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The removal of raw sockets in XP SP2 did not prove Steve Gibson anything, as he had predicted the internet would become unusable with raw sockets in Windows, wh
by kayfox 6y ago
The removal of raw sockets in XP SP2 did not prove Steve Gibson anything, as he had predicted the internet would become unusable with raw sockets in Windows, which it did not.
- wnevets 6y agoSo why did Microsoft reverse course in the next service pack after their release?
- hamburglar 6y agoNo idea, but linux has had raw sockets capabilities for its entire existence and the internet continues to exist. People have the ability to put arbitrary packets out on their network interfaces. The fact that some operating systems don't directly assist you in doing this is not a security feature. Edit: (and the fact that Gibson doesn't understand this is one reason people think he's a kook)
- wnevets 6y agoYou dont think XP having ~90% market share at the time and being easily exploitable makes comparing it to linux a little silly?
- hamburglar 6y agoIf that were the only argument, then yes, at the time it would have been a pretty weak refutation. But even at the time, it was obvious to anyone who really understands security that relying on the bad actor's own OS to prevent them from launching attacks is a losing strategy. This was an overblown non-issue. The linux comparison is simply another demonstration of it.
- kayfox 6y agoSP2 rolled up a large number of fixes intended tighten the security of Windows XP, there was no explanation provided other than it was a security enhancement. Ultimately the raw sockets thing had no real world impact on network attacks, the type of attacks raw sockets allowed were largely supplanted by then by simpler attacks in a distributed manner, as bandwidth allowed more of a brute force approach.