4 ms·

I remember more than 20 years ago, there used to be a website grc.com as well as grcsucks.com, a site that was very much criticising the former. Grc contained,

I remember more than 20 years ago, there used to be a website grc.com as well as grcsucks.com, a site that was very much criticising the former. Grc contained, next to a link to hdd recovery software, a section titled 'shields up' that you could use to do a port scan on your own IP address with some advice by Gibson and some 'rants' about Microsoft supporting raw sockets, even though he warned them that it was a very bad idea. The whole Gibson franchise felt snake oilish back then, for a big part because it sounded snobbish, very 'listen to me the smart guy!'. But still I have no idea whether or not it was legit info...?

sillywalk 2y ago
I remember GRC for DCOMbobulator, that disabled DCOM.
mindslight 2y ago
My recollection of his networking utilities is similar. The raw sockets thing was obvious nonsense and demonstrated a fundamental inability to understand security (software/capabilities of remote parties are completely independent from your local environment - removing a feature from Windows that can facilitate attacks would not affect Windows's defensive vulnerabilities!). You'd meet plenty of types of these people in the 90's/00's, possessing security "certifications" but no actual mental model of how anything worked. I once had to suffer a university head of IT who was scared of individuals running Linux connected to the campus network because "there was no company to sue". Gibson's whole schtick felt like a snake oil salesman that got a cult following of a bunch of Windows noobs that found his simple utilities useful (perhaps SpinRite was one of these) and then extrapolated from that into believing the vacuous technobabble marketing. In the circles I ran in, "Gibson" and "Shields Up!" were more punchlines for jokes than anything else. The concurrent "Hack the Gibson" meme didn't help that either. I've thoroughly enjoyed posts on this blog. Based on the title I was actually worried that this post was going to be talking about GRC uncritically, and was greatly relieved when it did not.
- pests 2y ago
  It's a great blog, discovered it a few months ago and read every post within a few weeks. Love the random tangents - sometimes more interesting than the topic under discussion.

sillywalk 2y ago

I remember GRC for DCOMbobulator, that disabled DCOM.

mindslight 2y ago

My recollection of his networking utilities is similar. The raw sockets thing was obvious nonsense and demonstrated a fundamental inability to understand security (software/capabilities of remote parties are completely independent from your local environment - removing a feature from Windows that can facilitate attacks would not affect Windows's defensive vulnerabilities!). You'd meet plenty of types of these people in the 90's/00's, possessing security "certifications" but no actual mental model of how anything worked. I once had to suffer a university head of IT who was scared of individuals running Linux connected to the campus network because "there was no company to sue". Gibson's whole schtick felt like a snake oil salesman that got a cult following of a bunch of Windows noobs that found his simple utilities useful (perhaps SpinRite was one of these) and then extrapolated from that into believing the vacuous technobabble marketing. In the circles I ran in, "Gibson" and "Shields Up!" were more punchlines for jokes than anything else. The concurrent "Hack the Gibson" meme didn't help that either. I've thoroughly enjoyed posts on this blog. Based on the title I was actually worried that this post was going to be talking about GRC uncritically, and was greatly relieved when it did not.

pests 2y ago
It's a great blog, discovered it a few months ago and read every post within a few weeks. Love the random tangents - sometimes more interesting than the topic under discussion.