WinXP Professional "Firewall"

From: Weapon of Truth (zonk@out.net)
Date: 10/09/02 

From: "Weapon of Truth" <zonk@out.net>
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2002 18:57:45 -0700

Greetings!

I interviewed for a job a couple of days ago. The company is a start-up tool
reseller (largely things that cut: saw blades, drill bits, etc.). The person
I interviewed with, who is the founder, claims to be quite the vetern of
computer science, though after speaking with him on the phone and in person,
I am left in great doubt of this...Eventually, *if* this company takes off,
(and I am hired) I will become the [maybe] proud, [definitely] lone member
of the now non-existant IT department.

Being by nature an inquisitive person with a slightly intuitive bent, I
wanted to get a better idea just how much this guy really knows. He asserted
all sorts of lofty claims during our initial phone conversation basically
implying that he is responsible for inventing the protocols that make
networking do what it does. Personally, I don't buy it. Too many people have
had to collaborate to make networking and the internet what it is today. And
if this guy is such a damn wizard, what the *** is he doing living in
Bum***, [northern] Arizona where most people think a pocket calculator
qualifies as a networked workstation?!

At any rate, I asked him about any security measures he had in place on his
budding network. He promptly proceeded to tell me (in such as way as if he
expected me to be honestly impressed) that he had a FIREWALL installed.
Nonplussed, I proceeded to explain to him that this was in no way a truly
protective measure, that most firewalls do nothing more or less than monitor
and log incoming and outgoing traffic. (This guy also told me that he NEVER
turns his computer off...I can tell he's QUITE the compsci guru :-/)
Somehow, this did not seem to register with him. Further, I questioned him
as to whose firewall he was using and he told me that WinXP Professional has
one built-in. I do not use XP myself, but, okay, fine; given, however, that
Microsoft products have the overall reputation they do for vulnerabilities
and general bugginess, just how good can it be (or how bad)? And so is my
question to the forum: what are your overall assessments of the WinXP
Professional firewall? Should this guy be beaten to a bloody pulp with a
CAT5 cable and hung out to dry by his toenails, told to put the computer
back in the box and return it to the vendor because he's too stupid to own
one?

WoT

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