2 ms·
You're right. That is very immature. But OS detection can have good sides to it. For example, a stateful antivirus scanner turns on only for Windows machines.
by kefka 12y ago
You're right. That is very immature. But OS detection can have good sides to it.
For example, a stateful antivirus scanner turns on only for Windows machines. Or with Linux, certain connections and services are made available. Or it can also be used as a layer of defense in security (we know we have 2 windows machines and 3 linux machines, mac addresses bla bla, throw security tripwire).
- acdha 12y agoI'm mixed on that - it has initial wins but inevitably leads to an arms race where malicious coders try to spoof the least-restricted OS. I strongly prefer to assume that no client can be trusted and avoid special-cases in security policy. It avoids surprises when someone reuses an old IP/NIC for a different role in the future.