus.com>
Subject: WinXP Raw Sockets ["Windows XP Home Edition Must be Made More Secure"]
Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 14:13:58 -0700

Steve Gibson has posted his latest explanation of the WinXP Raw
Sockets Vulnerability at http://grc.com/dos/sockettome.htm

Steve & Co. also provide two "quick 'n dirty" FREE programs to
download to:
1) test your access to "raw sockets" (all Win OS)
2) secure NON-SYSTEM "raw sockets" access (Win2K & WinXP) to see that
Win2K & WinXP continue to function just fine

The funniest thing is that Steve Gibson is now using Microsoft's own
MSDN Technical Documentation against Microsoft. Steve provides quotes
from the Microsoft websites and links to the original Microsoft
Technical Documentation (how many Microsoft Market-oids read Microsoft
Technical Documentation??? not many by the looks of it).

As of 8/13/01 @ 0801 PST, all the links to the Microsoft Technical
Documentation PROVING Steve Gibson's points were fully functional. (I
hope Steve has soft copies he can post in the event the Microsoft
links go down for some reason)

BTW, for a "nail biting" (grin - soon to be a motion picture - grin)
tale of one man's experience with a Distributed Denial of Service
attack read http://grc.com/dos/intro.htm and learn where Steve's fear
of WinXP Raw Sockets originates. I learned quite a bit from it. I just
need to bounce all of this against "TCP/IP Illustrated Vol 1" (grin)

Funny thing now is that Steve Gibson can now quote chapter and verse
back to Microsoft and ask Microsoft "Why are you [microsoft] now
contradicting yourself."

Relevant Pages

  • Re: How to prevent malware from running on your PC
    ... Steve Gibson, but what is the big difference? ... If your software is targeted at inexperienced home users then why bother ... > The 250.000 downloads are what was downloaded from my own website, ... > configuration for any release of Microsoft Windows people are using, ...
    (comp.security.firewalls)
  • Re: xp security vulnerabilities?
    ... > Ask yourself this question - Steve went on about how Raw Sockets in XP would ... > cause the Internet to explode as soon as XP was released; ... Steve Gibson doesn't need me to defend him so I won't. ... Without arrests and penalties ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.security_admin)
  • Re: xp security vulnerabilities?
    ... >> launching one of these very destructive viruses for quite a while. ... > Again - show me how raw sockets were used by any of these people. ... Apparently Steve Gibson went a bit too far with his "raw sockets" ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.security_admin)